As I have attempted to show, although the exotic was an important facet of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century literature in France, its role in forming a French identity through an us/them discourse must be questioned. The treatment of the exotic was not a specifically French phenomenon, and the degree to which the French interpretation would have differed from a British or German interpretation is unclear. What results is more often than not a return to an oriental/occidental dichotomy, in which France played a large but relative role. Instead, we must look elsewhere to the immediate concerns of the French populace for a relational identity, like Jews, Huguenots and the British. However, most scholars who treat the exotic have moved away from a purely intellectual and textual analysis towards a greater degree of contextualization. They recognize that this discourse took place within a particular political and social context, and for that they are to be commended. One more point needs to be made, and that is that the history of the relationship between the Ottoman Empire and France in the eighteenth-century has yet to be written. It is time for a comprehensive monograph that treats political, economic and cultural factors together, rather than as separate sources of interest.
Robert Nelson is blogger-in-chief at
History News, Notes and Arguments. Find us on
Google+ or on
Facebook.
