The Orient was deeply fashionable in Europe at the start of the eighteenth century. By that time, the East had long been a source of fascination in both France and England, but from the sixteenth century onwards, it had also become a subject of serious study for both commercial and religious reasons. The Collège de France, which was established by François Ier with the aspiration to cover any disciplines not taught within the University, had founded a chair in Arabic, alongside its original chairs in Ancient Greek and Hebrew. Travel accounts, which had been multiplying since the second half of the seventeenth century, also constituted excellent sources of information on the Orient, and fed the imagination of readers and writers in the eighteenth century, while also prompting…
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Citation: Méricam-Bourdet, Myrtille. "The Muslim Orient in Eighteenth Century France". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 13 January 2022 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=19641, accessed 25 November 2024.]
