Edward Said and Authority: From Conrad to Orientalism and Beyond

This essay elucidates the nature and function of the concept of authority in Edward Said's Orientalism. The term first emerges in Beginnings, though Said formulates it more fully in Joseph Conrad and the Fiction of Autobiography. This essay explains how Said arrives at the concept of authority and develops it via thinkers such as Arthur Schopenhauer and Friedrich Nietzsche, how the concept functions in Orientalism, and how it ramifies in later work, including Culture and Imperialism, Musical Elaborations, and The World, the Text, and the Critic. The essay concludes by suggesting that On Late Style offers a powerful autocritique of the concept at the end of Said's career