East-West Impressions of Rifa’a Raf’i al-Tahtawi and Gérard de Nerval

This study contains the East and West impressions of two contemporaries who lived in the 19th century. The authors are Egyptian Rifa’a Raf’i al-Tahtawi (1801-1873) and French Gérard de Nerval (1808-1855), both of whom marked their impressions of travel. Tahtawi, who was sent to France as a scholarship student, put his impressions down on paper as Tahlisu’l-Ibrîz fî Telhîs-i Bâriz (1834) (A Paris Profile); conversely, Gérard de Nerval, who departed from France and visited Egypt and other Eastern countries, published his work in the name of Voyage en Orient (1851) (Voyage to the Orient). This study aims to convey the impressions of both Paris and Cairo from the perspectives of two contemporaries, an Egyptian intellectual and a French author, respectively. Thus, depicting different perspectives of the West from an Eastern author, and the East from a Western author could be obtained in light of this study.The aim of this study is to make a comparative analysis of East and West by consulting the original sources. However, although both authors are contemporary, what should not be ignored is that both of them become prominent with their literary aspects, not with their status of travellers. This signifies that the primary purpose of the authors is observing and analysing a distinct society, not just travelling; actually, even though the main objective of Gérard de Nerval is his interest in the East, Tahtawi went to Paris with the purpose of training, not travelling. When two works are examined, it is observed that Tahtawi mostly focused on the educational and cultural structure of modern Western society, on the other hand, Gérard de Nerval tried to understand the mystery of the East. Unlike other biased Western authors, Nerval is able to evaluate the Eastern civilization within its own values. It can be mentioned that Tahtawi played a leading role in the modernization of Egypt through the impressions he gained in Paris. However, Tahtawi, preferred to take cautious approaches to the cases contrary to Islam, and focused on the issues proper to the religion. Nerval made several determinations on the historical and social organization of the places he visited, and his identity as a poet in the places when he contradicted his inner world. The fact that Tahtawi mentioned poetry while conveying the impressions of Paris proves that two authors are similar in this respect. Through this study, it is possible to shed light on reflections of the impressions of two contemporary Arab and French authors on different societies of the same era.