Flaubert et les « danseuses ». La (re)construction d’un mythe oriental

The present paper focuses on the myth of Oriental woman depicted by Gustave Flaubert in notes and letters of his Oriental trip (and especially its Egyptian part). It turns out that the Oriental female character emerging from his writings is a dancer, a prostitute living in poverty and filth. To answer the question of how it refers to the myth of the Oriental woman of the 19th century the paper has been divided into four parts. The first one describes briefly the origins of the European myth of Oriental woman. The second and third parts discuss the particularities of Flaubert’s trip and types of women he met there. The last part focuses on his encounter with a famous Egyptian prostitute, Kuchiuk-Hanem, becoming the essence of Flaubert’s myth of Oriental woman.