Beginnings: Intention and Method was published by Basic Books in 1975, three years before Orientalism would make Said famous. It is his most purely literary-critical work and, for many academic readers, his most intellectually demanding: a 400-page meditation on the concept of beginning that ranges across the novel (from Cervantes to the modernists), historical writing (Vico, Nietzsche, Foucault), psychoanalysis (Freud), and the philosophy of language (Chomsky, Saussure).
Said’s central argument is that “beginning” is not merely a chronological fact — the first page of a novel, the first chapter of a history — but an intellectual act with profound consequences. To begin is to make choices: to select a subject, a method, a style, and a position from which to speak. These choices are never innocent; they reflect the writer’s relationship to tradition, authority, and the existing body of knowledge. Said distinguishes between “origins” (which imply a transcendent source, a divine or natural authority) and “beginnings” (which are human, intentional, and subject to revision), arguing that modern thought is characterized by the shift from origin to beginning — from seeking divine sanction for knowledge to acknowledging that all knowledge is humanly constructed.
The book examines specific acts of beginning in detail. The opening of the modern novel (Said reads the first pages of Don Quixote, Tom Jones, Great Expectations, and A la recherche du temps perdu), the founding of modern historical consciousness (Vico’s New Science), and the inauguration of psychoanalysis (Freud’s decision to listen to his patients rather than lecture them) are all treated as examples of the ways beginning shapes everything that follows.
Beginnings was well received in academic circles but had none of the public impact of Orientalism. It remains an important book for understanding Said’s intellectual formation — the range of his reading, the subtlety of his analytical method, and the commitment to what he called “secular criticism” that would characterize all his subsequent work.
Collecting Beginnings
First edition (Basic Books, New York, 1975): Cloth, dust jacket.
Market values:
- First edition in dust jacket: $40–$120
- Later editions: $10–$25