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Persia And The Persian Question Analysis

Decent Essays

Throughout its history, the British Empire was obsessed with its own culture; yet, paradoxically, the nation sought to understand how the “other” perceived the glory and dominance of the Lion. This notion of “cultural” seems straightforward until one begins to examine its connection to imperialism. Literary critic Edward Said defined “culture” as “the arts of description, communication, and representation, [that] have relative autonomy from the economic, social, and political realms that often exist in aesthetic forms.” Forms of culture include the famous popular texts that depicted the “Persian Question” during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In 1892, George N. Curzon wrote Persia and the Persian Question, where he created an imaginary Persia, and highlighted the nation’s ancient imperial past, which they could achieve once again due to modernization. These two text culturally defined the Persian Question within a Western perspective; his work created a exemplified Britain’s infatuation with the East, while providing the outlet to for imperialists to exert their cultural dominance in the area. Curzon’s work essentially combines the “arts of description, communication, and representation” with the political sphere because it fashioned a cultural space for empire to function within Persia. British print culture exploited this medium to speared the civilizing mission, while demonstrating England’s own fear Germany and Russia.
The 19th century saw a rise

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