“SECOLI SUPERBI E SCIOCCHI” CARTOLINE D’ORIENTE NEL FANTASTICO POPOLARE

This article outlines the way some images of the Oriental societies, that occur in Western literature of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, show consistent patterns in representing the Otherness of the East. These representations link the spacial distance with a temporal dislocation, whereby Eastern societies are excluded from the meaningful course of history. Self-centered Western visions of history as progress, expressed by academia, are reflected in popular culture such as the short stories by Lovecraft and Howard. The Eastern world, expelled from meaningful history, is then characterized as barbaric, destructive and dangerous, a characterization that traces back its relevance to the Age of Imperialism.