The 'Orient' as place, idea, and well-spring had intrigued Romantic writers and artists since the late 1700s. The question is posed at the outset of this study: what was 'Exoticism' at the finde-siècle? A capsular history of the later nineteenth- and early twentieth-century movement--outside and within the 'Viennese orbit' -- is followed by brief explorations of the literary (chiefly through Richard Dehmel and Hans Bethge) and artistic (through Gustav Klimt) pathways of the Exoticist quest. The study's central concern is with the history of musico-poetic Exoticism in the Viennese orbit during the pre-and post-World War I years. It is traced through the direct and indirect influence Gustav Mahler's music (in particular, Das Lied von der Erde) had on some selected composers: Alexander von Zemlinsky, Karol Szymanowski, Walter Braunfels, Anton von Webern, Ernst Toch, Hanns Eisler, and Arnold Schoenberg. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]