Before the publication of Edward Said's extremely influential and controversial
Orientalism (1978), scholars tended to view the Eastern places,
characters, and events pervading late-eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century
British literature as little more than stimuli for easy thrills. But this
attitude has changed dramatically. Along with its well-studied interests in the
inner workings of the mind, connections with nature, and exercise of a
transcendental imagination, the Romantic Period in Britain is now recognized as
a time of global travel and exploration, accession of colonies all over the
world, and development of imperialist ideologies that rationalized the British
takeover of distant territories.