Anala Lb.Straine 2012 nr. 2 - Universitatea din București
Transcription
Anala Lb.Straine 2012 nr. 2 - Universitatea din București
Les articles de Luminiţa Munteanu, Anca Roncea, Daniela Ionescu-Bonanni, Monica Colţ, Raluca Oproiu (Andreescu) et Dagmar Maria Anoca représentent les versions écrites des communications présentées à l’occasion de la Session scientifique annuelle de la Faculté des Langues et Littératures Etrangères, Université de Bucarest, 5-6 novembre 2010; les articles de Alexandra Ciocârlie, Joaquina Lanzuela Hernández, Levente Pap, Irina Dubský, Éva Bányai, Judit Pieldner, Mihaela Chapelan, Monica Oancă, Thomas Schares, Andreea Diaconescu, Monica Manolachi et Susana Monica Tapodi représentent les versions écrites des communications présentées lors de la Session scientifique annuelle de la Faculté des Langues et Littératures Etrangères, Université de Bucarest, 11-12 novembre 2011. ANALELE UNIVERSITĂŢII BUCUREŞTI LIMBI ŞI LITERATURI STRĂINE 2012 – Nr. 2 SUMAR • SOMMAIRE • CONTENTS LITERATURĂ ŞI STUDII CULTURALE/ LITTERATURE ET ETUDES CULTURELLES / LITERATURE AND CULTURAL STUDIES LUMINIŢA MUNTEANU, Cuire à l’ancienne. Quelques remarques sur le « Traité de gastronomie » d’Ali Eşref Dede, Postnişîn du Tekke Mevlevî d’Edirne ................. ALEXANDRA CIOCÂRLIE, Antiquité et actualité: perception du temps chez Gheorghe Crăciun ................................................................................................... JOAQUINA LANZUELA HERNÁNDEZ, Le temps dans Le Cid de Corneille ................. IOANA COSTA, Author and Hero (Gregory the Theologian, Basil the Great) .................. LUCIANA IRINA CĂRĂMIDĂ (VĂLUŢANU), Confucius and Feminism ..................... LEVENTE PAP, Time and Chronology in Tertullian’s Adversus Iudaeos (VIII. 8-15.) ..... IRINA DUBSKÝ, “For Immortality Is but Ubiquity in Time”: Moby Dick on the Horizon of Myth ................................................................................................................... ANCA RONCEA, Whitman’s Song and the Myth of Osiris ............................................... GEORGE GRIGORE, Der Jesidismus: ein Beispiel für religiösen Synkretismus ............... ÉVA BÁNYAI, Transition Novels ...................................................................................... DANIELA IONESCU-BONANNI, Das interkulturelle Potential der Prosa Rumäniendeutscher Autoren nach 1990 .................................................................................................. JUDIT PIELDNER, Time, Memory and Narration in W. G. Sebald’s Austerlitz ................ MIHAELA CHAPELAN, Le temps mis sous rature dans la métafiction ........................... 3 21 31 43 51 59 67 77 83 95 105 121 133 2 IRINA-ANA DROBOT, The Reader’s Perception of Time in Virginia Woolf’s Novels .... MONICA COLŢ, Elements of Culture Shock in Their Dynamics in Neil Bissoondath’s The Innocence of Age and the Short Stories ............................................................ MONICA OANCĂ, Christian Time as Perceived by Margery Kempe ............................... RALUCA ANDREESCU, The End of the World as They Knew It? A Vision of the Apocalypse in Shirley Jackson’s The Sundial ............................................................................. THOMAS SCHARES, A Poetology of Modernism: Approaches to Wallace Stevens’ The Idea of Order at Key West ....................................................................................... ANDREEA DIACONESCU, L’enfance – le passé qui ne passe pas dans les romans de Pascal Quignard ...................................................................................................... MONICA MANOLACHI, Internal and External Time in Caribbean British Women’s Poetry .. SUSANA MONICA TAPODI, Spatial and Temporal Structure in a Contemporary Hungarian Novel from Romania ............................................................................................... DAGMAR MARIA ANOCA, The Plain in the Slovak Language Literature in Romania ... * Recenzii ............................................................................................................................... 141 153 171 181 193 213 223 237 243 251 CUIRE À L’ANCIENNE. QUELQUES REMARQUES SUR LE « TRAITÉ DE GASTRONOMIE » D’ALI EŞREF DEDE, POSTNIŞÎN DU TEKKE MEVLEVÎ D’EDIRNE LUMINIŢA MUNTEANU∗ COOKING IN THE TRADITIONAL WAY: SOME REMARKS ON “THE GASTRONOMIC TREATISE” BY ALI EŞREF DEDE, POSTNIŞÎN OF THE MEVLEVÎ TEKKE IN EDIRNE It is often assumed that the life style in the tekkes of the Islamic mystical orders was characterized by asceticism, seclusion and regular prayers, but also by a certain disdain regarding the material aspects of the day-to-day existence. In fact, many members of the dervish lodges had great socialites, enjoyed life to the full and saw no contradiction between their private religious convictions and their worldly matters; on the other hand, many Sufi adepts were not bound to celibacy, but returned, after having been initiated, to their daily life and partook periodically to prayer meetings. The gastronomic treatise of Ali Eşref Dede, postnişîn („Father superior”) of the Mevlevi tekke in Edirne (1859-1901) offers an excellent example from this point of view. On the other hand, it has not many equivalents in the Ottoman history, excepting the “cooking book” by Mehmet Kâmil, which was published in 1844. The treatise of the Mevlevî shaykh offers lots of valuable information concerning the traditional Ottoman dishes, recipes, ways of cooking, kitchen ustensils, but also about the most common or rare ingredients, such as herbs and spices, all kinds of meat and fish, vegetables, fruits, salads, pickles, etc. Moreover, it demolishes some preconceptions and received ideas about the eating habits of the Mevlevi dervishes (for example, the fallacy of the prohibition on eating fish, considering that the writing of Ali Eşref Dede includes a large amount of recipes concerning their preparation). We should also mention that the preparation of food had a special, symbolic meaning in the ideology of the Mevlevi order, insofar as the cooking process was likened to the maturation of the disciple under the guidance of his Sufi master. Keywords: Ottoman cookery book, sufism, Mevlevî order of dervishes, Ali Eşref Dede, 19th century. Le traité de gastronomie d’Ali Eşref Dede 1 , supérieur (postnişîn) du « couvent » Mevlevî d’Edirne, date de 1858-1859 (1275, suivant le calendrier hégirien), étant rédigé peu avant ou peu après la nomination de son auteur à la charge susmentionnée, qui eut lieu en 18592. ∗ Professeur de littérature et civilisation turques, Faculté de Langues et Littératures Étrangères, Université de Bucarest ; e-mail: [email protected] 1 El-fakîr-ü’l-Hakîr/Hâdimü’l-Mevlevî Ali Eşref [Ali Eşref, le (humble) serviteur des Mevlevî]. 2 Le tekke Mevlevî (aujourd’hui Muradiye Camii) d’Edirne fut élevé sur les ordres du sultan Murâd II (1421-1444, 1446-1451), étant achevé en 1426 ou, suivant d’autres sources, 1436. Ce fut le premier tekke Mevlevî (Mevlevihâne) fondé et financé par les Ottomans dans ce qui était, à 4 LUMINIŢA MUNTEANU Le manuscrit du traité fut découvert parmi d’autres documents semblables donnés à l’ancien Institut de Recherches sur Mevlâna (Mevlâna Tetkikleri Enstitüsü) par l’un des descendants de Rûmî et se fait remarquer par son aspect soigné, même élégant : il est relié en cuir partiellement rouge, partiellement marbré et imprimé sur un type de papier bleuâtre importé d’Europe ; ses lettres initiales sont enluminées d’encre rouge. L’aspect travaillé du manuscrit suggère que le maître ne l’avait pas conçu comme un simple instrument de référence destiné à ses disciples, mais comme un ouvrage adressé à une audience plus large, constituée peut-être de sympathisants Mevlevî, de fins connaisseurs, et même de gourmets. (Il ne faut pas oublier que l’ordre des Mevlevî visait notamment les élites, dont les goûts et les ressources, matérielles et financières, dépassaient de beaucoup ceux du menu peuple.) La démarche d’Ali Eşref Dede représentait sans doute une nouveauté dans les cercles Mevlevî, où l’enseignement spirituel continuait de rester, tout comme dans les autres milieux soufiques, essentiellement oral, parce que redevable à la personne révérée du maître initiateur. D’autre part, le genre illustré par le « traité » d’Ali Eşref Dede restait une rareté en Turquie au milieu du XIXe siècle, et cela pour de fortes raisons : d’abord, la Turquie ottomane était à l’époque une société où la culture écrite jouissait d’une tradition peu solide, étant supplantée, particulièrement au niveau des contacts quotidiens, par l’oralité et, partant, la transmission orale du savoir ; ensuite, malgré les évolutions « démocratiques » survenues à partir de 1839, l’ « art de la bonne chère » continuait d’éveiller plutôt l’intérêt des élites et des lettrés que celui des gens du commun, qui se contentaient de la pratiquer, encore que souvent de manière peu raffinée3. Il existe peu d’informations sur les mets et les recettes des Ottomans de jadis, particulièrement sur ceux spécifiques des petites gens ; pour ce qui est de ce moment-là, leur capitale (Ocak 2002 : 156). Ali Eşref Dede Efendi aurait été nommé à la tête de cette loge à la suite d’un concours organisé à Konya, du fait que l’ancien supérieur du dergâh, Osman Dede, était mort sans héritiers. Originaire d’Aydın, il fut initié au soufisme et, plus particulièrement, au Mevlévisme par Osman Selâhaddin Dede, le şeyh du tekke Mevlevî de Yenikapı (Istanbul), pour passer ensuite six ans dans le « couvent mère » (âsitâne) des Mevlevî à Konya, auprès du şeyh Said Hemdem Çelebi, et être finalement introduit dans l’ordre par le sertabbâh [« cuisinier en chef »] Nesîb Dede Efendi (Halıcı 1992 : 79). Suivant Rıdvan Canım (2007 : 306), Ali Eşref Efendi aurait remplacé Osman Dede, qui avait été destitué en 1276/1859 ; il garda cette dignité pendant quarante-six ans, c’est-à-dire jusqu’à sa mort, survenue le 13 Ramadan 1319/le 24 janvier 1901, à l’âge de soixante-trois ans, et fut hérité par son fils, Ahmed Selâhaddin Dede (m. 1356/1937), qui devint le dernier şeyh du tekke d’Edirne. 3 Pourtant, l’intérêt pour la gastronomie n’était pas absent dans le monde musulman. Malek Chebel (1999 : 183-190) évoque, par exemple, l’essor de la cuisine « orientale » à l’époque des ‘Abbassides, c’est-à-dire à partir du IXe siècle, lorsque le genre représenté par les « livres de cuisine » fut initié par le copiste Al-Warrâq, avec son Kitâb at-Tabkh (précédé au VIIIe siècle par les travaux d’Ibn Moukaffâ) ; le genre « gastronomique » fut illustré ensuite par d’autres auteurs de prestige, tels Jahiz, Mas‘ûdi et Miskawayh. CUIRE À L’ANCIENNE. QUELQUES REMARQUES SUR LE « TRAITÉ DE GASTRONOMIE » D’ALI EŞREF DEDE, POSTNIŞÎN DU TEKKE MEVLEVÎ D’EDIRNE 5 la cour impériale, on dispose surtout de listes d’aliments et d’épices commandés ou achetés par les responsables du palais, bien que leur emploi précis reste plus d’une fois vague. Les matériaux de ce type augmentent sensiblement aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles, qui nous fournissent, à part ces espèces de listes, des détails sur les menus quotidiens réservés aux sultans, mais aussi aux différentes catégories de personnes impliquées dans la vie du sérail, depuis les membres de l’appareil bureaucratique jusqu’aux résidentes du harem, aux eunuques, aux pages, etc. S’y ajoutent des menus destinés habituellement aux vizirs du dîvân (le « conseil impérial ») et à leurs suivants, des menus conçus pour certains banquets ou repas d’apparat (par exemple, à l’occasion des grandes fêtes religieuses, à l’occasion des réceptions offertes aux ambassadeurs ou à d’autres hôtes de marque, à l’occasion des circoncisions ou des noces celebrées dans la famille du sultan, etc.).4 Les renseignements fournis par les archives ottomanes sont complétées, surtout à partir du XVIIe siècle, par les relations de certains étrangers, soit de passage, soit établis à Istanbul ; une source particulièrement intéressante pour la vie quotidienne à la cour impériale ottomane au XVIIe siècle est, par exemple, la relation d’Albertus Bobovius (Alî Ufkî Bey)5. Coïncidence ou non, c’est également à partir des XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles que l’on voit augmenter le nombre de demeures ottomanes pourvues de cuisines ; pour le gros du peuple, la préparation de la nourriture avait eu lieu jusque là en plein air, ce qui suggère qu’elle n’était pas trop laborieuse. Dans l’Istanbul du XVIIe siècle, l’existence de la cuisine (matbah) constituait encore un indicateur du luxe ou, du moins, du bien-être ; la différenciation fonctionnelle des pièces des maisons allait devenir plus visible au XVIIIe siècle, lorsque la cuisine commença à devenir une composante durable des habitations (Tanyeli 2006 : 342-343). Uğur Tanyeli apprécie, à juste titre, que cette tendance révèle une certaine évolution de la gastronomie – autrement dit, la cuisson des aliments était devenue plus élaborée et exigeait des espaces et des instruments plus sophistiqués, au moins dans les villes. Bien que lentes et plutôt inégales, ces transformations sont censées refléter l’évolution globale de la société et, donc, de la mentalité ottomane, devenue plus sensible à l’idée de plaisir, de jouissance. Les contacts avec la civilisation et la mentalité occidentales ne faisaient que renforcer le goût du luxe ou, du moins, d’une vie plus facile ; ils se produisaient non seulement à l’occasion des voyages faits par les Turcs à l’étranger, qui restaient fatalement limités aux élites, mais aussi à l’occasion des voyages des Occidentaux en Turquie, notamment à Istanbul – véritable « épitomé » de l’Orient, à la portée de tout Européen passionné d’« exotisme ». Ces tendances et ces contacts 4 Voir les articles de Hedda Reindl-Kiel (2006) et Christoph K. Neumann (2006), que nous trouvons fort suggestifs du point de vue de la signification et de la codification sociales associées l’alimentation dans la société ottomane, encore que ces aspects eussent subi des mutations sensibles à l’aube de la modernité. 5 Albertus Bobovius, Topkapi. Relation du Sérail du Grand Seigneur (ed. : Annie Berthier et Stéphane Yerasimos), Paris, 1999. 6 LUMINIŢA MUNTEANU s’accélérèrent au XIXe siècle, dans le contexte des reformes connues sous le nom de Tanzimat, lorsque bon nombre d’étrangers décidèrent de s’établir dans la capitale ottomane et de s’y forger une vie nouvelle ; parmi ces coureurs d’aventure se trouvaient un certain nombre de restaurateurs et de traiteurs qui allaient ouvrir des restaurants alafranga, surtout dans le quartier de Péra, habité ou au moins intensément fréquenté par les Occidentaux. S’y ajoutèrent les restaurants « à l’occidentale » ouverts par les Turcs à l’intention des Européens et des autochtones entichés du style de vie occidental. Dans cette atmosphère, l’intérêt, aussi bien commercial que livresque, pour l’alimentation et le bien manger alla grandissant et ne fit qu’encourager les échanges, voire les innovations. Confrontés à l’atmosphère concurrentielle imposée par les Européens, les Turcs eurent la révélation d’un trésor qu’ils traitaient auparavant plutôt de banal, mais qui semblait faire la différence entre « la cuisine occidentale » et « la cuisine orientale », qui était déjà dans l’air. Ce fut, pensons-nous, l’argument péremptoire pour l’apparition des premiers livres de gastronomie en Turquie. Melceü’t-Tabbâhîn, « Le refuge des cuisiniers », le premier ouvrage turc de ce genre, parut en 1260/1844, étant signé par Mehmet Kâmil, enseignant à l’École de Médicine d’Istanbul (depuis 1839, Mekteb-i Tıbbiye-i Adliye-i Şâhâne), qui se serait inspiré d’un autre travail similaire, intitulé Ağdiye Risâlesi, « Le traité des nourritures et des boissons » 6 . Le livre de Mehmet Kâmil comportait 12 chapitres et 227 recettes ; s’y ajoutaient, sur les marges des pages, 46 recettes de salades, pickles et sauces, agrémentées de conseils pratiques. Les « livres de gastronomie » parus en Turquie dans la deuxième moitié du XIXe siècle ne firent que reproduire, d’une manière ou d’une autre, ce premier ouvrage imprimé, qui connut 9 éditions entre 1844 et 1888/18897. L’ouvrage de Mehmet Kâmil fut réimprimé en 1997 par la maison d’édition Unipro d’Istanbul ; la nouvelle édition, soignée par Cüneyt Kut, Turgut Kut et Günay Kut, réunit le texte originel de l’ouvrage, en turc ottoman, sa version en turc moderne et le livre de cuisine publié par Turabi Efendi. Malheureusement, nous n’avons pas eu la possibilité de la consulter. Le livre de cuisine publié en anglais par Turabi Efendi (1865), qui ne faisait que reprendre l’ouvrage de Mehmet Kâmil, s’adressait manifestement 6 Selon Turgut Kut (« A Bibliography of Turkish Cookery Books up to 1927 », http://www.turkish-cuisine.org/english/pages.php?ParentID=1&FirstLevel=11&PagingIndex=0), ce traité aurait été écrit au XVIIIe siècle par le fils du gendre du şeyhülislâm Paşmakçızâde Abdullah Efendi (m. 1145 AH/1732 AD), dont on ignore le nom; le manuscrit, aujourd’hui perdu, fut étudié par Süheyl Ünver, qui en publia même quelques recettes. 7 Turgut Kut, « A Bibliography of Turkish Cookery Books up to 1927 », http://www.turkishcuisine.org/english/article_details.php?p_id=21&Pages=Articles&PagingIndex=1. Turgut Kut affirme avoir identifié plus de 40 livres de gastronomie publiés en Turquie entre 1844-1927, en alphabet arabe ; ceux-ci constituent une source importante pour la reconstitution et la préservation de la cuisine turque traditionnelle, mais ils sont très difficiles à trouver aujourd’hui, même dans les grandes bibliothèques publiques. Turgut Kut fait également mention de 7 livres de gastronomie turque en alphabet arménien, parus entre 1871-1926. CUIRE À L’ANCIENNE. QUELQUES REMARQUES SUR LE « TRAITÉ DE GASTRONOMIE » D’ALI EŞREF DEDE, POSTNIŞÎN DU TEKKE MEVLEVÎ D’EDIRNE 7 aux occidentaux passionnés de la cuisine turque, étant en quelque sorte un écho de la visite rendue à Londres par le gouverneur de l’Égypte, Mehmet Ali Paşa, en 1862. Turabi Efendi n’a, d’ailleurs, aucune prétention d’originalité ou de paternité, ainsi qu’il spécifie dans sa préface, plus que succincte : I have been induced, through the persuasion of numerous friends acquainted with the East, and who have a grateful recollection of its ‘savoury dishes’, to translate the following Receipts, which I have taken the greatest pains to render accurate and concise. During the visit of the late Viceroy of Egypt to England, he gave a banquet on board his yacht, at which some of England’s fairest ladies and greatest statesmen were guests, and were unanimous in their approval of the Turkish cuisine. Emboldened by the recollection I send my little book to press, in the hope that my efforts to confer a benefit on the culinary art may not be entirely thrown away. (Turabi Efendi 1865 : « Preface ») La version anglaise de Turabi Efendi renferme 253 recettes, groupées en 19 catégories, comme suit : Ènvā‘i Chòrbàlar – Soups ; Ènvā‘i Kèbāblar – Kebabs, or Roast Meats ; Ènvā‘i Kyùl-Bàsstilar – Broiled Meats, &c. ; Ènvā‘i Yàhnilèr ve Pùlākilèr – Fricassed or Stewed Meats, &c. ; Ènvā‘i Kyùftèlèr – Balls of Minced Meats, &c. ; Tàwāda Tibkh Òlunān Taamlar – Fried Dishes ; Burèk Nèvìndèn Òlān Taamlar – Pastry, with Meat, &c. ; Ènvā‘i Bàsstilar – Dishes Made With Meat and Vegetables, &c. ; Ènvā‘i Dòlmàlar – Stuffed Dishes ; Ènvā‘i Pìlāwlèr – Pilaw, or Rice, Cooked with Meat, &c., in Various Ways ; Khàmirdan Màmùl Sìjàk Tàtli Taamlar – Hot Sweet Pastry ; Ènvā‘i Sòghuk Tàtlilar – Cold Sweet Dishes ; Ènvā‘i Kàyghanalar – Omelets ; Ènvā‘i Sàlatalar – Salads ; Ènvā‘i Tùrshùlar – Pickles ; Mèyvè Tàtlùlari – Stewed Fruits ; Ènvā‘i Khòshāblar – Various Kinds of Sherbets, with Fruit in Them ; Ènvā‘i Shùrùblār – Syrups ; Ènvā‘i Rèchèllèr – Jams of Preserves. Les catégories de recettes mentionnées dans la traduction de Turabi Efendi se retrouvent dans bien des livres de gastronomie parus en Turquie au XIXe siècle, dont le point de départ est généralement le même – le livre de Mehmet Kâmil, voire l’Ağdiye Risâlesi ; on les retrouve aussi dans le traité d’Ali Eşref Dede, dont il sera question plus loin et qui comporte également 19 catégories de recettes. Le traité de gastronomie élaboré par Ali Eşref Dede, vraisemblablement ignoré à l’époque, nous semble intéressant surtout parce qu’il fut conçu dans un contexte assez différent par rapport aux autres. Il est difficile de savoir si l’auteur était ou non au courant de l’ouvrage de Mehmet Kâmil, son prédécesseur en la matière, car il n’en fait aucune mention. Il n’offre, d’autre part, aucun renseignement sur le but de son travail. Vu sa qualité de maître spirituel Mevlevî, on serait fort enclin à établir une certaine connexion entre sa démarche et l’importance particulière prêtée par les Mevlevîs à la cuisine, à la préparation de la nourriture, aux communions alimentaires et au foyer (ocak), qu’ils considéraient comme sacré, tout comme les Bektâchî. Il ne faut pas oublier qu’une bonne partie de l’entraînement spirituel des futurs derviches LUMINIŢA MUNTEANU 8 Mevlevî se déroulait dans la cuisine du tekke où ils faisaient leur apprentissage ; les postulants y étaient censés mûrir à l’instar des aliments soumis au processus de cuisson, durant une période de service ou bien d’épreuve appelée çile, « tourment, supplice », qui durait mille un jours. En raison de cette posture, ils étaient également nommés matbah canı, « âmes de la cuisine », tandis que leur « entraîneur spirituel » portait le titre de aşcı başı ou ser-tabbâh, « cuisinier en chef »8 (Gölpınarlı 1977 : 223-224). Ce genre de symbolisme associé à la cuisine remontait à l’époque du patron de la confrérie, Mawlânâ Jalâl ad-Dîn ar-Rûmî, qui lui prêtait une importance particulière et y faisait souvent référence : « Molānā compares almost everything to a kitchen : the soul, the heart, the head, the stomach, and even intellect in whose kitchen the poor Sufis remain hungry. » (Schimmel 1993 : 145) Mais il s’agit là de pures spéculations, puisque le livret d’Ali Eşref Dede n’a pas une visée éducatrice, voire initiatique explicite ; il ressemble plutôt à un guide pratique de gastronomie, à l’usage des « friands », qu’à un ouvrage didactique réservé aux postulants Mevlevî. L’aspect soigné du manuscrit suggère, d’autre part, que celui-ci n’était pas regardé comme une entreprise quelconque ; à la différence du livre de Mehmet Kâmil, qui s’adressait à l’esprit pragmatique de la société, il n’était pas destiné à l’impression, donc à la multiplication : du fait de sa conception, il devait rester unique. Les 19 chapitres du traité d’Ali Eşref Dede9 sont structurés comme suit : 1. Potages aux légumes (5 recettes) ; 2. Salades et pickles (4 recettes) ; 3. Variétés de kebap (15 recettes) ; 4. Viande grillée (10 recettes) ; 5. Helva et kadayıf (55 recettes) ; 6. Gelées à l’amidon et glaces (13 recettes) ; 7. Petits-fours secs [aux amandes, pistaches, etc.] (8 recettes) ; 8. Petits-fours enduits de sorbet et d’autres gâteaux semblables (8 recettes) ; 9. Pickles (10 recettes) ; 10. Plats à base de pâtes (2 recettes) ; 11. Beignets et galettes (17 recettes) ; 12. Légumes farcis (5 recettes) ; 13. Variétés d’aspic de mouton (paça) et boulettes d’aubergine (6 recettes) ; 14. Boulettes de viande (5 recettes) ; 15. Plats à base d’épinard et de courge (4 recettes) ; 16. Préparation de la moelle [de bœuf] et des ragoûts (12 recettes) ; 17. Variétés de pilafs (11 recettes) ; 18. Nectars et compotes (18 recettes) ; 19. Manières de faire geler l’eau (2 recettes). Il s’agit de 210 recettes au total, y compris les deux formules de préparer la glace, qui certifient une fois de plus, si besoin en était, son importance comme moyen traditionnel de refroidissement, mais aussi de conservation des aliments10 . 8 Dans le tekke de Konya – la loge principale des Mevlevî, désignée aussi par le syntagme « Huzur-i Pîr », litt. « présence du Père fondateur » –, cette fonction était remplie, de manière exceptionnelle, par le Ser-Tarıyk [Tarikatçı] Dede, à savoir le supérieur de l’ordre. 9 Nous allons nous rapporter, dans ce qui suit, à l’édition de Feyzi Halıcı, parue en 1992 (Ali Eşref Dede’nin Yemek Risalesi, éd. : Feyzi Halıcı, Atatürk Kültür Merkezi, Ankara, 1992) ; les renvois aux pages concernent la même édition. 10 À Istanbul, par exemple, la glace et la neige étaient d’abord charriées depuis le Mont Olympe jusqu’à Mudanya, et ensuite transportées en bateau à Istanbul. CUIRE À L’ANCIENNE. QUELQUES REMARQUES SUR LE « TRAITÉ DE GASTRONOMIE » D’ALI EŞREF DEDE, POSTNIŞÎN DU TEKKE MEVLEVÎ D’EDIRNE 9 Observons, d’autre part, la place assignée aux différentes variétés de halva et de kadayıf dans l’ensemble des sucreries. Le halva revêtait une haute fonction symbolique parmi les Turcs, jouissant d’une longue tradition ; il était dispensé de manière solennelle à la fin des cérémonies d’initiation pratiquées par les ordres mystiques musulmans (tarikat), mais aussi durant les cérémonies réservées au départ et à l’accueil des troupes, au bout des campagnes militaires, lors des cérémonies vouées aux martyrs (şehit) et, plus tard, lors de toute cérémonie funèbre. Enfin, le halva jouait un rôle essential dans les soi-disant helva sohbetleri, « causeries du/au halva », qui représentaient une forme de divertissement et de socialisation hivernale fort agréée dans tous les milieux sociaux (Özbil 2011). Parmi les friandises mentionnées par Ali Eşref Dede se retrouve le célèbre râhat-i halkûm11 (voir pp. 36-37) qui, suivant Zeynel Özel (2011 : 171-174), était préparé jadis uniquement dans la Helvahâne-i Hassa Ocağı, mise au service exclusif du sultan, pour commencer ensuite, probablement à la fin du XVIIIe ou au début du XIXe siècle, à être produit aussi par un nombre déterminé de confiseurs (şekerlemeci) autorisés, au bénéfice du reste de la population (en signe, peut-être, de la « démocratisation » graduelle de l’alimentation et, pas en dernier lieu, de l’apparition d’une logique tout à fait différente par rapport à la traditionnelle – la logique concurrentielle du capitalisme naissant). À part ces quelques sucreries qui puissent passer pour prétentieuses ou du moins rares, l’ouvrage gastronomique du maître Mevlevî a le mérite de nous offrir bon nombre d’informations non seulement sur les recettes d’antan, mais aussi sur les légumes et les fruits les plus communs, voire familiers ou peu coûteux, les salades et les ingrédients des salades, les pickles et leur conservation, les types de viande, de poisson et de kebap les plus réputés, les sucreries traditionnelles, les variétés de pain et de céréales les plus accessibles, les épices les plus employées, mais aussi sur les récipients et les ustensiles de cuisine en usage vers la moitié du XIXe siècle, en Turquie. En voici un bref inventaire, qui nous paraît assez parlant des ressources, mais aussi des goûts (au propre, comme au figuré) de l’époque : Récipients et ustensiles de cuisine : cuillères (kaşık), cuillères en bois (ağaç eli), louches (kepçe), passoires (kevgir), mortiers en pierre (taş dibek), mortiers en bois (ağaç havan) et, plus spécialement, en bois de buis (şimşir el dibeği), mortiers en marbre (mermer havan), tamis de cuisine, plus ou moins serrés (ince elek, kıl elek, kırbal), égouttoirs de gaze (seyrek astar), assiettes (tabak), bols (kâse), casseroles (sahan), terrines et marmites (güğeç/güyeç/güveç), plats de cuisson (tâbe), écuelles (çömlek), plateaux [creux et ronds] en cuivre (lenger, tepsi), couteaux (bıçak), pinces (maşa), rouleaux à pâtisserie 11 Variété de confiserie dont la composition pouvait comporter de l’amidon, du sucre (dans les époques plus reculées, du miel), des amandes, des pistaches, des noisettes, de la crème, etc. LUMINIŢA MUNTEANU 10 (oklava), planches à pâtisserie (tahta), pétrins (tekne), bassins et bassines (leğen), chiches (şiş) pour les kébaps, trépieds de cuisine (saç ayağı/sacayağı), cruches en métal (ibrik), bocaux (kavanoz), tonneaux et barriques (fuçu, fıçı). La plupart des instruments évoqués plus haut semblent assez simples, de peu de valeur, étant confectionnés de bois, de cuivre, de pierre, de marbre et, parfois, de terre cuite. Ils sont multifonctionnels, faciles à utiliser, pratiques et se retrouvaient certainement dans bien des cuisines turques au XIXe siècle, sans avoir subi trop de changements au cours du temps ; de ce point de vue, on pourrait parler d’une certaine « atemporalité » des outils. Épices et fines herbes : poivre (büber/biber), menthe (na’nâ), persil (mi’denos), safran (zağferan), cannelle (dâr-ı çinî), cumin (kimon/kimyon), cardamome (kakule), anis (enison/anason), feuilles de laurier (tefne), feuilles de myrte (mersin yaprağı), feuilles de citron et de limette (limon ve turunç yaprağı), coriandre (kişniç/kişniş), eau de rose (gülâb) et eau de fleurs d’oranger (çiçek suyu) – employées notamment pour la préparation des sucreries –, mastic (sakız), nigelle cultivée ou cumin noir (Şam nebatı), clous de girofle (karanfil/karangil), musc (misk), moutarde (hardal), salpêtre (güherçile). Il est à remarquer que certaines des épices et, surtout, des fines herbes mentionnées plus haut (le persil, l’anis, le thym, la menthe) ne se retrouvent pas parmi les plantes aromatiques commandées par les intendants des cuisines du palais impérial, ainsi qu’il ressort de l’étude de Christoph Neumann (2006) ; elles auraient pu être cultivées dans les jardins de celui-ci, ce qui ne serait pas une chose inhabituelle. Le persil et la menthe figurent en échange dans le livre de gastronomie signé par Turabi Efendi. Céréales, produits dérivés de céréales et plats à base de céréales : blé (keşkeklik buğdayı), farine de blé (buğday unu), riz (pirinç) et farine de riz (pirinç unu), amidon (nişasta), semoule (irmik/irmik unu), pilaf (pilav), pilaf de vermicelles (şehriye pilavı). Il est à remarquer qu’il n’y a aucune mention du maïs (mısır), du seigle (çavdar) et de l’orge (arpa). Le maïs12 fit son apparition 12 Le nom turc du maïs (mısır) est redevable à l’Égypte, d’où la plante se serait propagée en Turquie, via Syrie, au XVIe siècle (Eren 1999 : 295). Suivant Ellen Messer (2000 : 97), le maïs, originaire de l’Amérique du Sud, fut introduit dans l’Europe tempérée, de même qu’en Asie et en Afrique, aux XVIe et XVIIe siècles. Il fit son apparition en Europe grâce à Christophe Colomb, en 1492-1493, et fut mentionné pour la première fois en tant que céréale cultivée en 1500, à Séville, d’où il se répandit dans le reste de la Péninsule Ibérique. En Europe, où il connut une expansion plus rapide et plus facile que la pomme de terre, il fut généralement désigné par des syntagmes que nous considérons fort parlants de sa perception comme « céréale étrangère » et qui, d’autre part, trahissent souvent ses filières de transmission dans les régions respectives : « Spreading across Europe, maize acquired a series of binomial labels, each roughly translated as ‘foreign grain’: in Lorraine and in the Vosges, maize was ‘Roman corn’; in Tuscany, ‘Sicilian corn’; in Sicily, ‘Indian corn’; in the Pyrenees, ‘Spanish corn’; in Provence, ‘Barbary corn’ or ‘Guinea corn’; in Turkey, ‘Egyptian corn’; in Egypt, ‘Syrian dourra’ (i.e., sorghum); in England, ‘Turkish wheat’ or ‘Indian corn’; and in Germany, ‘Welsch corn’ or ‘Bactrian typha’. The French blé de Turquie CUIRE À L’ANCIENNE. QUELQUES REMARQUES SUR LE « TRAITÉ DE GASTRONOMIE » D’ALI EŞREF DEDE, POSTNIŞÎN DU TEKKE MEVLEVÎ D’EDIRNE 11 dans les cuisines impériales vers la moitié du XIXe siècle, sous le nom de mısır-ı buğday (Samancı 2006 : 197), mais n’eut pas le même succès que le blé et le riz ; aujourd’hui encore, il reste moins populaire en Turquie que d’autres céréales. On l’emploie notamment dans certaines régions du pays (par exemple, sur la côte de la Mer Noire, où il entre dans la composition d’une sorte de pain appelé mısır ekmeği ou de certains gâteaux où la farine de maïs remplace la farine de blé). Variétés de pains : pain blanc (francala), « pain du souverain » (hünkâri has ekmek) et une variété de pâte phyllo (yufka). Variétés de viandes : volaille (tavuk), mouton et agneau (koyun, kuzu), veau [peu mentionné, puisque cher], viscères comestibles, tels le foie, les poumons et les tripes de moutons, le foie de poule et le pieds de mouton (paça). Variétés de kebab : chiche-kebab de volaille (tavuk kebabı), chiche-kebab de mouton ou d’agneau préparé avec du lait (süt kebabı), chiche-kebab avec de la viande de poule émincée (kırma tavuk kebabı), chiche-kebab aux petits morceaux de viande (kuşbaşı kebabı)13, tas kebabı [petits morceaux de viande et de légumes cuits à l’étouffée], kebap aux dattes (hurma kebabı), kébab cuit au four (fırın kebabı), chiche-kebab au foie de mouton ou d’agneau (ciğer kebabı), « chiche-kebab du boucher » [kasap kebabı – espèce de rôti de viande de mouton hachée et assaisonnée d’herbes aromatiques, puis ensevelie dans du suif et cuite dans une casserole ou terrine], chiche-kebab en écuelle [çömlek kebabı – sorte de kebab de mouton, cuit dans une écuelle ou, faute de mieux, dans une casserole, accompagné de gombos, d’aubergines, de courgettes, d’oignon et assaisonnée d’herbes aromatiques]. On pourrait y associer, en tant que plat spécifique, perçu en Turquie comme « gourmandise », mais plutôt ignoré, sinon abhorré en Occident, l’aspic de pieds de mouton (paça). Variétés de poissons : mulets (kefal), barbeaux truités (levrek), sardines (sardalya, conservées en été par salaison et appelées à Istanbul et dans les îles environnantes, en raison de leur goût salé, turşu), anchois (inçivye/ançuvez), turbots (kalkan balığı) et foie de turbot grillé, maquereaux (uskumru), tassergals (lüfer), poissons-épées ou espadons (kılınç balığı), poissons d’eau douce (terhos/terkos balığı), évoqués de manière hyperonymique et probablement moins appréciés, vu leur odeur désagréable. Ajoutons-y le caviar (haviar salûtası). (‘Turkish wheat’) and a reference to a golden-and-white seed of unknown species introduced by Crusaders from Anatolia (in what turned out to be a forged Crusader document) encouraged the error that maize came from western Asia, not the Americas. » (Messer 2000 : 105). 13 Les kebabs étaient enduits d’huiles aromatiques et d’autres épices en se servant de plumes de poules – tavuk yeleği. LUMINIŢA MUNTEANU 12 Le traité d’Ali Eşref Dede, renfermant plusieurs recettes concernant la cuisson des poissons, dont il paraît d’ailleurs entiché, démolit certaines « idées reçues » au sujet des tabous alimentaires des Mevlevî, qui ont fait couler beaucoup d’encre et ont provoqué maintes spéculations14 ; Ali Eşref Dede parle de poissons en connaisseur et en suggère plusieurs manières de cuisson (il en va de même pour la préparation de la « salade de caviar ») – il se comporte comme un véritable expert en la matière, non pas comme un maître Mevlevî soucieux d’éloigner ses disciples de la « mauvaise chair » des créatures de l’eau. On pourrait s’interroger sur la source du malentendu en question. Mawlânâ Jalâl ad-Dîn ar-Rûmî, invoqué parfois par ses adeptes pour justifier telle ou telle option comportementale, ne paraît pas avoir éprouvé de l’appréhension pour les poissons. Prenons à l’appui de cette thèse une anecdote tirée de la traduction française de l’ouvrage d’Aflâkî, suivant laquelle Mawlânâ (« le Maître ») aurait dit une fois, au sujet des poissons : « Notre histoire est parvenue jusqu’aux poissons dans la mer ; le bouillonnement des eaux a apporté mille vagues. » Dans un autre endroit, il a dit encore : « Les poissons connaissent notre directeur spirituel, tandis que nous en sommes loin ; à ce bonheur, nous sommes des réprouvés, eux des élus ». (Cl. Huart 1922 : 31) Lorsque les circonstances et notamment les conditions naturelles le permettent, les gens qui entourent Mawlânâ s’occupent également de la pêche, qui semble un emploi de temps tout à fait habituel et ne suscite aucun commentaire dépréciatif : « Les anciens amis ont raconté que le cheikh Çalàh-eddîn se trouvait avec son père et sa mère dans le village de Kâmilé, aux environs de Qonya; ils employaient leur temps à pêcher du poisson dans le lac de celle localité. » (Ibidem : 195) Les proches ou les disciples de Mawlânâ le présentent parfois comme étant fort enclin à l’ascèse, qu’il recommande aussi à ses disciples15. Pourtant, il 14 Les Mevlevî/Mawlawî ne sont pas les seuls musulmans réputés pour ce genre d’intolérance, dont les explications sont les plus diverses ; ni les Bektâşî, notamment les plus bigots d’entre eux, ne mangent pas du poisson ; les ‘Alawî (autrefois, Nusayrî) évitent certaines espèces de poissons. Pourtant, les « créatures de la mer » sont clairement mentionnées dans le Coran parmi les aliments licites (V : 96). 15 Par exemple, Sipehsâlâr, disciple du père de Mawlânâ et ensuite de Mawlânâ même (les informations à ce sujet restent plutôt obscures), qui rédigea une sorte de mémorial consacré aux dires et aux exploits de celui-ci, met en exergue l’attachement de son maître chéri pour le jeûne et généralement la continence, regardés comme exemples d’œuvre pie, de détachement de la vie et des biens terrestres, sur la voie de Dieu (voir le chapitre intitulé Orucu, Mücahedesi ve Açlığına Dair, « Sur son jeûne, son combat et sa faim », 1977 : 45-49). – Sipehsâlâr (litt. « comandant »), dont le nom réel était Ferîdûn bin Ahmed, « Ferîdûn, fils d’Ahmed », serait mort, selon les traditions Mevlevî/Mawlawî, vers 1312, c’est-à-dire peu avant ou peu après la mort du fils aîné de Mevlânâ, Sultân Walad/Veled. La majeure partie de son œuvre, qui fut probablement achevée CUIRE À L’ANCIENNE. QUELQUES REMARQUES SUR LE « TRAITÉ DE GASTRONOMIE » D’ALI EŞREF DEDE, POSTNIŞÎN DU TEKKE MEVLEVÎ D’EDIRNE 13 ne semble pas détaché de la gastronomie et, en outre, éprouve un vif intérêt pour tout ce qui s’adresse aux sens, y compris le goût et l’odorat ; qui plus est, il conçoit l’acte de manger comme un véritable symbole de la nourriture spirituelle : « We can safely assert that Rumi’s imagery is filled, to an amazing extent, with images taken from the kitchen, although he always calls his disciples to fasting to the extent of starving, and spent many years in strict fasting discipline. » (Schimmel 1993 : 138). Les allusions alimentaires parsemées dans ses vers nous permettent donc de nous forger une image sur les aliments les plus communs à Konya, au XIIIe siècle, car Mawlânâ évoque des produits, des mets, des ingrédients et des arômes extrêmement divers, tels le tutmaç (sorte de vermicelles préparés avec de la viande et du yaourt), les potages, le kebap, les tripes, les pickles, les pois chiches, les petits-pois, l’oignon, l’ail, le riz, le bulgur, le pain, l’aubergine, l’épinard, le navet, le lait, le fromage, le beurre, la grenade, la pêche, la pomme, le kadayıf, le halva (aliment de prédilection dans les cercles initiatiques), le sel, le sucre, le musc, etc. (Schimmel 1993 : 138-145). Variétés de légumes : oignon (soğan) et jus d’oignon (soğan suyu), ail (sarımsık/sarımsak), pois chiches (nohut), épinard (ıspanah/ıspanak), gombos (bamya), aubergines (badıncan/patlıcan), fèves (bakla), céleri (kerefis/kereviz), carottes (havuç), haricots blancs (böğrülce), poireaux (pırasa), citrouilles (kitre). Il serait à remarquer l’absence de quelques légumes très populaires aujourd’hui en Turquie, tels les tomates rouges et vertes, les haricots verts, les asperges, les pommes de terre qui, suivant Özge Samancı (2006 : 197), auraient été adoptés par les élites ottomanes vers la moitié du XIXe siècle16. L’absence des tomates dans les menus du palais impérial ottoman jusqu’au XIXe siècle17 contredit l’idée avancée par Edgar Anderson, suivant laquelle les tomates auraient été, pendant des siècles, un légume de prédilection ou, de moins, de base en Turquie, comme dans les Balkans (grâce à l’influence des Turcs), en Iran, en Arabie et en Ethiopie18. Il n’en reste pas moins vrai que les tomates après sa mort par son fils ou par quelqu’un d’autre, fut empruntée par Šams ad-Dîn Ahmad Aflâkî dans son Mémorial des Saints (Manâqîb al-Ârefîn), commencé vers 1318 et achevé en 1353. 16 Il en alla de même pour certains fruits exotiques comme les bananes, le kiwi et l’ananas (Samancı 2006 : 198). 17 Suivant Özge Samancı (2006 : 196-197), les tomates auraient été adoptées par le palais impérial en 1830 (donc, à l’époque de Mahmut II), après avoir été consommées au début, tout comme en Occident, en tant que tomates vertes ; le fruit mûr éveillait, semblait-il, la méfiance des possibles amateurs, car il était perçu comme altéré. 18 « [Edgar] Anderson has noted that there is a wide and apparently coherent area, encompassing the Balkans and Turkey and running along the edge of Iran toward Arabia and Ethiopia, where the tomato has been used for centuries in the everyday diet of common people. » (Long 2000 : 357). Edgar Anderson, cité par Janet Long, apprécie que la tomate fut diffusée dans le Levant et dans les Balkans par les Turcs au XVIe siècle, lorsque l’Empire ottoman dominait la région, après avoir été découverte dans les ports italiens et espagnols. Ce scénario nous paraît hasardeux : d’abord, les tomates semblent avoir été introduites en Europe par les Espagnols 14 LUMINIŢA MUNTEANU (rouges et vertes) et le jus de tomates apparaissent dans plusieurs recettes reproduites par Turabi Efendi dans son livre19, sans donner l’impression qu’il s’agit d’un légume « exotique ». Pour ce qui est des pommes de terre 20 , omniprésentes dans les menus contemporains, elles semblent peu assimilées par la gastronomie autochtone à l’époque en question 21 ; plus encore, on dirait qu’elles sont largement supplantées par l’aubergine, qui s’avère beaucoup plus répandue dans toute la gastronomie du Moyen-Orient22. Salades et ingrédients des salades : laitue dite romaine (marul salûtası), enrichie parfois de feuilles de radis (Türk otu), de fleurs de rose, de gainier ou de cognassier (gül/erguvan/ayva çiceği). Pickles : cornichons, courgettes, chou, navet, ail, piment, aubergine, ainsi que des mélanges de légumes, conservés surtout dans du vinaigre. Fruits : citrons (limon) et jus de citron (âb-ı limon), cerises (kiraz), griottes (vişne), cassis (kuş üzümü), raisins de Smyrne (İzmir siyahı), grenades (nar), raisins verts (koruk), châtaignes [rôties] ([kavrulmuş] kestane), cornouilles (kızılcık), seulement à la fin du XVIe ou, plutôt, au début du XVIIe siècle ; ensuite, elles commencèrent à être cultivées dans les Balkans surtout au XIXe siècle. 19 Par exemple, dans celles des şiş kebap – recette 12, p. 4, domatesli kızartma yahni – recette 44, p. 14, sığır eti yahnisi – recettes 45-46, p. 15, güveç balığı – recette 48, p. 16, uskumru balığından papaz yahnisi – recettes 49-50, pp. 16-17, güveç bastısı – recette 100, p. 33, domates dolması – recette 116, p. 40, domates pilavı – recette 127, p. 44, midiye pilâvı – recette 133, p. 46). 20 Les pommes de terre, originaires de l’Amérique du Sud, semblent avoir gagné l’Europe, via l’Espagne, vers 1570, pour se répandre ensuite en Italie, dans les Pays-Bas et en Angleterre (Messer 2000a : 190). 21 Une seule occurrence chez Turabi Efendi (recette 45, p. 15), aucune occurrence chez Ali Eşref Dede. Özge Samancı (2006 : 197-198) affirme que les pommes de terre commencent à figurer parmi les acquisitions du palais impérial ottoman vers la moitié du XIXe siècle, mais en quantités limitées, ce qui conduit à la conclusion qu’elles étaient offertes notamment aux hôtes étrangers. Suivant Helmuth van Moltke, les pommes de terre étaient connues à Istanbul depuis 1835, sans pourtant avoir diffusé dans les autres régions de la Turquie. 22 « The aubergine (eggplant), for example, is omnipresent on Middle Eastern tables. The Turks claim they know more than 40 ways of preparing this vegetable. It can be smoked, roasted, fried, or mashed for a ‘poor man’s caviar’. According to a Middle Eastern saying, to dream of three aubergines is a sign of happiness. » (Roger 1999 : 1142). « Known in much of the world as ‘aubergine’ and in the Middle East as ‘poor-man’s-caviar’, the vegetable (technically a fruit) is native to southern and eastern Asia and was only introduced into Europe (by the Arabs via Spain) during the Middle Ages. It is a member of the nightshade family, which includes the potato, and has a reputation for bitterness, but is so versatile – it can be fried, grilled, boiled, baked, deep-fried, stuffed, or stewed – that its flavor changes with different methods of preparation, and in some cuisines (and diets) the eggplant, with its fleshy texture, takes the place of meat. Eggplant is the star in many famous dishes, such as the moussaka of Greece and the eggplant parmigiana of Italy. Although not especially nutritious, th eggplant is a good source of folic acid. » (« A Dictionary of the World’s Plant Foods », dans Keneth F. Kiple / Kriemhild Coneè Ornelas (éd.), The Cambridge World History of Food II, 1999 : 1770). CUIRE À L’ANCIENNE. QUELQUES REMARQUES SUR LE « TRAITÉ DE GASTRONOMIE » D’ALI EŞREF DEDE, POSTNIŞÎN DU TEKKE MEVLEVÎ D’EDIRNE 15 abricots (kayısı), prunes (erik), prunes de Mardin (Mardin eriği), prunes de l’île de Chio (Bardaşa eriği), prunes d’Amasya et de Poziğa, pommes (elma), poires (armut), oranges (portakal), fruits du laurier-cerise (taflan ou kara yemiş), pignons (çam fıstığı), figues (incir), razıyanı/reazdene/rezzaki/razzâki üzümü [espèce de raisins blancs à grains longs], dattes (hurma), noix (cevaz/ceviz), noisettes (fındık), amandes (badem), pistaches (fıstık/Şam fıstığı), noix de coco (cevz-i bevvâyı). Notons la large variété de fruits, y inclus les « fruits secs/séchés » (kuru yemiş), très agréés par les Turcs et consumés sous toutes les formes possibles (verts et mûrs, frais et séchés, confits, cuits sous forme de compotes, confitures, gelées, marmelades, au sirop, sous forme de jus ou sirop, sous forme de fruits confiés, etc.). Les fruits mentionnés par Ali Eşref Dede nous sont, pour la plupart, familiers, parce qu’acclimatés dans bien des régions du monde et, pour la plupart, peu prétentieux23. Notons, pourtant, l’utilisation différente réservée à certaines variétés du même fruit, légume, poisson, etc., suivant leurs qualités maîtresses, ce qui constitue une constante de la cuisine et, finalement, du palais fin des gourmet turcs : « Millennia have worked to refine the Turkish palate. In Istanbul, the people choose their drinking water as others would choose their wine. A sip suffices to identify the spring from which the water comes. And the proverb says, choose your friend by the taste of his food. In Turkey you never order peaches. You must specify whether you want Bursa peaches or Izmir peaches. When you want fish you must specify its age. ‘Çinakok’ is a generation younger then ‘lüfer’. ‘Torik’ is a year older the ‘Palamut’. This sensitivity to nuance reflects the Turkish aesthetic approach to food. » (Neşet Eren 1982 : 14) Izzet Sak (2006 : 145) et Özge Samancı (2006 : 198) remarquent la même sensibilité gustative au niveau du palais impérial ottoman, qui accordait une grande importance au lieu de provenance des fruits, perçu à l’époque comme une sorte de « marque » ; on arrivait ainsi à consommer ou à employer dans la cuisson quatre-cinq variétés de prunes ou de raisins, suivant leur saveur dominante (douce, âcre, plus ou moins parfumée, etc.), qui devait se marier à la nature du repas ou du plat préparé. Sucreries : gâteaux du type kadayıf ou baklava, aşure [sorte de plat doux, préparé de graines de céréales, de sucre, de raisins, etc.], güllâç [sorte de sucrerie préparée de gaufrettes fourrées de noix, noisettes, pistaches et sirop de lait aromatisé de l’eau de rose], halva (helva) 24 , gelée (palûde/palûze/pelte), purée d’amandes (badem ezmesi), pain de Gênes/génois (İspanya ekmeği), pekmez 23 En étudiant les acquisitions du palais impérial ottoman en matière de fruits et de fleurs vers la moitié du XVIIIe siècle, Izzet Sak (2006 : 142-145) constate peu de changements en ce qui concerne les variétés de fruits consumées et leurs emplois entre les XVIe-XIXe siècles. 24 Y compris la variété connue sous le nom de gaziler helvası (pp. 26-27), qui apparaît également chez Turabi Efendi (recette 163, p. 55). LUMINIŢA MUNTEANU 16 [mélasse préparée avec du jus de raisins], höşmeri [hoşmerim, espèce de sucrerie préparée avec du fromage frais, non-salé, de la farine et du sucre ou du miel]. Produits lactés : lait (leben, şîr, süt), yogourt en outre (torba yoğurdu), crème (kaymak), lor peynir [fromage frais fait de lait de chèvre], çayır peyniri [espèce de fromage frais], fromage en outre (tulum peyniri), fromage frais, non-salé – espèce de caillebotte (teleme). Ingrédients employés pour la préparation des aliments au chaud : sel (tuz), très important non seulement dans la préparation des mets, mais aussi pour son poids symbolique, huile d’olives (rugan-i zeyt/zeyt yağı), dont l’emploi dans la cuisine turque était plutôt de fraîche date25, beurre (rugan-ı sade), dont l’emploi remontait très loin dans le temps, vu le passé nomade et l’occupation de prédilection des Turcs anciens, à savoir l’élevage du bétail, miel (asel/bal), sucre (şeker/şeker-i kanid), y compris « le sucre végétal (nebat şekeri) » (glucose?)26, vinaigre (sirke), eau de pois chiches (nohut-ab), employé dans la préparation de certains mets. Boissons : boza [boisson à base de grains de céréales fermentés], salep (sahlep), sorbet (şerbet), moût (üzüm şırası), tisane de camomille (papatya suyu). Ali Eşref Dede indique de manière très méticuleuse les quantités des ingrédients entrant dans la composition des plats (en kıyye/okka = 1.282 grammes ou en dirhem = 3.25 grammes, suivant le cas) ; il remarque, en outre, que l’emploi de ces mesures de masse est plus précis que la méthode proportionnelle, impliquant l’emploi de certains récipients de cuisine, tels les bols, les écuelles, etc. (p. 21). Observons que les unités de masse s’avèrent toujours problématiques lorsqu’il s’agit de s’adresser à un public ou à un lecteur autre que l’habituel. Cette question est décelée correctement dans maints livres de gastronomie turque s’adressant aux Occidentaux ; c’est pourquoi Turabi Efendi n’oublie pas d’ajouter à sa traduction un petit tableau de correspondance concernant les unités de masse. Neşet Eren 27 , dont le livre de cuisine à l’intention des 25 Il fut longtemps employé seulement dans la préparation du savon et dans l’éclairage domestique. L’emploi du miel dans la préparation des sucreries était traditionnel, alors que, du moins pour les époques plus reculées, le sucre, notamment celui de canne, était plus cher et comptait pour un article de lux, réservée aux élites. 27 Neşet Eren, née en 1915, était la fille de Nüzhet Baba, le dernier şeyh du tekke Bektâşî de Rumelihisarı, connu sous les noms de Nâfi Baba Tekkesi et Şehitlik Dergâhı. Son arrière-grand-père fut Nâfi Baba, célèbre à l’époque pour la vivacité de son esprit et pour sa bonhomie. Elle passa ses années les plus tendres dans le tekke de Rumelihisarı (habité par sa famille jusqu’en 1943), où elle eut l’occasion de se familiariser non seulement avec les repères du style de vie traditionnel, mais aussi avec la cuisine turque « classique » : Our home was the headquarters of the Bektaşi Order of Dervişes of which my family were the heads. We lived in a large mansion on a steep hill overlooking the Bosporus. From my window in Europe I could see across to the houses in Asia. 26 CUIRE À L’ANCIENNE. QUELQUES REMARQUES SUR LE « TRAITÉ DE GASTRONOMIE » D’ALI EŞREF DEDE, POSTNIŞÎN DU TEKKE MEVLEVÎ D’EDIRNE 17 Occidentaux paraîtra cent ans après la traduction de Turabi Efendi, semble plus relaxée à ce sujet – puisque s’adressant aux Américains, elle emploie les mesures de poids anglo-saxonnes (onces, livres, etc.) ; lorsque possible, elle indique des quantités « de bon sens », telles « une cuillerée de… », « une tasse de… », « un petit oignon », etc. Ali Eşref Dede offre également des conseils aux cuisiniers, introduits de manière explicite, par le vocable tenbih, litt. « conseil » ; ceux-ci montrent, une fois de plus, le caractère plutôt pragmatique de son ouvrage. En voici quelques exemples : (a) Les poissons et les autres plats cuits en terrine sont plus savoureux que ceux qui sont cuits dans des récipients en cuivre (pp. 7-8) ; (b) La viande à préparer par n’importe quel moyen doit être exposée et laissée attendre dans un endroit assez froid et aéré, avant d’être cuite. D’autre part, lorsqu’on grille la viande et lorsque la graisse commence à se liquéfier, il est recommandable de l’enduire, à chaque fois que l’on retourne les morceaux de viande sur le gril, d’une couche fine de farine, afin d’en faire absorber la graisse (p. 10) ; (c) Il est recommandable de rouler les poissons dans de la farine avant de les mettre sur le gril (p. 11) ; (d) L’odeur désagréable dégagée par certains espèces de poissons, tels le mulet et le maquereau, lorsque mis sur le gril disparaît s’ils sont plongés à l’avance dans de l’eau bouillante (p. 11) ; (e) Le citron et le jus de citron ne sont point recommandables pour la préparation à chaud, car ils entraînent un goût désagréable ; en échange, ils peuvent être remplacés par le vinaigre (p. 11) ; (f) Un certain ingrédient peut être remplacé par un autre (par exemple, dans le cas de helvâ-yı İshakiye, on peut substituer la farine de riz à l’amidon – p. 30). S’y ajoutent d’autres remarques – sur les qualités fortifiantes de certains aliments ou plats, surtout en hiver (pp. 34-35), ou sur les manières de cuisson « diététique » (Ali Eşref Dede précise à plusieurs reprises que certaines méthodes de cuire les aliments ou les sucreries sont plus convenables à la digestion). De surcroît, le şeyh Mevlevî précise parfois que certains plats ou certaines recettes proviennent du palais impérial (comme il advient, par exemple, dans le cas d’une « mixture » fort conseillée pour augmenter son immunité en hiver, présentée par la formule Saray-ı Hümayundan muhareç memzuc sükkeri yumurta, « mixture sucrée aux œufs issue du Palais Impérial » – p. 34). Le vocabulaire du « traité » est assez simple et direct ; on y remarque, par endroits, un certain soin d’éviter les répétitions fâcheuses, pourtant nécessaires pour la clarté de l’exposé. Le turc ottoman (osmanlı), avec son hétérogénéité intrinsèque, permettait souvent la substitution d’un terme d’origine turque par un synonyme d’origine arabe ou persane, ce qui était non seulement souhaitable, mais aussi fort conseillé et considéré dans le registre soigné. Ali Eşref Dede semble se souvenir We kept open house day and night to all the members of the sect who came our way. We never knew how many would sit around the table or sleep under the roof. As I think about it now it must have been a veritable challenge to any cook to cater for a constantly unknown number of guests. And we were supposed to serve a good meal. (Eren 1982 : 11). LUMINIŢA MUNTEANU 18 parfois de cette exigence, puisqu’il lui arrive d’employer des synonymes du même vocable, tels sükker (> arabe) et şeker (> persan), pour le sucre ; leben (> arabe), şîr (> persan) et süt (> turc), pour le lait ; rugan-i zeyt (du persan rawgan, « huile, graisse, beurre ») et zeyt yağı (du turc yağ, synonyme parfait de rugan), pour l’huile d’olives ; asel (> arabe) et bal (> turc), pour le miel. En conclusion, l’ouvrage du postnişîn Mevlevî d’Edirne nous paraît comparable aux livres de cuisine contemporains, exception faite du vocabulaire, qui reste fatalement daté, puisque redevable au turc ottoman ; il donne l’impression que ce genre d’ouvrages n’a pas beaucoup changé au cours des siècles. Il apporte, d’autre part, une contribution remarquable à la reconstitution et, aussi, à la préservation de la gastronomie turque traditionnelle, dont la variété et la richesse sont hautement redevables à l’esprit accommodant, réceptif de la civilisation dont elle est issue. 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(1992), The Dervish Lodge: Architecture, Art, and Sufism in Ottoman Turkey, University of California Press, Berkeley-Los Angeles-Oxford. Long, Janet (2000), « Tomatoes », dans Keneth F. Kiple, Kriemhild Coneè Ornelas (éd.), The Cambridge World History of Food I, Cambridge University Press, New York, pp. 351-358. Messer, Ellen (2000), « Maize », dans Keneth F. Kiple, Kriemhild Coneè Ornelas (éd.), The Cambridge World History of Food I, Cambridge University Press, New York, pp. 97-112. Messer, Ellen (2000a), « Potatoes (White) », dans Keneth F. Kiple, Kriemhild Coneè Ornelas (éd.), The Cambridge World History of Food I, Cambridge University Press, New York, pp. 187-201. Ocak, Ahmet Yaşar (2002), « Türkiye Tarihinde Merkezi İktidar ve Mevleviler (XIII-XVIII. Yüzyıllar) (Kısa Bir Yaklaşım Denemesi) », dans Ahmet Yaşar Ocak, Türk Sufiliğine Bakışlar, İletişim Yayınları, Istanbul, pp. 148-159. 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Sak, Izzet (2006), « Osmanlı Sarayının İki Aylık Meyve ve Çiçek Masrafı », Tarih Araştırmaları Dergisi, 25 (40), pp. 141-176. Samanci, Özge (2006), « 19. Yüzyılın İkinci Yarısında Osmanlı Elitinin Yeme-İçme Alışkanlıkları », dans Suraiya Faroqhi, Christoph K. Neumann (éd.), Soframız Nur, Hanemiz Mamur. Osmanlı Maddi Kültüründe Yemek ve Barınak, Istanbul, pp. 185-207. Schimmel, Annemarie (1993), The Triumphal Sun : A Study of the Works of Jalāloddin Rumi, State University of New York Press, Albany. Tanyeli, Uğur (2006), « Osmanlı Metropollerinde Evlerin Konfor ve Lüks Normları », dans Suraiya Faroqhi, Christoph K. Neumann (éd.), Soframız Nur, Hanemiz Mamur. Osmanlı Maddi Kültüründe Yemek ve Barınak, Istanbul, pp. 333-352. Turabi Efendi (éd. ; trad.), (1865), The Turkish Cookery Book : A Collection of Receipts from the Best Turkish Authorities, Wm. H. Allen & CO., Londres. *** Türk Halk Kültürü Araştırmaları (Turkish Folk Culture Researches) (1990) : 1. Türk Mutfağı Özel Sayısı (Special Volume of Turkish Cooking). *** “A Dictionary of the World’s Plant Foods”, dans Keneth F. Kiple, Kriemhild Conéè Ornelas (éd.), The Cambridge World History of Food II : 1999, Cambridge University Press, New York, pp. 1711-1886. ANTIQUITÉ ET ACTUALITÉ : PERCEPTION DU TEMPS CHEZ GHEORGHE CRĂCIUN ALEXANDRA CIOCÂRLIE∗ ANTIQUITY AND ACTUALITY: THE PERCEPTIONS OF TIME IN GHEORGHE CRĂCIUN’S WRITING George Crăciun’s novel Compunere cu paralele inegale (Composition With Uunequal Parallel Bars) imbricates four modern variants of the antique story of Daphnis And Chloe. His narrative has a contemporary plot, revolving around the theme of couple relationships, and is located in Romania, in the 1980’s. He organizes his narrative in a pattern consisting of two parallel temporal dimensions which imply opposite meanings of love in order to contrast the „antiquity” of contemporaneous world with the utopia of banality. The Romanian author reinvents the most successful Greek novel of love story according to the sensibility of the modern reader. He keeps the flavor of the original writing, but he intervenes by correcting the obsolete and weak parts of the Greek masterpiece. Gheorghe Crăciun’s erudite and complex Compunere cu paralele inegale is written with an artful style and is meant to be a manifesto against the platitude of the contemporary love stories, by focusing on ideality and depth of feeling. Keywords: Greek novel / modern novel, antiquity / actuality, utopia / banality, intertextuality. Dans sa Composition aux parallèles inégales, Gheorghe Crăciun intercalle quatre épures pour Longos – en fait des réécritures du roman antique Daphnis et Chloé – parmi ses textes qui, inspirés de la réalité immédiate, fixent différentes hypostases de la relation de couple dans la Roumanie des années 1980. Pourquoi avoir choisi l’oeuvre de Longos? Il s’en explique dans le chapitre intitulé Cent quatre-vingt minutes: sur quelques pages de son carnet, Vlad Ştefan, alter ego de l’auteur, avoue sa joie d’avoir découvert le charme idyllique de la pastorale grecque qui fait contrepoids à l’absence d’illusions qui pèse sur les histoires d’amour de notre temps : « Quel choc pour mes attentes d’homme moderne! Voilà un roman d’amour qui sur nous autres, enfants de notre temps, aurait les meilleurs effets. Trop de convulsions, trop de regrets, trop de souffrance chez les amants contemporains! (…) Où est passée la si nécessaire utopie érotique? » Le journal de Crăciun (qui va du 4 août au 2 octobre 1985) confirme son ∗ Chercheur à l’Institut d’Histoire et de Théorie Littéraire « G. Călinescu », Bucarest, e-mail: [email protected] 22 ALEXANDRA CIOCÂRLIE intention de jouer sur deux tableaux temporels empreints d’acceptions opposées de l’amour. Le texte respectif figure dans l’addenda à la seconde édition de la Composition aux parallèles inégales qui a été publiée en 1999. Dans une note datée 21 août, Crăciun envisage de placer à la fin du récit une lettre de Vlad, le narrateur, pour rappeler que « la vie moderne est complètement dépourvue de métaphysique. Une image idéale, idéalisée de l’amour s’imposait. Réécrire le roman antique était un must. » Même réflexion dans une lettre à Mihai Gramatopol (elle sera reproduite dans le journal du 27 septembre) : Crăciun avoue que son intérêt pour Longos « ne doit rien à l’histoire, plus probablement à la typologie ». Ce qu’il voulait c’était donner une place à une autre dimension de l’amour dans « une constellation de proses qui présente un monde actuel de conflits, désarrois, espoirs, insatisfactions et aboutissements, secoué de convulsions y compris sentimentales ». Témoin de « cette absence totale d’idyllisme dans le déroulement des implications de l’amour en version contemporaine », Crăciun, une fois son propre livre fini, sent quelques mois plus tard qu’il doit « construire une métaphysique qui renvoie toute la problématique dans un espace de plus ample résonnance » et décide de traiter « partiellement au moins le truisme de l’amour éternel ». Son choix est dicté précisément par « l’idyllisme naturaliste de Daphnis et Chloé qui lui permettra d’accentuer jusqu’à un paroxysme sublime la condition de l’amour libre des contraintes de la civilisation urbaine ». Les séquences de ses réécritures sont distribuées dans des chapitres séparés : ce sont des interludes glissés dans ce qui existe déjà, censés fonctionner « comme des textes antonymes par rapport à l’aspect contemporain du thème mais aussi comme des lieux géométriques idéaux d’un vécu sur lequel la pression d’un contexte social n’agit que très vaguement ». Les réflexions de l’auteur sur la composition de son oeuvre nous rappellent sans cesse qu’entre les deux paliers de son écriture il y a un contraste qui traduit la problématique de l’amour dans l’Antiquité et dans le monde contemporain. Le 28 août, Crăciun note dans son journal qu’il ne désire pas suggérer un lien direct entre les transpositions du roman grec et les textes de son propre livre, tout ce qu’il veut c’est établir entre les unes et les autres certaines « correspondances infrastructurelles ». On identifie dans le livre pas mal d’images parallèles qui associent, par exemple, la rive vers laquelle Daphnis se dirige en nageant (épure I) et la plage où Dionys attend Téohar (chapitre III) ou encore le nuage que contemple Virgil (chapitre XIII) et celui que Daphnis suit des yeux (épure IV). Ce genre de scènes jettent des « ponts souterrains de situations » et renforcent l’impression de reflet renversé du passé idyllique dans l’actualité avilie. Certains procédés narratifs, le fréquent passage, par exemple, d’un exposé fait à la troisème personne vers un exposé à la Ière voire à la IIe personne sont utilisés dans les deux zones du livre comme pour suggérer une relation discrète et pourtant bien présente. ANTIQUITÉ ET ACTUALITÉ : PERCEPTION DU TEMPS CHEZ GHEORGHE CRĂCIUN 23 Le 13 septembre, Crăciun notait dans le journal une autre justification pour ce savant croisement des deux plans – une stratégie de composition : « Pourquoi ai-je senti le besoin d’insérer ce texte quelque peu bizarre dane le tissu du premier livre? (…) Parce que je devais résoudre un problème de construction. Non point d’architecture du livre mais de métaphysique du thème. » L’auteur pense les épures comme « un lieu géométrique idéal du thème du couple ». Puisqu’il est bien connu que « l’amour, avec toutes ses complications sentimentales, morales, existentielles et sociales obéit aux circonstances historiques », Crăciun compte sur une mise en valeur réciproque des deux paliers de ses textes : « L’actualité sociale de mes couples dans l’univers roumain des années 80 doit être mise en rapport avec la mythologie (littéraire) du couple Daphnis et Chloé. Le couple grec offre le contrepoids, il est un idéal poétique, un dénominateur commun par rapport auquel les autres textes peuvent dévier ou que, dans bien peu de cas, ils peuvent confirmer ». Le 19 septembre, l’auteur du journal revient sur l’explication de l’alternance des chapitres ancrés dans l’actualité avec des épures du roman antique, ces séquences qui ne reflètent que vaguement ses inclinations, ses intérêts réels : « Ce texte ne doit rien à ma nature, à ma perception du réel. Je viens d’apprendre qu’il y a des situations de construction qui vous poussent à écrire contre votre gré. Le livre est né, sorti de vous il s’en est arraché, à partir d’un certain moment son cheminement n’est plus dicté par le plaisir mais par le calcul esthétique ». L’auteur s’expose doublement : au risque de voir se produire des ruptures de lecture dues à la juxtaposition de deux univers incompatibles et à celui de livrer un produit rendu artificiel par le caractère sophistiqué de la composition. Persuadé que pour réécrire le roman de Longos « dans une vision de profondeur qui fasse de l’amour une communion avec le cosmos » il devrait séjourner une année dans l’île de Lesbos, il reconnaît le 7 septembre les limites de son entreprise. Faute d’une documentation aussi sommaire fût-elle, ignorant des éléments du décor, tout ce qu’il peut livrer c’est un « texte livresque, d’atmosphère, superficiel et spectaculaire ». Heureusement, le résultat répond à ses attentes : « Je ne demande pas mieux. Au fond, cette prose-là démontre une idée, un type d’idéalisme, un point c’est tout ». Les épures de Longos étoffent la composition du livre de Crăciun en y ajoutant un nécessaire plan de profondeur. Que la Composition aux parallèles inégales oppose l’Antiquité au présent et l’utopie au prosaïsme, le constat va de soi. Le livre de Crăciun met en valeur l’image idéale du monde grec en contraste avec la réalité environnante. « Craignant de tomber dans la mièvrerie », le journal en parle le 13 septembre, il fait précéder chaque épure d’une citation relative à l’Empire Romain qui, aux IIe et IIIe siècles, englobait l’île de Lesbos où Longos place l’action de son roman. Le premier fragment, tiré de Rome et son destin de Raymond Bloch et Jean Cousin, présente l’histoire du déclin de l’Empire à commencer par Hadrien et jusqu’à Gordien III. Le deuxième appartient à Nigrinos, 15-18, de Lucien et présente 24 ALEXANDRA CIOCÂRLIE Rome comme la cité de tous les vices. Le troisième, tiré de Historia augusta, 25-28, 32, raconte des épisodes de la vie scandaleuse d’Héliogabal, le quatrième, enfin, reproduit la poésie En attendant les barbares de Kavafis. Ces sombres passages sont censés souligner la dépravation de l’époque où Longos a composé sa fiction romanesque. Il y a dans le carnet de Vlad Ştefan une réflexion sur le contraste entre la réalité et sa projection en littérature : « bizarre apparition, par son innocence et sa sérénité, que ce roman dans une période de décadence de l’Empire Romain où le crime, l’abus, la luxure pouvaient passer pour la normalité même ». Si la réalité imaginée par Longos diffère considérablement de l’actualité des années 80 en Roumanie elle n’est pas non plus le miroir fidèle des IIe et IIIe siècles où l’auteur grec place son action. Gheorghe Crăciun sait reconnaître les qualités de Daphnis et Chloé, dont la simplicité et la fraîcheur lui assurent une place de choix entre toutes les oeuvres hellènes similaires, mais il débusque aussi les faiblesses qu’il tentera de ne pas reproduire dans ses épures. Dans son carnet, Vlad Ştefan note ce « vague, inexplicable malaise » du lecteur moderne que ne satisfait pas « le schéma passablement abstrait, parsemé de détails à peine esquissés en vue d’une construction ultérieure ». Paradoxalement, c’est à peine si la nature – qui est pourtant le cadre naturel de l’idylle – est présente dans l’oeuvre de Longos. Autre absence regrettable – « les adjectifs, les accents particuliers » et, surtout, « l’essentiel, la perception ». Quiconque voudrait paraphraser le texte antique devrait se souvenir que « l’amour transforme le monde environnant, que les sens gagnent en fraîcheur, que les sensations deviennent plus violentes et les représentations plus vives ». L’observation se retrouve dans le journal consacré à l’élaboration des épures. Le 27 août, l’auteur dit vouloir composer « un texte opulent, centré sur les vécus des deux jeunes amoureux » vu son intérêt pour l’amour « et tous ses effets et conditionnements sensibles ». Persuadé que « la perception du monde est plus violente quand on aime », il désapprouve que « tant de nuances sont appelées par Longos par leur nom au lieu d’être suggérées ». Le 2 septembre, Crăciun s’aperçoit qu’il s’est engagé « dans un texte de l’opulence sémantique, dans une durée poématique qui doit être générée sans relâche, toujours fraîche » même lorsque « les mots semblent avoir épuisé leurs ressources ». Dans sa lettre à Mihai Gramatopol, Crăciun qualifie son épure de « poème en prose d’une violente sensualité ce qui entraîne la banale observation que les amoureux ont du monde une perception d’une fraîcheur et d’une acuité exceptionnelles ». Schématique, le texte antique appelle une compensation : l’abondance et le concret de sa réplique moderne. Dans son journal de création, l’auteur dit à plusieurs reprises son besoin de reconstituer le monde grec dans ses détails sensibles. Le 21 août, il s’inquiète de ces éléments difficiles à imaginer qui forment le décor antique : nature, vêtements, parler des habitants de l’île. Le 27 août, il déplore une « patente absence » des informations géographiques, botaniques, zoologiques, vestimentaires et sociales relatives à ANTIQUITÉ ET ACTUALITÉ : PERCEPTION DU TEMPS CHEZ GHEORGHE CRĂCIUN 25 l’île de Lesbos aux IIe et IIIe siècles. Le 30 août, il se penche attentivement sur les éléments botaniques et zoologiques éparpillées dans les idylles de Téocrite et constate, satisfait, qu’il avait vu juste : « Mon imagination ne se fourvoie pas trop ». Pourtant, le 13 septembre, il se calme et affirme que les informations fournies par Mihai Gramatopol « lui sont plus ou moins utiles car dans le cas de cette perspective poématique on peut se passer sans trop de mal de la détermination historique-géographique, du cadre et de la mentalité sociale ». Exactes ou pas, les données concrètes pimentent le texte moderne effeverscent qui ravive l’oeuvre antique choisie pour modèle. D’autres défaillances du roman grec sont incriminées par Gheorghe Crăciun. Dans son carnet, Vlad Ştefan inscrit sa déception – qui est celle du lecteur moderne – à savoir un « vice de mentalité » imputable « aux limites de l’époque et des conventions littéraires en vigueur ». Un homme du XXe siècle trouve peu plausible le final du roman de Longos : les héros, des enfants trouvés et élevés par des bergers découvrent leurs parents naturels qui sont des gens aisés ce qui fait que leur bonheur est double du moment que leur mariage coïncide avec une promotion sociale. Cette solution simultanée de tous les ennuis arrache un commentaire ironique à Vlad Ştefan : « Ah, non alors! Voilà ce que j’appellerais la preuve irréfutable du caractère de classe de la litérature! » Le 22 septembre, Crăciun commente dans le journal sa décision de renoncer à l’heureux final conventionnel de Longos: « Mon intention était d’idéaliser un sentiment et non une situation. C’est ce qui fait défaut au monde d’aujourd’hui, une profondeur du vécu individuel, l’authenticité de la participation aux événements de la vie. » Dans Composition aux parallèles inégales il n’est pas question de la brebis, respectivement de la chèvre qui étaient en train d’allaiter les petits lorsqu’ils furent découverts par les bergers. Seules deux allusions sont retenues, relatives à leur origine : dans la première épure, Daphnis se demande à un moment donné si Zeus « n’avait pas sucé, comme lui dans sa petite enfance, le lait de la chèvre Almatéa » et le pâtre Dryas qui avait élevé Chloé refuse les demandes en mariage des prétendants trop communs « car il était trop fier et trop ambitieux pour accepter que Chloé épouse un sans le sou ». A la place du final invraisemblable du roman antique (joies du mariage associées au rétablissement du statut social élevé des protagonistes) l’auteur roumain plaque une version crédible aux yeux du lecteur moderne : c’est Daphnis ayant atteint l’âge de la vieillesse après une existence aventureuse qui l’a entraîné dans maintes pérégrinations à la recherche de sa bien-aimée enlevée par des brigands. Loin d’être une exception, les errances du héros, inexistantes chez Longos, sont monnaie courante dans les romans grecs de l’époque qui finissent par les retrouvailles des héros que toute une série de mésaventures avaient séparés en les jetant dans les coins les plus reculés du monde. Chez Gheorghe Crăciun, l’ex-pâtre revient finir ses jours à Lesbos après avoir été tour à tour tanneur à Smyrne, vendeur de poisson à Sydon, vacher en Thessalie, 26 ALEXANDRA CIOCÂRLIE forain à Pydna ou scribe à Alexandrie. Toute une vie passée à défier les dangers et à parcourir, vainement, le monde à la recherche de celle qui donnait un sens à son être. Rongé par une souffrance infinie il en vient à mettre en doute l’existence réelle de la femme tant aimée, « douloureux fantasme, vision de son coeur palpitant d’espoir, un rêve, un châtiment, une ombre de sa jeunesse perdue : à se demander si elle a jamais existé pour de vrai (…), cette déité suave de tes après-midis de pâtre amoureux, ton immatérielle Chloé! ». Revenu sur sa terre de naissance, le vieux pâtre à qui un commerçant juif de Chypre avait enseigné à écrire entreprend de fixer à jamais son histoire d’amour pour crier à tout va cet « amour qu’aucun autre être sous le soleil n’avait encore vécu ». Au moment historique où Aurélien décide de retirer son armée devant les invasions barbares, le vieux Daphnis efface un palimpseste pour y copier son oeuvre : son geste rejoint par sa symétrie celui de Ştefan qui, dans le premier chapitre, arrache des lambeaux au papier peint de sa chambre pour lire les journaux collés à même les murs. Sans expérience aucune, Daphnis ne sait comment écrire ni pour qui. Lui, qui jusqu’alors « n’avait point imaginé un début à son histoire non plus qu’un cadre pour les faits qu’il voulait raconter » il tâche de faire entrer sa vie « dans des lignes le long desquelles courraient, éternellement assoiffés de l’irrépressible curiosité pour les vies des autres, les yeux de quelque lecteur de nos jours ou, peut-être, d’autres âges ». Bien qu’il « n’eût pas pris le temps de peser le pour et le contre de cette tentative » et qu’il n’eût même pas songé à qui pourrait servir son exemple, il se lance dans cette expérience insolite avec cette seule incertitude : « se pouvait-il que, des années plus tard, cette beauté amère qui bouillonne dans son coeur aille s’épancher sous les yeux d’un homme incapable de comprendre ce que fut son monde, ce que fut sa vie mais qui, en lisant son livre, saurait sans doute possible qu’il avait aimé une fois pour toutes chaque jour de sa vie ». La sagesse transmise à sa descendance semble être : « l’amour est la seule chose sous le soleil qui ne change pas ». Après une évolution plus spectaculaire que toutes les aventures des héros des romans grecs, le personnage-pâtre revêt l’habit de l’auteur d’une histoire d’amour. A retenir que dans le projet de final que Crăciun esquisse dans son journal le 21 septembre, le livre du vieillard revenu à Lesbos – entre temps il était devenu grand-père – devait offrir une vision de l’amour proche de celle que présentaient les esquisses sur les couples vivant dans la Roumanie des années 80: « Les noveaux personnages qui peupleront l’histoire de Daphnis ressembleront par leurs traits à Teohar, Vlad, Ştefana, Sena, Luiza, Dania etc. A rappeler quelques vérités inconfortables sur les femmes et l’amour. Au cas où l’épouse de ce Daphnis vieilli est Chloé même (…) elle ne sera point trop différente de la Xantipa de Socrate ». Le projet est abandonné et Daphnis, le personnage qui présente des amours dégradées, sera assimilé à l’auteur même du livre Composition aux parallèles inégales. ANTIQUITÉ ET ACTUALITÉ : PERCEPTION DU TEMPS CHEZ GHEORGHE CRĂCIUN 27 Outre les points faibles du roman de Longos qu’il signale dans les notes théoriques de son livre et dans le journal de création, Gheorghe Crăciun tâche de corriger un autre point du texte grec qui n’est pas susceptible d’emporter l’unanimité chez les modernes. Dans ses épures il renonce, sans commenter son option, au rhétorisme excessif dont le goût de l’époque avait marqué le roman de Longos. Rien dans la version roumaine ne rappelle la préférence appuyée des personnages pour les monologues et discours savamment orchestrés non plus que la construction artificielle qui repose sur des symétries de répliques et situations où abondent les oppositions, les parallélismes, les reprises. La variante moderne de Crăciun brille par son ton naturel là où le roman grec grinçait par une expression souvent recherchée et artificielle, par sa composition tributaire des règles des écoles de rhétorique. Une note du carnet de Vlad Ştefan suggère que, dans la vision du personnage-auteur, quoique « la réécriture du roman de Longos puisse s’éloigner beaucoup du texte originaire », elle devrait utiliser, « comme de vieilles briques dans une muraille neuve, certains fragments de la traduction de Petru Creţia ». Et aussi, elle pourrait inclure des passages d’autres auteurs grecs, citations, légèrement adaptées à l’esprit du texte actuel, avec « une discrète intégration, là où c’est possible, dans le tissu du récit ». L’intention d’insérer dans son ouvrage des fragments des oeuvres antiques est notée dans le journal le 28 août avec la précision que « cette réécriture absorbera, ça et là, des citations des textes antiques ». Les notes de Vlad Ştefan révèlent, dans une énumération succinte, simple liste des noms, les principales sources employées : Empédocle, les hymnes orphiques, Aristophane, Sophocle, Mimnerme. Un défi légèrement moqueur est lancé aux lecteurs rouspéteurs : « Hé, vous qui êtes à l’affût du plagiat, quelle aubaine! » Telle lecture attentive aux sources du texte – avec délimitation des passages visés et indication des références exactes – peut donner une idée de la savante construction des épures composées avec une apparente aisance par le disciple roumain de Longos. Régi par la dernière phrase de l’introduction de Longos « puisse le dieu nous aider à écrire les amours des autres d’une pensée sereine », le volume Composition aux parallèles inégales repose dans son ensemble sur un subtile et compliqué enchevêtrement d’allusions livresques chères à la génération de 80, adeptes du postmodernisme. Sans signaler les emprunts, les quatre épures englobent – avec de légères adaptations – des passages pris à la traduction du roman de Longos par Petru Creţia et, aussi, des fragments d’autres écrivains grecs. La première de ces séquences renferme la plus fidèle reprise de la narration de l’épos grec avec des épisodes spectaculaires tel l’enlèvement de Daphnis par les pirates et son sauvetage grâce au chant de Chloé auquel obéit le bétail chargé sur le bateau. Dans la version moderne, les pensées de Daphnis étendu sur le sable reproduisent les considératios d’Empédocle sur le lien qu’il y a entre l’inspiration / respiration et la circulation du sang (frg. 275-299 Karsten). 28 ALEXANDRA CIOCÂRLIE L’épisode de Chloé réveillée par une hirondelle qui poursuit un grillon est rendu dans les mots de Longos, chapitre I, 26. Le monologue de la jeune fille qui découvre les premiers symptômes de l’amour reprend partiellement le passage I, 14 de la version roumaine du roman. L’arrivée des pirates tyréniens est dite avec quelques phrases du chapitre I, 32 du livre de Longos. Le chant de Chloé à la gloire des nymphes est l’hymne orphique XLVIII même et les réflexions du captif Daphnis sur la précarité de la vie humaine incluent le fragment Diels 2 d’Empédocle. A la fin de la première épure, les considérations sur les pouvoirs d’Eros, le plus fameux larron, se superposent sur la dernière phrase du premier chapitre de Daphnis et Chloé. Le même mécanisme d’insertion des citations antiques dans sa propre narration est appliqué à d’autres sections adaptées par Gheorghe Crăciun. Dans la deuxième épure, il reprend les paroles de Philétas sur l’omnipotent Eros du chapitre II, 7 du roman de Longos. Plus tard, il introduit dans la prière de Daphnis – qui supplie la maîtresse des mers de lui rendre Chloé que les jeunes métymniens avaient enlevée – un passage de l’hymne orphique XXI consacré à Thétys. L’invitation aux oiseaux à contempler le miracle des retrouvailles des deux amoureux est incluse dans un fragment du chant de la houppe qui appartient aux Oiseaux, 226-262, d’Aristophane. La troisième épure contient un hymne à la gloire du tout-puissant Eros qui reprend en fait un fragment de l’Antigone, 781-791, de Sophocle. Le dernier chapitre, enfin, reproduit quelques vers de l’élégie de Mimnerme qui mesure l’écoulement de l’existence humaine à la durée de la brève saison fleurie. Les pensées de Daphnis sur l’effroyable possibilité de perdre Chloé reprennent une partie du chant d’Alcman qui exprime l’aspiration de se transformer en une mouette qui vole. Même technique des citations incises dans la séquence qui décrit la vieillesse de Daphnis. Désireux de mettre par écrit l’histoire d’amour, le personnage utilise un parchemin dont il efface les réflexions d’Empédocle sur l’action conjointe des deux principes universels, l’Amour et la Discorde (Diels, 17). Dans la rétrospective des aventures de Daphnis sont citées, lorsqu’il évoque son expérience de scribe en Alexandrie, les maximes qu’il a tirées de Sophocle et qu’il a transcrites lui même (« La fortune n’aide pas ceux qui manquent de courage » ; « Les insensés ignorent qu’ils tiennent le bien entre leurs mains avant qu’il ne leur échappe »), d’Aristote (« L’espoir est le rêve de celui qui est éveillé ») ou des préceptes de la Bible (« Celui qui prend garde au vent ne sèmera point et celui qui regarde les nuées ne moissonera point » – Ecclesiaste, 11; « L’herbe est séchée et la fleur est tombée; vraiment le peuple est comme l’herbe » – Esaie, 40). Enfin, la dernière phrase de l’épure, qui clôt d’ailleurs le livre, reprend les mots de Longos de l’introduction traduite par Creţia : « Car nul n’a échappé tout à fait et n’échappera jamais à l’amour tant qu’il y aura de la beauté au monde et des yeux pour la voir ». Pour paraphraser le roman grec, Gheorghe Crăciun a mis en oeuvre tout un échafaudage de références littéraires fondues dans le tissu d’un récit entraînant dans lequel les bouts d’antiquité ne déparent nullement. ANTIQUITÉ ET ACTUALITÉ : PERCEPTION DU TEMPS CHEZ GHEORGHE CRĂCIUN 29 Partie intégrante des épures, les citations des classiques sont mises à contribution dans les chapitres qui parlent des amours des années 80 pour souligner, on dirait, le côté dépréciatif du contexte. Au chapitre X, dans le carnet de Vlad Ştefan le célèbre « Eheu fugaces » de l’ode II, 14 d’Horace exprime cette fois la mélancolie du personnage qui se rappelle que c’est l’anniversaire de sa femme. Dans une lettre qui dénonce l’illettrée, l’héroïne D. écrit à son play-boy Relu un vers de Plaute (Asinaria, 495) dans la forme déformée « homini homo lupi ». Au chapitre XIII, l’invitation kitsch au mariage de Graziella et de Tiberiu – qui contient l’expression « si vis amari ama » de l’épître IX de Sénéque à Lucilius – est commentée ironiquement par Virgil par la formule du même Sénéque « de gustibus non disptandum ». Dans tout ce qui a trait a la réalité contemporaine, les mots des écrivains antiques semblent creuser le fossé entre l’expression élevée et la réalité prosaïque. Pour la Composition aux parallèles inégales l’Antiquité n’est nullement un élément décoratif, elle participe de l’essence même du livre. L’auteur roumain réécrit le meilleur roman d’amour grec en prenant en compte la sensibilité d’un lecteur moderne : il en garde la saveur et la fraîcheur originales et en corrige les faiblesses et les côtés désuets. Véritable auteur d’un travail d’orfèvre, Gheorghe Crăciun compose avec érudition et virtuosité stylistique un texte complexe qui fait contrepoids à ce qui lui apparaît comme la platitude des histoires d’amour contemporaines pour les parer de profondeur et d’idéalité. This paper is suported by the Sectorial Operational Programme Human Resources Development (SOP HRD), financed from the European Social Fund and by the Romanian Government under the contract number SOP HRD/89/1.5/S/59758 LE TEMPS DANS LE CID DE CORNEILLE JOAQUINA LANZUELA HERNÁNDEZ* À mes amis roumains Toutes les choses ont leur temps. Il y a temps de naître, et temps de mourir. Il y a temps de pleurer, et temps de rire ; temps de s’affliger, et temps de sauter de joie. Il y a temps pour la guerre, et temps pour la paix. (Ecclésiaste, chap. III) TIME IN CORNEILLE’S LE CID While writing the tragicomedy Le Cid, Pierre Corneille (1606-1684), who is closely following the irregular drama Las Mocedades del Cid of Guillén de Castro, is forced to remove various scenes and characters in order to adapt it to the rules of the classical dramaturgy, especially to the rules regarding the time unit. Thus, the work gains in terms of concentration and internalization as regards the Spanish model. The time destructs the glorious past and the generational mix allow the perpetuation of the race and the survival of the heroism, relating thus the past, the present and the future. The time has such an important role in Le Cid, because the characters are transforming during the action, being transformed in heroes in the service of the king, of the people, of the country. Keywords: The Kid, time, heroism, concentration, classical dramaturgy. Pierre Corneille (1606-1684) a écrit Le Cid à la fin de 1636. Cette pièce a été représentée avec un grand succès au théâtre du Marais, au début de l’année suivante. Corneille s’était inspiré d’une œuvre espagnole publiée en 1618, Las Mocedades del Cid (« Les jeunesses du Cid ») de Guillén de Castro (1569-1631). Au XVIIe siècle, la littérature espagnole était très à la mode en France. Des commerçants espagnols avaient gagné les côtes de la Normandie et s’y installèrent. A Rouen, ville natale de Corneille, s’étaient établis plusieurs d’entre eux qui, probablement, furent découvrir Las Mocedades del Cid à Pierre Corneille. Un exemplaire était en possession de Corneille quand il décida d’écrire Le Cid. * Professeur de littérature et de langue française à la Faculté de sciences sociales et humaines de Teruel, Université de Zaragoza; e-mail: [email protected] JOAQUINA LANZUELA HERNÁNDEZ 32 1. L’unité de temps Au milieu du XVIe siècle, les théoriciens français, suivant la Poétique d’Aristote, connue par le truchement des commenteurs italiens de la Renaissance, commencèrent à élaborer toute une série de règles, qui seront recueillies dans le célèbre Art Poétique de Boileau en 1674. Les principales d’entre elles – pour ne citer que celles-ci – étaient les règles des trois unités : de lieu, de jour – comme on disait alors – et d’action. Boileau lui-même écrivait dans le poème dédié à la Tragédie : Nous voulons qu’avec art l’action se ménage ; Qu’en un lieu, qu’en un jour, un seul fait accompli Tienne jusqu’à la fin le théâtre rempli. Chant III (vv. 44-46) Les écrivains français de cette époque devaient adapter leurs œuvres aux exigences de la dramaturgie française élaborée par les “doctes”. En ce qui concerne l’unité de jour, la tragédie enfermait l’action entre le lever et le coucher du soleil, par contre, dans la tragi-comédie, qui ne comprenait pas la règle de l’unité de temps avec la même sévérité que la tragédie, l’action pouvait commencer au milieu d’une journée et finir au milieu du jour suivant. C’est le cas de la tragi-comédie de Le Cid cornélien, modifiée en tragédie en 1648, par la concurrence de la tragédie. Le théâtre espagnol, qui était beaucoup plus libre que le français, n’observait pas les règles. L’action, dans Las Mocedades del Cid, s’étendait dans l’espace de dix-huit mois, par contre, dans Le Cid, bien de personnages épisodiques, bien de scènes qui se trouvent dans le modèle espagnol, ont disparu. Corneille a simplifié l’action de son œuvre et l’a réduite à quelques données essentielles, parmi lesquelles se trouvent : la querelle entre les parents de Chimène et Rodrigue et le duel qui ont lieu dans le cours d’un après-midi ; la bataille de toute une nuit que Rodrigue livre aux Maures ; finalement la victoire sur l’ennemi, qui se produit à l’aube, conduit le roi Fernand à prendre la décision de faire de Rodrigue le héros national. L’unité d’action, pour ne citer que celle-ci, doit se plier aux éxigences de l’unité de temps (Lanzuela, 1988 : 63-70). 2. La rélève générationnelle. Le temps qui passe Mais Pierre Corneille ne se contente pas d’observer avec plus ou moins de rigueur les règles de la dramaturgie française, il otorgue au temps un rôle très important qui sert à mettre en relief la destinée des hommes et surtout celle du principal protagoniste, Rodrigue. Le Cid commence dans une atmosphère de comédie, ou si l’on préfère, “comme un conte de fées” (Vignes, 1994 : 96). Rodrigue et Chimène s’aiment avec le consentiment de leurs pères. Mais une dispute sur les privilèges aristocratiques LE TEMPS DANS LE CID DE CORNEILLE 33 fait éclater le drame. Le comte Gormas, père de Chimène, soufflette par jalousie don Diègue, père de Rodrigue, qui vient d’être nommé précepteur du prince et cette offense faite à son honneur va mettre fin à cette idylle romanesque. Voilà comment le problème de la temporalité fait son irruption dans la pièce. Ce soufflet inattendu représente le déshonneur qui annihile, qui flétrit, dans un instant, le passé glorieux de don Diègue. Et s’il fut la même vertu, La vaillance et l’honneur de son temps… Le Cid, Acte II, scène 2, (vv. 399-400) il est aujourd’hui un vieillard offensé, humilié, outragé dans le plus profond de son âme, qui crie son désespoir : O rage ! ô désespoir ! ô vieillesse ennemie ! N’ai-je donc tant vécu que pour cette infamie ? Et ne suis-je blanchi dans les travaux guerriers Que pour voir en un jour flétrir tant de lauriers ? Acte I, scène 4, (vv. 237-240) Le sentiment douloureux qui naît de la prise de conscience de la fragilité de la condition humaine, menacée sans cesse par le temps qui passe, reapparaît, resumé, quelques vers plus loin : O cruel souvenir de ma gloire passée ! Œuvre de tant de jours en un jour effacée ! Ibid. (vv. 245-6) En effet, “l’homme n’existe que dans le temps, il est, à chaque instant, remis en question dans son être”, nous dit Serge Doubrovsky (1963 : 90-1), qui reconnaît par la suite, “devant la suprématie impitoyable du présent et l’annihilation de l’être par la durée, le noble vieilli est alors perdu, entraînant dans la chute et le déshonneur non seulement son passé individuel, mais celui d’une race ou lignée”. Bien sûr, la solution ne se fait pas attendre. Le vieux don Diègue, dans le crépuscule de sa vie, s’adresse à son fils, en qualité de successeur de cette noble race ou lignée dont il est issu, en lui disant : Viens, mon fils, viens, mon sang, viens réparer ma honte ; Viens me venger. Acte I, scène 5, (vv. 266-7) Et, puisque le déshonneur souille toute la lignée, les descendants, il insiste encore, toujours par l’emploi de la répétition anaphorique, sur cette double idée, c’est-à-dire la rélève générationnelle et la vengeance pour réparer le déshonneur familial : JOAQUINA LANZUELA HERNÁNDEZ 34 […] Venge-moi, venge-toi ; Montre-toi digne fils d’un père tel que moi. Accablé des malheurs où le destin me range, Je vais les déplorer : va, cours, vole et nos venge. Ibid., (v. 287-290) Et Rodrigue, avant de courir à la vengeance, avant d’envisager une issue à ce conflit psychologique, provoqué par le coup imprévu du destin malheureux, exprime son désespoir, partagé qu’il est entre le devoir et l’amour, dans un long monologue de stances lyriques qui rompt avec la monotonie de l’alexandrin et dont la fonction est de mettre en relief la douleur qui l’atteint : Percé jusques au fond du cœur D’une atteinte imprévue aussi bien que mortelle, Misérable vengeur d’une injuste querelle, Et malheureux objet d’une injuste rigueur, Je demeure immobile, et mon âme abattue Cède au coup qui me tue. Acte I, scène 6, (vv. 291-296) Corneille nous fait assister à un second conflit psychologique qui vient confirmer, en même temps, la forte charge dramatique de ces scènes et les observations de la critique sur l’intériorisation de l’action dans Le Cid, par rapport à son modèle espagnol. Notre auteur – écrit Gustave Lanson (1954 : 67) – a su “placer les événements hors du temps et de l’espace, dans le cœur humain”. Bien sûr, “dans Le Cid, tout se passe dans le cœur et dans l’âme des jeunes gens. Corneille a bien vu que l’intérêt profond de l’histoire résidait dans le combat psychologique et moral que les personnages doivent d’abord livrer contre eux-mêmes” (Curial, 1990 : 25). Nous y ajoutons les observations que sur le temps dans l’Iliade, madame Andreea Vladescu a exposé dans le cadre de cette Conférence internationale, organisée à Bucharest en 2011. Pour elle, “En tant qu’intermède chronologique psychologique, le temps subjectif n’est pas seulement celui du débat philosophique sur la condition humaine, mais aussi celui des moments d’un profond lyrisme des grandes tensions intérieures, prises sur le vif”, En effet, le temps est la synthèse de la condition humaine, le sens même de tout conflit psychologique. Le jeune Irlandais Samuel Beckett, en faisant l’adaptation du Cid cornélien, a bien compris l’énorme importance que possède le temps dans cette pièce. Dans The Kid un énorme horloge décorait la scène. Tandis qu’un don Diègue burlesque, représenté par Samuel Beckett lui-même, prononçait un discours incohérent, un jeune Rodrigue, pressé, faisait virer les aiguilles d’un gigantesque horloge (Thibaudet, 1989 : 12). Les horloges sont les émissaires d’information. D’après Norbert Elias, dans Über die Zzeit (1989 : 24), les horloges sont des réalités physiques que les hommes font et disposent pour que, LE TEMPS DANS LE CID DE CORNEILLE 35 d’une façon ou d’une autre (par exemple les aiguilles d’un cadran) restent incorporés à leur monde symbolique. Sans aucun doute, l’énergie de la nouvelle génération remplace une génération qui manque de l’énergie nécessaire à l’action. La tombée du jour dans Le Cid, comme d’ailleurs minuit ou une heure dans The Kid, sont des points de référence dans le devenir de hommes, des points du temps qui marquent l’existence, le destin des individus. Il nous faut constater que la rélève entre générations revêt un double aspect : elle est d’abord familiale, car Rodrigue, digne successeur de son père, est aussi l’héritier d’une race, d’une lignée, dont l’héroïsme se perpétue à travers les générations. Serge Doubrouvsky (1963 : 91) considère que Rodrigue “opère, par miracle, la synthèse de l’individualité et de la race, du passé et du présent, rouvrant aussi, du coup, la dimension, un instant fermée, de l’avenir”. Rappelons encore les paroles de don Diègue, “Viens, mon fils, viens, mon sang, viens réparer ma honte” (v. 266), ou encore celles-ci, où don Diègue reconnaît la continuité de cette hérédité : Ma valeur n’a point lieu de te désavouer : Tu l’as bien imitée, et ton illustre audace Fait bien revivre en toi les héros de ma race : Acte III, scène 5, (vv. 1028-1030) Mais elle est aussi sociale, car la mission de Rodrigue, après avoir lavé le deshonneur de son père, de sa race, dans le sang de son adversaire, est de remplacer le Comte dans son rôle de général jusqu’alors invaincu des armées de Castille. Et cette seconde rélève, la rélève sociale, se produit dans le cadre d’une société aristocratique qui est au service du roi, du peuple et du pays. La victoire de Rodrigue sur le Comte, qualifée de “coup d’essai” (v. 431), doit se transformer, par la défaite des Maures, dans un coup de maître. Et le vieux don Diègue, dont le passé est signe de sagesse et d’expérience, projette l’action de Rodrigue dans une dimension sociale et historique, en l’encourageant à porter “plus haut le fruit de [sa] victoire” (v. 1053), Ton prince et ton pays ont besoin de ton bras. La flotte qu’on craignait, dans ce grand fleuve entrée, Croit surprendre la ville et piller la contrée. Les Mores vont descendre, et le flux et la nuit Dans une heure à nos murs les amène sans bruit. La cour est en désordre et le peuple est en alarmes On n’entend que des cris, on ne voit que des larmes. Acte III, scène 6, (vv. 1072-1078) Encore une fois, c’est don Diègue qui prend l’iniciative. Lejealle et Dubois, dans Notice, qu’ils ajoutent à son édition du Cid (1970 : 17) remarquent que le vieil homme “fait de Rodrigue le chef de l’expédition contre les Mores, JOAQUINA LANZUELA HERNÁNDEZ 36 pour montrer au souverain que la sécurité du royaume n’est pas mise en péril par la mort du Comte et que le pays a trouvé un nouveau chef militaire qui vaut bien l’ancien”. On constate dans Le Cid, à côté de la présence du temps qui fuit, l’énorme pression que celui-ci exerce dans la vie du vieux don Diègue, qui, avec l’insistance qui le caractérise, s’adresse encore une fois à Rodrigue dans les termes suivants : Viens, suis-moi, va combattre, et montrer à ton roi Que ce qu’il perd au Comte il le recouvre en toi. Ibid., (vv. 1099-1100) 3. Le symbolisme du temps et la lutte des contraires Dans une pièce, comme celle du Cid, où l’action s’enferme dans l’espace de vingt-quatre heures – ou presque –, les différentes intrigues se succèdent très rapidement. Pierre Corneille en est très conscient et dans son Examen de 1660 écrit : “Je ne puis dénier que la règle des vingt et quatre heures presse trop les incidents de cette pièce”. Les nombreuses indications temporelles de la pièce “un moment”, “un instant” sont des expressions temporelles qui évoquent la rapidité, la brièveté avec laquelle se déroulent les événements de la pièce. Ainsi nous l’indiquent les paroles de l’Infante, qui “au moment malheureux que naissait leur querelle” (v. 454) de Chimène, répond pour la consoler : Un moment l’a fait naître, un moment va l’éteindre. Acte II, scène 3, (v. 462) ou l’exclamation de don Fernand devant l’insistance de Chimène qui demande une seconde fois justice au roi, juste au moment où Rodrigue vient de livrer bataille aux Maures, mais aussi devant l’impatience de don Diègue qui ne veut plus différer la querelle : Sortir d’une bataille, et combattre à l’instant ! Du moins une ou deux heures qu’il délasse. Acte IV, scène 5, (v. 1447 et 1449) En ce qui concerne le passage des Maures, Corneille reconnaît dans son Examen, que “leur défaite avait assez fatigué Rodrigue toute une nuit pour mériter deux ou trois jours de repos. […] Le roman lui aurait donné sept ou huit jours de patience avant que de le presser de nouveau ; mais les vingt et quatre heures ne l’ont pas permis. C’est l’incommodité de la règle”. Dans Le Cid les distances temporelles entre les actions, les actions mêmes se mésurent en heures. En ce sens, Robert Brasillach (1938 : 101) nous dit : “Je connais LE TEMPS DANS LE CID DE CORNEILLE 37 peu de pièces où les heures soient mieux indiquées que dans Le Cid”. Ces notations nous permettent de cerner les accumulations des événements et par conséquence l’inévitable décalage entre le temps réel et le temps fictif de la pièce. Parfois, quelques heures suffisent à delimiter le temps d’une action qui se prolonge pendant toute la nuit. C’est le cas du combat de Rodrigue contre les Maures et que l’Infante réduit à “trois heures” (v. 1107), signifiant par là, le commencement, le milieu et la fin du combat. Trois sont aussi les étapes essentielles pendant lesquelles la vie de Rodrigue se transforme. La tombée du jour coïncide non seulement avec le crépuscule de la vie de don Diègue et avec la mort du Comte, mais aussi avec les débuts de Rodrigue, de cet obscur et inconnu personnage jusqu’alors, qui doit se plonger dans la nuit et l’eau, pour devenir, à l’aube, à la sortie du soleil, le héros resplandissant de gloire que le peuple, en joie, acclame. Le héros se réalise le long de la pièce et son action est en harmonie – comme on verra tout de suite – avec les forces d’ordre cosmique, célestes et aquatiques. Les signes indicateurs de la présence du temps qui passe acquièrent de plus en plus dans Le Cid un sens plus symbolique que réel. Si le temps est hostile au début de la pièce, parce qu’il “change le bonheur en malheur”, tel est le cas, par exemple, – même si nous sommes dans la tombée du jour – de cette “nuit si sombre” (v. 1013), qui correspond avec l’intériorisation du temps dans le cœur de don Diègue et qui est en parfait accord avec son état psychologique et animique, à la fin de la pièce, au contraire, le temps “permet la solution progressive des problèmes” (Scherer, 1984 : 49). Les actions dans Le Cid s’encadrent, d’autre part, dans une conception de l’univers, constitué par une série de forces bipolaires, antithétiques, qui alternent de façon cyclique. Dans les vers suivants, où l’on voit reapparaître les forces humaines ennemies, les Maures, et les forces naturelles de caractère cosmique, la nuit et le flux, réunies, Cette obscure clarté qui tombe des étoiles Enfin avec le flux nous fait voir trente voiles ; L’onde s’enfle dessous, et d’un commun effort Les Mores et la mer montent jusques au port. Acte IV, scène 3, (vv. 1273-6) l’oxymore, obscure clarté, représente l’harmonie et la confrontation de deux manifestations complémentaires et alternantes, connues sous le nom de coincidentia oppositorum. Sans aucun doute, d’après Mircea Eliade, (1971 : 308) “les différents types de bipartition et polarité, de dualité et d’alternance, des dyades antithétiques et de coincidentia oppositorum se rencontrent partout dans le monde, et à tous les niveaux de la culture”. Ce célèbre écrivain Roumain, a souligné, à plusieurs reprises, (1981: 171-3 et 1952 : 234) que dans la conscience archaïque les symboles ont une tendence à 38 JOAQUINA LANZUELA HERNÁNDEZ se grouper par une série de correspondances, d’analogies qui forment un réseau de structure cosmique, où il n’existe rien d’isolé et où tout dépend de tout. Et Gilbert Durand, qui suit de très près les recherches de l’historien des religions dans les Structures anthropologiques de l’imaginaire (1984 : 40-1), emploie de préférence les termes de convergence et de constellation des symboles. “La méthode de convergence – dit-il – tend à repérer de vastes constellations d’images à peu près constantes et qui semblent structurées par un certain isomorphisme des symboles convergents”. Ou encore, “Les symboles convergent parce qu’ils sont des développements d'un même thème archétypal, parce qu’ils sont des variations sur un archétype”. Dans Le Cid, les archétypes des Maures, de la nuit et du flux combinés, convergent dans un isomorphisme commun, le devenir temporel. “Les ténèbres nocturnes – écrit Gilbert Durand – constituent le premier symbole du temps […] la nuit noire apparaît donc comme la substance même du temps” (98). D’autre part, Gaston Bachelard (1985 : 122-3), qui voit, comme Héraclite, la mort dans le devenir hydrique, précise que l’eau absorve la substance noire des ténèbres et de claire qu’elle était, devient une eau stymphalisée, même ophélisée, qui invite à la mort. Voilà ce qui conduit à G. Durand (104), lecteur de Bachelard, à préciser que “l’eau est l’épiphanie du malheur du temps”. L’eau, beaucoup plus que les ténèbres de la nuit, est l’élément du mouvement, de l’instabilité, de la fluidité et cette fluidité ténèbreuse, qui cache et porte les ennemis jusqu’au port, représente le danger qui jette une partie des habitants de Séville dans un état moral dépressif. Les Maures, la nuit et le flux, en tant qu’alliés de la temporalité et de la mort, engendrent dans la conscience de l’homme de tous les temps des sentiments tels que la peur et l’angoisse, l’alarme et les larmes, parce qu’ils sont, en definitive, – d’après Gilbert Durand – (71 et ss.), les “visages du temps destructeur”, les porteurs du chaos, de la dévastation et de la mort. Reprenons encore une fois les vers cités plus haut, Ton prince et ton pays ont besoin de ton bras. La flotte qu’on craignait, dans ce grand fleuve entrée, Croit surprendre la ville et piller la contrée. Les Mores vont descendre, et le flux et la nuit Dans une heure à nos murs les amène sans bruit. La cour est en désordre et le peuple est en alarmes On n’entend que des cris, on ne voit que des larmes. Acte III, scène 6, (vv. 1072-8) Mais en face de cette réalité biologique universelle qui fait que dans des situations conflictives certains groupes sociaux (Elias : 164) répondent par une réaction d’alarme et un comportement de fuite, il existe un autre groupe, élévé dans l’autodiscipline et le contrôle de ses sentiments, préparé pour affronter le danger, pour verser même leur sang, au nom d’un devoir supérieur de service au LE TEMPS DANS LE CID DE CORNEILLE 39 roi et de défense de l’empire. Le courage, l’énergie de Rodrigue et ses amis, qui ne trouvent point d’obstacle, leur attitude héroïque sont les ressorts physiques et moraux dont ils se servent pour affronter, repousser et finalement dominer les visages de la temporalité dévastatrice. Ceux-ci sont combattus au nom d’un devoir supérieur, mais aussi au nom d’un désir de survivance et de recherche de transcendance. “Il s’agit – nous dit Gilbert Durand (134) - de mettre ces visages du temps destructeur hors d’état de nuire et pour cela il faut les affronter, les combattre, les repousser, en définitive, les dominer”. Cette énergie positive, qui contrôle et maîtrise les différents aspects du régime nocturne de l’image, justifie l’apparition des symboles du régime diurne de l’imagination. C’est ainsi que les visages de la temporalité et de la mort s’éloignent pour laisser leur place aux forces de signe contraire. Rodrigue relate au roi l’éloignement de ces vieux ennemis. Bien sûr, l’apparition de la lumière est une victoire sur les ennemis (Leeuw, 1964: 58) : Et ne l’ai pu savoir jusques au point du jour. Mais enfin sa clarté montre notre avantage : Le More voit sa perte et perd soudain courage ; Acte IV, scène 3, (vv. 1308-1310) Et il continue : […] leur frayeur est trop forte : Le flux les apporta ; le reflux les remporte, Ibid., (vv. 1317- 8) Ces forces du régime diurne de l’image, telles que la lumière et le reflux, qui poussent les vieux ennemis à la fuite, sont l’expression de la vie, de la victoire, du bonheur et de la joie. À partir du moment, où la situation a complètement changé, un renversement des sentiments se produit qui fonctionne dans un double sens, la joie pénètre dans les cœurs qui étaient attristés et la frayeur et l’épouvante s’emparent des ennemis qui fuient en désordre. “Quand vient le jour, – écrit Bachelard (140) – les fantômes sans doute courent encore sur les eaux. Vaines brumes qui s’effilochent, ils s’en vont… Peu à peu, ce sont eux qui ont peur. Ils s’atténuent donc, ils s’éloignent”. L’une des caractéristiques les plus notables du comportement des symboles est leur ambivalence. De même que la nuit contient en germe dans son sein la lumière d’un nouveau jour, l’eau, qui était une substance de mort, devient, avec la lumière du jour, “une substance de vie” (Bachelard : 99). Elle se présente aussi comme une eau lustrale, baptismale qui lave les fautes de Rodrigue pour faire de lui un homme nouveau. Don Fernand, lui-même, constate, que “Les Mores en fuyant ont emporté son crime” (v. 1414). Dès lors il s’appellera non seulement le Cid – beau titre d’honneur qui signifie en arabe, Seigneur – mais aussi “l’ange tutélaire et le libérateur” (v. 1116) de la ville. JOAQUINA LANZUELA HERNÁNDEZ 40 En résumé, c’est par la présence du coup malheureux du destin, que le temps fait son apparition dans Le Cid. C’est ainsi que les protagonistes de la pièce prennent conscience de la présence du temps qui passe. Il change le bonheur en malheur, il détruit le passé glorieux de don Diègue et de toute sa lignée. La solution au problème de la temporalité se trouve dans la continuité du “sang”. La rélève des générations perpétue la race, la survivance de l’héroïsme, elle permet de relier le passé au présent et à l’avenir. Dans Le Cid, tragi-comédie adaptée à la règle de l’unité de temps, les nombreux répères temporels nous laissent envisager les accumulations des événements et l’inévitable décalage entre le temps réel et le temps fictif. Ces notations servent à encadrer les actions qui gagnent, par rapport à son modèle espagnol, en rapidité et en brièveté, mais aussi en concentration et en interiorización et dont les conflits psychologiques, si nombreux dans la pièce, en sont un exemple. Mais notre auteur met aussi l’accent sur ce double mouvement alternatif de caractère universel, régulataire des phases successives du cycle vital qui passe sans cesse de la nuit au jour, du flux au reflux, de la mort à la nouvelle vie. Chez Corneille, les forces d’ordre cosmique et les forces de nature humaine ne sont pas indépendantes entre elles, mais solidaires. Tous les répères temporels de nature cosmique qui existent dans Le Cid, à savoir : la tombée du jour ou le soir, la nuit, l’aube ou le point du jour, ainsi que le flux et le reflux de l’eau maritime et fluviale, correspondent, dans un isomorphisme commun, avec le destin des individus, les sentiments des hommes et les événements non seulement sur le plan individuel, mais aussi social et historique. Et à cet égard, les recherches de Mircea Eliade, de Gilbert Durand et de Gaston Bachelard nous ont servi de point d’appui pour la réalisation de notre travail sur le temps dans Le Cid. D’autre part, et pour conclure, nous sommes d’accord avec les affirmations prononcées par la critique cornélienne, que nous rappelons à la suite. Les protagonistes chez Corneille sont animés par un élan “qui les pousse à s’élèver vers les hauteurs” (Adam, 1970 : 58), vers la grandeur même. Si le temps est un facteur essentiel chez Corneille, c’est parce que ses protagonistes sont en train de se réaliser et ils se réalisent toujours dans l’action. Sans aucun doute, “ils ont une histoire et ils changent au cours de l’action” (Herland, 1952 : 67). Corneille fait de ses personnages le long de son œuvre, de grands héros, des capitaines, des saints (Lagarde & Michard, 1970 : 106), comme il arrive avec Rodrigue, devenu le héros national, surnommé le Cid, et l’ange tutélaire de la ville. BIBLIOGRAPHIE Adam, Antoine (1970), Le théâtre classique, Paris, PUF. Bachelard, Gaston (1985), L’eau et les rêves. Essai sur l’imagination de la matière, Paris, José Corti. Brasillach, Robert (1938), Corneille, Paris, Arthème Fayard. LE TEMPS DANS LE CID DE CORNEILLE 41 Curial, Hubert (1990), Le Cid. Corneille, Paris, Hatier. Doubrovsky, Serge (1963), Corneille et la dialectique du héros, Paris, Gallimard. Durand, Gilbert (1984), Les structures anthropologiques de l’imaginaire. Introduction à l’archétypologie générale, Paris, Dunond. Eliade, Mircea (1971), Nostalgie des origines. Méthodologie et histoire des religions, Paris, Gallimard. *** (1981), Tratado de historia de las religiones. Morfología y dialéctica de lo sagrado, trad. par A. Medinaveitia, Madrid, ed. Cristiandad. *** (1952), Images et symboles. Essais sur le symbolisme magico-religieux, Paris, Gallimard. Elias, Norbert (1989), Sobre el tiempo, Trad. par Guillermo Hirata, Madrid-Buenos Aires, Fondo de Cultura Económica. Herland, Louis (1952), Horace ou la naissance de l’homme, Paris, Les éditions de Minuit. Lagarde & Michard (1970), XVIIe siècle, Paris, les éditions Bordas. Lanson, Gustave (1954), Esquisse d’une histoire de la tragédie, Paris, Librairie Honoré Champion. Leeuw, G. van Der (1964), Fenomenología de la religión, trad. par Ernesto de la Peña, México, FCE. Lejealle, L. et Dubois, J. (ed.) (1970), Corneille. Le Cid, tragi-comédie, avec une Notice biographique, une Notice historique et littéraire, des Notes explicatives, une Documentation thématique, des Jugements, un Questionnaire et des Sujets de devoirs. Paris, Nouveaux classiques Larousse. Scherer, Jacques (1984), Le théâtre de Corneille, Paris, Nizet. Vignes, Maria (1994), Corneille. Biographie, étude de l’œuvre, Paris, Albin Michel. ARTICLES Lanzuela, Joaquina (1988), “Le Cid y la unidad de tiempo: modificaciones diversas”, dans Studium. Filología, nº 4, Colegio Universitario de Teruel, pp. 63-70. Thibaudat, Jean-Pierre (1989), “Beckett s’est tu”, dans Libération, le 27 décembre, pp. 12-15. Vladescu, Andreea (2012), “Temps objectif / temps subjectif dans l’Iliade”, Faculté de Langues et de Littératures étrangères de Bucharest, le 11 novembre, 2011. AUTHOR AND HERO (GREGORY THE THEOLOGIAN, BASIL THE GREAT) IOANA COSTA* Gregory the Theologian wrote an outstanding panegyric devoted to his lifelong friend, Basil the Great, some years after death had separated them. This eulogy, built as a biographical account, is actually a bifrons portrait of their friendship, meant to continue beyond the end of their earthly life. Just as the enduring monuments of the Christian acts they accomplished prolonged their human presence for the rest of the world, their harmonious affection for each other is to guarantee the transfer to the perennial life, as an undividable unit – of human beings and saints. Keywords: panegyric, saints, friendship, authorial ego, portrait, hero, death. Saint Basil the Great (330 – January 1st, 379) and Saint Gregory the Theologian (or Saint Gregory of Nazianzus, 329-389/390) constantly appear to be a unitary presence, either as Cappadocian Fathers (together with the younger brother of Saint Basil, Saint Gregory of Nyssa, 335 – post 394), or as The Three Great Hierarchs (together with Saint John Chrysostom, 347-407). The panegyric 1 Saint Gregory composed, entitled Eis ton Megan Basileion epitaphion, belongs to the last years of his life, coming almost one decade after the death of Saint Basil. The writing definitely draws two distinct characters, with individual biographical evolution – and displays, nevertheless, the aura of a unique great friendship, lifelong accomplished and lasting far beyond life. They were about the same age and during the years of their adolescence were present together in Athens, as disciples of the masters living here, both of them making efforts to define themselves in Christian and human coordinates. The Athenian episode (“the kindling spark of our union”, par. 17) is emblematic for each of them separately and, above all, for transforming them into a dual unit, emulating the mythical pair of Orestes and Pylades, or the Molionides. Their harmony is a reminiscent of the chamber with well-built walls and golden pillars of Pindar’s * Professor of Classical Philology, University of Bucharest, [email protected]. 1 For the Latin text of the Panegyric, vide Sources Chrétiennes (nr. 384): Grégoire de Nazianze, Discours 43, in: Discours 42-43, Jean Bernardi (ed.), Cerf, Paris, 1992, p. 116-307; the Romanian translation I accomplished is to be published in the collection PSB (Părinţi şi Scriitori Bisericeşti), Editura Basilica, Patriarhia Română; the English translation is available at: http://sttakla.org/books/en/ecf/207/2070069.html. 44 IOANA COSTA verses (par. 20), is a perpetual competition for the second position, leaving the preponderance to the other one: none of them wished for himself the winning prise, but strived fiercely to be the second, as each of them considered his friend’s glory as his own glory; it seemed that one and only spirit was setting in motion two bodies and, even if not all elements were in all, they proved that one was in the other and one was beside the other. They were both endeavouring to the same aim: virtue in the terrestrial life and hopes for the future life, for which were perpetually preparing themselves, actually living beyond mortality while still on earth. They became to each other stimulus for virtue and rule of living, criterion for discerning right from wrong. Their friendship was simultaneously harmonising two distinct (though alike) characters, choosing the same path in life, assuming Christian faith, facing adversities, accepting earthly departure and hoping for the final reunion. The discourse known as “Oration XLIII”, the funeral oration on the great Saint Basil, Bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia, is a delicate and trustful portrait of the deceased; though a real panegyric, the discourse does not remain inside the borders of maximal eulogy. The biographic account is packed with vivid episodes, brought back to life by the recollections of Saint Gregory that functions here not only as a speaking witness, but also as participant or, in dramaturgical terminology, a co-protagonist or deuteragonist. Step by step, from one paragraph to another, the two portraits are more and more clearly defined, from the years of the beginning, the adolescence, in a similar space, belonging to comparable family data and geographical surroundings, to the years they studied in Athens, having as background the confrontation with the Aryanism. The end of the earthly life came earlier for Saint Basil: his friend remained a little more, languishing for the heavenly reunion. Considered as a literary text, the panegyric includes the two characters in the most relevant parts of the oration, in the extremities. The opening is to be read as a captatio beneuolentiae, but the dominant note is theorising the subject chosen for the discourse, as a confirmation of oratorical ability: just as, during his entire life, Saint Gregory used to submit to the oratorical exigencies of his friend (who expected that his writings were more brilliant than his own, par. 1), he accepts now this final test, of choosing as topic the friend himself. The greatness of the chosen character imposes the excellence of performing: the author is overwhelmed by the task assumed. Nonetheless, he elegantly draws a bow: the panegyric is the necessary accomplishment of a duty (par. 1), knowing that a master of the discourse ought to be eulogized by a discourse; the topic equals the qualities of the orator, that would desire nothing else for putting his talent to test; accomplishing this duty is a joy for himself and a stimulus for those around him, as model of virtue. Beyond the two characters (hero and author-hero) is to be contemplated the declared purpose: exhortation to virtue. No matter the oratorical qualities of the opusculum (and this is, again, a literary topos of AUTHOR AND HERO (GREGORY THE THEOLOGIAN, BASIL THE GREAT) 45 captatio benevolentiae), once accomplished, the panegyric gains beneficent consequences: getting closer to the greatness of its topic, its aim is fulfilled or, by contrary (which is plausible when eulogizing a person like Saint Basil, par. 1), by its own failure, proves that the subject is far beyond words. In the other margin of the discourse (par. 82), the touching account of the final moments Saint Basil lived on earth and of his funeral is the closure of the gift offered him by the friend who stood beside him lifelong, in the same ambience, aging together, step by step, from early youth till the end. If the gift was not worthy, the lonely friend should not be blamed, as he carries the burden of old age, of weakness, of loneliness and longing: his sadness will only be dissipated when meeting again his friend, in the heavenly realms. Until then, it remains unanswered the final question of the panegyric, rising echoes throughout centuries and individuals: “who will there be to praise us, since we leave this life after thee, even if we offer any topic worthy of words or praise in Christ Jesus our Lord, to Whom be glory forever?” (par. 82). The author uses scarcely the name of the protagonist: it appears only six times. Not without relevance, there is a seventh occurrence in par. 10, regarding the father of Saint Basil the Great and, also, an eighth occurrence, in a plural form, depicting a special variety of admiration, in a mimetic way: “so you might see many Basils in outward semblance, among these statues in outline, for it would be too much to call them his distant echo: for an echo, though it is the dying away of a sound, at any rate represents it with great clearness, while these men fall too far short of him to satisfy even their desire to approach him” (par. 77). Whenever appears, his name is accompanied by the surname “great”, that finally becomes part of his standard identification, “Basil the Great”: par. 1, 16, 27, 56; his name does not have the adjoined element in par. 63 and 82 (the last one being a direct approach, in vocative case, by the end of the panegyric); in paragraph 10, devoted to his father, the name is analyzed in its lexical meaning, with precise emphasis on the grandeur: “who has not known Basil, our archbishop’s father, a great name to everyone”. For all the other instances of referring to Saint Basil, the approached modality is as simple as possible, either by using a pronoun or a demonstrative, or implying the equally unadorned and unspectacular term anér: “the man”, “this man”, “our man”, e.g. par. 23, 28, 70, 79. Here and there, the term is completed by the epithet “noble”: on the other hand, “noble” is to be found alone as reference to the character (e.g. par. 29). Another appropriate epithet is „saint” (par. 55) or, in an ampler wording, „the holy man of God however, metropolitan as he was of the true Jerusalem above” (par. 59); „this saint” is the appellation in par. 80. Paragraph 24 includes a precise though unexpectedly rare term, covering the bond between author and hero of this panegyric: „my friend”. The portrait of Saint Basil the Great is accomplished in two perspectives: direct knowledge, which places on the same level the author of the panegyric 46 IOANA COSTA and all the persons he addresses this opusculum, and, skilfully inserted into this background, elements of biographic realities that open to the literature of ancient world. The author gracefully alternates the angles, in a texture so dense that an intentional arrangement is almost imperceptible: the famous examples of classical works and characters come up naturally, as part of a human life. Just as biography and literature are convoluted, the author and co-protagonist (deuteragonist) are one and the same. The friend speaking in front of those living around him brings to the surface memories that many of his contemporaries found in their own past; the memories are brought to life and increased from individual to common recollection, become profound in Christian sensitivity and are fed by ancient culture. From the very beginning to the end, from the biography of the ancestors to the grandiose spiritual standing of the saint, each trait is revealed by references to sacred and ancient texts. From their first encounter in Athens to the final reunion beyond death, each trait finds its resonance in the life of the friend that is speaking now. Athens had brought them together just “like two branches of some river-stream, for after leaving the common fountain of our fatherland, we had been separated in our varying pursuit of culture, and were now again united by the impulsion of God no less than by our own agreement” (par. 15); driven by God’s will, they were together there and remained as one and single unit, even when life pushed them apart, in remote spaces. The two portraits are shedding light on each other, in vivid episodes scattered all life long, from their adolescence when everything needed to be studied, to the settling of sentiments and knowledge by the age of maturity and, finally, to the wise age. Shyly considering the crossroads of his own life, Saint Gregory contemplates his friend, admires him increasingly and wishes even more to reach the realm he always desired: kept aside by adverse circumstances, he is “inclined to ascribe all the inconsistency and difficulty which have befallen [his] life” to “the hindrances in the way of philosophy, which have been unworthy of [his] desire and purpose” (par. 25). He recognizes without a shadow of doubt: “this is the source of all the inconsistency and tangle of my life; it has robbed me of the practice, or at least the reputation, of philosophy” (par. 59). From the text of this oration emerge, completely stated, the reasons that transform Saint Basil into a paradigm – for all around him, during his lifetime and long after that, mostly for Saint Gregory: in a circular construct, he is legitimating this way the panegyric itself when saying “he was a standard of virtue to us all […] nor have I thought that to praise him befitted any other more than me” (par. 2). Both necessary and legitimate, the oration needed a prolonged gestation period, largely clarified by the author, both in common knowledge and personal motivation. He only arrived at this point, long after many others eulogised, publicly and privately, the beloved memory of Saint Basil, mostly as he had to prepare himself for a proper homage: “my first reason was, that I shrunk from this task […] as priests do, who approach their sacred AUTHOR AND HERO (GREGORY THE THEOLOGIAN, BASIL THE GREAT) 47 duties before being cleansed both in voice and mind” (par. 2). Taking a bow to the memory of Saint Basil could be considered, mainly in these opening paragraphs, as a modality of preparing the tangible public, the persons that were about to listen to him; he rendered an oration that minutely elaborated, using the tools he perfectly wielded, as recognized all the people that knew him and were acquainted with the friendship of the two masters of words. Bringing closer this detail, Saint Gregory immediately re-establishes the respectful distance, in a graceful balance between friendship and admiration: “I must now proceed with my eulogy, commending myself to his God, in order that my commendations may not prove an insult to the man, and that I may not lag far behind all others; even though we all equally fall as far short of his due, as those who look upon the heavens or the rays of the Sun” (par. 2). The entire text is deliberately censored, in order to obey the oratorical exigencies of the distant author, id est Saint Basil the Great: both character and spiritus mouens for the concrete author of the panegyric, Saint Basil continues to exist as part of a unity composed by two beings, acting as dynamic monoliths. The spiritual community of mind, already suggested in the opening paragraphs, becomes a palpable reality as oration proceeds: the author and the hero are permanently exchanging their roles, subtly, almost unwillingly, without claiming public complicity, only by unfolding the biographical threads, touching the Christian faith and building the wording volutes. One example: just after the episode devoted to the parents of Saint Basil (par. 10), the immediate author turns back to the hero of the panegyric, asking for his support in finding the proper words: “we only need his own voice to pronounce his eulogium. For he is at once a brilliant subject for praise, and the only one whose powers of speech make him worthy of treating it”. Topic and oratorical model, Saint Basil was the only one capable of writing a proper eulogy for a personality like himself: “The praise, then, which I shall claim for him is based upon grounds which no one, I think, will consider superfluous, or beyond the scope of my oration”. The idea stated here on a theoretical basis is to be found by the end of the oration (par. 60), when considering the text in the light of high criteria, as those Saint Basil taught: “I am afraid that, in avoiding the imputation of indifference at the hands of those who desire to know all that can be said about him, I shall incur a charge of prolixity from those whose ideal is the golden mean; for the latter Basil himself had the greatest respect, being specially devoted to the adage ‘in all things the mean is the best’, and acting upon it throughout his life”. While alternating the two authorial approaches (shyness and superiority), Saint Gregory blurs his presence assuming the role of second to his character, being created by his own hero of the oration. Self-inflicted shyness is always counterbalanced by the confidence in the proper accomplishment of his task, of his duty toward the friend he venerated and to whom stayed firmly aside: “I am anxious, and seize this opportunity to add from my own experience somewhat to 48 IOANA COSTA my speech, and to dwell a little upon the recital of the causes and circumstances which originated our friendship, or to speak more strictly, our unity of life and nature; […] so do we linger in our description of what is most sweet to us” (par. 14). Stylistic constraints are repeatedly worded, explicitly, just as if the author discusses his own text with someone capable of understanding the subtle texture: this collocutor could not be anyone else but the hero himself, physically (and naturally) absent, but robustly present from all the other possible perspectives: “I feel that I am being unduly borne away, and I know not how to enter upon this point, yet I cannot restrain myself from describing it; for if I have omitted anything, it seems, immediately afterwards, of pressing importance, and of more consequence than what I had preferred to mention; and if any one would carry me tyrannically forward, I become like the polyps, which when they are being dragged from their holes, cling with their suckers to the rocks, and cannot be detached, until the last of these has had exerted upon it its necessary share of force” (par. 19). Talking about his friend, the hero of the panegyric, the author constantly speaks about himself. The result is strongly visible when commenting an unwanted detour, eulogy of himself transformed in eulogy of his hero, indefinitely multiplying their bonds: “I have been unawares betrayed into praising myself, in a manner I would not have allowed in another. And it is no wonder that I gained here in some advantage from his friendship, and that, as in life he aided me in virtue, so since his departure he has contributed to my renown” (par. 22). The final three paragraphs (80-82) are the accomplishment of the itinerary Saint Gregory attentively prepared from the first words. The natural ending, biographically predictable (the ultimate moments, the saint body carried by the grieving people, that did not want to accept his departure, struggling to touch the garments or at least his shadow), is the rising of voice in the lonely weeping of the one left behind on earth, as a sad half of a once harmonious unity of two spirits: “I, Gregory, who am half dead, and, cleft in twain, torn away from our great union, and dragging along a life of pain which runs not easily, as may be supposed, after separation from him, know not what is to be my end now that I have lost my guidance” (par. 80). This loneliness inside the long-ago monolith – their perfect friendship – could become a stimulus for bringing closely together a community, transferring the bond of two persons into a manifold connection, as Saint Gregory is asking everybody to join him, glorifying the memory of Saint Basil and living in Christian spirit: “Come hither then, and surround me, all ye members of his choir, both of the clergy and the laity, both of our own country and from abroad; aid me in my eulogy, by each supplying or demanding the account of some of his excellences; […] all men will […] praise him who made himself all things to all that he might gain the majority, if not all” (par. 81). Unfolding the whole oration, Saint Gregory turns over himself a constantly severe glance: from time to time, he softens his severity by accepting the limitation AUTHOR AND HERO (GREGORY THE THEOLOGIAN, BASIL THE GREAT) 49 brought by the age. The panegyric is put under the sign of recollection and old age, the remembrances of Saint Basil and weakness of Saint Gregory: “our feelings […] worn out with age and disease and regret for thee” (par. 82). Tribute and incentive, his friend remains for him the thorn in the flesh, given by God, and his own commemoration is to become a new stimulus and a new model. Author and hero are a unit, the roles are performed at turn and the levels are spectacularly interweaved, from biographic episodes regarding one or the other, to philosophical and institutional authority, from assuming teachings to foundation of love. BIBLIOGRAPHY Grégoire de Nazianze (1992), „Discours 43”, in Jean Bernardi (ed.), Grégoire de Nazianze, Discours 42-43, Cerf, Paris, pp. 116-307. Gregorio di Nazianzo (2000), „Orazione funebre per il grande Basilio”, in Claudio Moreschini (ed.), Tutte le Orazioni, Bompiani, Milano, pp. 1030-1121. CONFUCIUS AND FEMINISM LUCIANA IRINA CĂRĂMIDĂ (VĂLUŢANU)∗ Feminists have always criticized the treatment of women determined by Confucianism but the relationship between Confucianism and Feminism should be reconsidered in the light of the entire socio-political context of the time. In the early Confucian writings, the Masters of Confucianism did not explicitly put women in a subordinate position. When we judge whether women are inferior to men, we must take into account the fact that, in a patriarchal and highly hierarchical society, not only women but all members had their fixed and clear roles. The flourishing of the didactic literature for women in a period of vigorous thriving of Neo-Confucianism can be interpreted as a wish of control coming from the leading authorities but, at the same time, can be a sign for the gradually growing power of women. Indirectly women were recognized as a mass of people that could influence the well being of an entire society, from the family level to the top. Keywords: Confucianism, feminism, re-interpretation, didactic literature for women, roles, gender. For the specialists in Confucianism, the juxtaposition suggested by the title of this presentation would have been unimaginable before the 1990s, when the first studies1 on the philosophical affinities between Confucianism and feminism were written. Their authors made significant progress in respect to the work of their predecessors2, effectively breaking the ground for research into the feminine issue of the Confucian ethics and philosophy from completely different perspectives. They attempted to counterbalance the image created by a plethora of scholars, that of a stereotypical woman forever subjugated, powerless, silent and obedient. The theme of the universal oppression of women in ancient China and Japan during the Tokugawa period has known several variations (Raphals, 1998: 1-2), from the sociological to the cosmological and not least, to the philosophical. Both the Chinese and the Japanese social systems were obviously patrilineal and patriarchal, based on the separation of influence and power zones – women traditionally belonged to the “interior”, that is the domestic area, while men were associated with the “exterior”, that is with governance and business. A ∗ Drd., University of Bucharest, Department of Cultural Studies, e-mail: [email protected] ; this article represents a slightly modified version of an article published before. 1 Chenyang Li, 1994, Henry Rosemont, Jr., 1997, Terry Woo, 1998, Tu Wei-ming, 1998, Karyn Lai, 2000, Sandra A. Wawrytko, 2000, Kelly James Clark and Robin Wang, 2004, Jing Yin, 2006, Xinyan Jiang, 2009. 2 Li Yu-ning, 1992, Dorothy Ko, 1994, Susan Mann, 1997, Lisa Raphals, 1998. LUCIANA IRINA CĂRĂMIDĂ (VĂLUŢANU) 52 social organisation of this type implicitly meant women were excluded from public life and deprived of legal rights, from the freedom to dispose of their own bodies and possessions to the ultimate interdiction to use their names. The cosmological grid built around the Yin-Yang principles and used to justify the inferior position assigned to women within family and society has known a progressive evolution: at first, gender analogies emphasised a complementary difference between female and male, then the nuances opposing the two principles developed, and in the end, the order became explicitly hierarchical. This last phase has come to dominate, and ultimately annihilate, the previous tradition. The philosophical and ethical version of this theme was attributed to Confucianism, which, a fact admitted even by its staunchest defenders, undeniably led to a consolidation of woman’s inferior position as wife, mother or daughter within a markedly hierarchical society. Beginning with the 1990s, the studies focusing on the life and role of women in Chinese and Japanese societies have taken a fresh turn motivated by the desire to achieve balance within the “woman persecuted by man” model, which until then presented a unilateral view of the negative influence of Confucian doctrine on the female status. With their more moderate approach, several articles3 made the transition to a new style of research. Chinese historian and philosopher Hu Shi, through an article entitled “Women’s Place in Chinese History” (1931), counts as one of the first critics of the Confucian tradition who raises this issue, but, at the same time, suggests that women have nevertheless managed to find themselves a very well defined place “within family, society and history”, ruling over men and governing empires, contributing to the world of art and literature and educating their sons. (“If she has not contributed more, it was probably because China, which certainly has treated her ill, has not deserved more of her”) (Hu 1931: 15). Lin Yutang (1939: 139) considers that the gender difference advocated by Zhu Xi, by which the “correct position” of the husband outside the home and of the wife inside it were prescribed, is not necessarily an attempt at creating a hierarchy, but more of a need resulting from a better division of labour. (“Confucianism also gave the wife an “equal” position with the husband, somewhat below the husband, but still an equal helpmate, like the two fish in the Taoist symbol of yin and yang, necessarily complementing each other”) (Lin, 1939: 139). In his opinion, the issue of women in China, oppressed by men or not, presents two major aspects – on the one hand, there is clear evidence in the Neo-Confucianism of the Chinese Song and Ming Periods and in the Japanese Tokugawa Period which attests to the different treatment given to men and women in society; on the other hand, Lin is one of the first researchers to state the supremacy held by women within the 3 Hu Shi, 1931, Lin Yutang, 1939, Priscilla Ching Chung, 1981, Richard Guiso, 1981 CONFUCIUS AND FEMINISM 53 family, which, he argues, would make their deprivation of social rights simply “unimportant/irrelevant”. Richard Guiso (1981: 60), too, despite his criticism of Chinese classical texts, which accepted tacitly or even perpetuated female stereotypes in a patriarchal society, acknowledges the respect shown to “elderly”, “wise” or “experienced” women. Nevertheless, as noted by Chenyang Li (2000: 7), the one who truly held power in the family of the Confucian world was the “mother”, not the “woman”, and this type of influence cannot, in fact, be compared to that wielded by men. As regards studies on women from the upper classes, we mention the one written by Priscilla Ching Chung (1981), which stresses the prestige and power attributed to palace women of the Northern Song Dynasty. Following these works we call “transitional” in the research on women, there came a trend in which scholars reconsidered Confucian values, reinterpreted them in the light of new philosophies and gave novel meanings to classical excerpts, thus highlighting ideas that would, in fact, have led to a better position for women. Li Yu-ning (1992) stresses the importance assigned by Confucianism to equal education and self improvement regardless of social origin and gender. Dorothy Ko (1994) analyses the privileged status held by educated women in the 18th century and the important role allotted to the “mother” and “wife” ruling the destinies of a family. Ko tries to explain a complex phenomenon manifested at the level of the elites, by which women actively embraced and internalised Confucian values in order to pass them onto the next generations. Susan Mann (1997), in her study on educated women during the Qing Dynasty (1683-1839), identifies writing not only as a weapon to defend values, but also as a means for them to gain respect and individual satisfaction. Thus, Mann gives them an important and well-deserved position, challenging a century and a half during which Chinese radicals and Western missionaries viewed women as “victims” of a “cultural tradition”. In her book Sharing the Light, Lisa Raphals (1998) offers representations of women as agents of “intellectual, political and ethical virtues”, by analysing the “biographies of exemplary women”. Despite the fact that these didactic texts had been written with the explicitly stated intention of disseminating the Confucian moral lifestyle at all social levels, they also prove “what women are capable of”, meaning their power acknowledged and sometimes feared by men. With these works the foundations of, some would think, even more “daring” approaches are being laid, which end up juxtaposing Confucianism and feminism, in an attempt to rehabilitate this school of though, to adapt this cultural tradition to social and political changes. Some authors highlighted the similarities between the two schools of thought. Chenyang Li (1994) focuses on the aspects shared by the feminist ethics of compassion, of altruism and the Confucian jen ethics, and demonstrates that both exhibit a similar understanding of the self as social construct, that both lie 54 LUCIANA IRINA CĂRĂMIDĂ (VĂLUŢANU) a heavy stress on situational moral judgement rather than on judgement based on principals and also that both advocate the importance of compassion in ethics. The concept of jen and that of “compassion” are equally centred on the system of human relationships. Confucianists as well as feminists see the human being as social, integrated into a system in which it occupies a referential place. Li borrows arguments from the feminist perspective on compassion and quotes the opinions of consecrated authors, such as Carol Gillian and Nell Noddings, in order to support the affinity of these two “philosophies”, as he calls them. Li identifies the “feminist” grain in early Confucianism, which, in his opinion, should go back to Confucius and Mencius in order to do away with the later additions and amendments brought throughout history to the concept of “female gender”, under the influence of various political and philosophical systems. Like all the other authors who have attempted a parallel between these schools of thought pertaining to different epochs and apparently placed in complete opposition, Li also sees them as complementary, remarking on the reciprocal “help” they could provide in order to acquire new nuances. In his essay “Classical Confucian and Contemporary Feminist Perspectives on the Self: Some Parallels and Their Implications” (1997), Henry Rosemont Jr. draws a parallel between classical Confucianism and contemporary feminism and brigs arguments in favour of a reconstruction of Confucian philosophy on a new basis, which would inevitably comprise a vision of the equality between genders adapted to the modern world. Terry Woo (1998) suggests, with examples taken from the writings of Confucius and Mencius, that the two were “indulgent supporters” of traditional norms of sexual segregation and exacerbated masculine authority, rather than “misogynists” as they have often been labelled. She sees feminism in its active form, as the necessary force in the struggle for equal rights. She cannot avoid noticing the irreconcilable differences between Confucianism and feminism, but at the same time she points out their common principles: an equal opportunity for education and an attitude of flexibility and openness. She also offers a solution for the future – “an appropriation of jen and a better understanding of the history of Confucianism might offer a sense of cultural recovery” (Woo, 1998: 138) to Chinese as well as Western feminists. Tu Wei-ming (1998) is yet another prominent scholar who researched the subject, trying to bring more proof of the acknowledged necessity to establish a dialogue between Confucianism and feminism. Within the frame of the discussion on “the five essential relationships” mentioned explicitly in the writings of Mencius and “the three subordinations of women”, Tu Wei-ming discusses the “separation between husband and wife” based apparently on the reciprocity principle, in view of a better division of labour. A wife’s patience and obedience are interpreted as signs of great inner strength and not of weakness, and the author sees woman as equal to man precisely by virtue of her capacity to adapt and to manipulate silently. CONFUCIUS AND FEMINISM 55 The majority of these texts have their roots in a common tenet, namely a return to the founders of Confucianism, Confucius and Mencius, who, in their turn, preached a rediscovery of the ancestors and a valorisation of lost meanings. The reinterpretation of classical texts in the light of new realities has been considered necessary for formulating the hypothesis on which all modern scholars of classical Confucianism rely, namely that the fathers of Confucianism never openly expressed an oppressive attitude towards women. Yet nor did they advocate the idea of gender equality, mainly because they lived in a patriarchal society which appeared to have already devised a clear place and role for each of its members. Their neutral attitude in this respect is also a subject of discussion, given the sparse reference to women in their works. “The Analects” have been analysed from many angles and there is even a statistics on the frequency of certain words in the text. One aspect scholars view as revealing is the fact that “woman” appears only twice and never in direct reference to her status. The fragment which is behind Confucius’ image as sexist (17:25) has known countless interpretations: (“Only nüzi and petty people are hard to rear. If you are close to them, they behave inappropriately; if you keep a distance from them, they become resentful.”) (Ames and Rosemont Jr., 1999: 17-25). The word used to refer to women is nüzi (the characters for “woman” and “child”), and its interpretations have led to all manner of conclusions. Those who read simply “women” underlined Confucius’ defamatory attitude towards this gender. Others, among whom Chinese linguist Wang Li, took zi, which means “child/children”, as an adjective to nü, the resulting compound word meaning not “women” in general, but “girls”. Other interpretations seeking to eliminate the sexist note replaced “women and small/unimportant people” with “servants, both female and male”, but this particular decoding is seen as straying too much from the text’s original meaning. Others consider that women are compared to “unimportant people” (the characters for “small” and “man”), allegedly the opposite of the Confucian ideal of the “superior man”, and the accusation that “they are difficult to nurture/cultivate” – yet another meaning ascribed to this word – would indeed be serious, were we to analyse the philosophical and pedagogical dimensions of “nurturing” (in the sense of “nurturing the mind”), since it would lead to the obvious conclusion that women lack the ability to grow spiritually and intellectually. James Legge, the famous translator of The Analects, felt the need to clarify this term and he said it was a reference to “concubines” rather than to women in general. He could not help himself from not noticing that “we hardly expect such an utterance, though correct in itself, from Confucius” (Legge, 1935: 330). Nevertheless, there are some nuances that would give new meanings to the fragment: Confucius would say that it is “difficult” to cultivate women, not that such a task is impossible, and seeing that he considers the journey to self-cultivation as intrinsically difficult, there would be no discrimination between women and men, who face LUCIANA IRINA CĂRĂMIDĂ (VĂLUŢANU) 56 similar challenges. The complexity and ambiguity of this excerpt, the multitude of interpretations possible at all levels – semantic, ideological etc. – lead us to the conclusion that the scholars who took into consideration only the sexist aspect oversimplified things in the general context of the Confucian view on gender, created by successive additions throughout history. The other fragment in which Confucius refers to women is also considered suffused with discrimination between genders. (“Shun had five ministers and society was well managed. King Wu said, “I had ten able people as ministers.” Confucius said, “Is it true that it is difficult to find talent? The Tang-Yu period was a high time for talented people. [Among King Wu’s ministers] there was a woman; so there were only nine people.”)4 This was taken by scholars as proof of Confucius’ belief in woman’s inferior status. Even though King Wu counted a woman between his most trusted councillors, thus placing that woman on an equally footing with men, Confucius was keen on correcting his attitude and this is the reason why he said there were only nine people worth mentioning. Such textual debates can continue endlessly but it is important to mention that in the late years different approaches appeared. Some contemporary scholars, like Xinyan Jiang (Xinyan, 2009), see in this fragment that, on the contrary, Confucius admits woman’s ability to become involved in official matters, building their interpretation on very early comments on the text. Huang Kan (488-545) considers that the “woman” Confucius speaks of could be King Wen’s mother, whom he admired and wished to singularise in this way. It is universally accepted that the founders of Confucianism were not the ones who produced this discriminatory vision of women, but later developments of this ethical and philosophical system, notably Neo-Confucianism, which effectively sealed women’s fate. In the works by Confucius there is no mention of the three subordinations of woman, which place her successively under the authority of her father, her husband and her son. However, Confucius’ antifeminist inclinations were considered evident from the fact that he had no female disciples among his followers. But this can also be explained due to the hierarchical structure of the gender relations in the society of his time. We consider that the key to the reinterpretation of the classic texts in relation to the new feministic approaches is Tu Wei-ming’s remarks that we shouldn’t forget there always was a major difference between the social and cultural practice and the Confucian teachings. One clear example to support this affirmation can be found in the didactic literature for women, written in China starting from the Han dynasty and which spread in all the other countries that went under the influence of Confucianism. Illustrated didactic books played an important role in establishing social norms and behavioural ideals, the tracts for girls were meant to stimulate 4 The Analects 8.20 in the translation of James Legge. CONFUCIUS AND FEMINISM 57 moral values by praising exemplary models and also supported a patriarchal ideology. They expressed a perceived necessity to conceptualize the female gender but the question is whether the portrayals of women in these texts offered as accurate and natural representations of the women as they really existed. Why did this kind of literature flourish in a period when Neo-Confucianism was at its peak? Was didactic literature responding to a recent change based in part on women increasing access to work outside the home and increasing knowledge gained from literacy? Another supposition meant to sustain this theory is that these developments in the lives of common women were so potentially disruptive to the ideal order conceived of by ruling elites that severe admonition was necessary. And here we go back to the remark of Tu Wei-ming who understood the discrepancy between reality and the Confucian principles. Tu Wei-ming also recognized the feminist potential of Confucian thought in that “unlike other spiritual traditions, there is no theoretical limitation within Confucianism against educating women or against training generations of women Confucian masters. The tradition does not impose any constraints on this” (Tu 1984: 62). It is true that, for example, in Japan, the secularization of education was virtually completed before the end of the 17th century and according to Dore and the best available data, something like 40 per cent of Japanese men were literate by the end of the Tokugawa period but only 10 per cent of Japanese girls “were getting some kind of formal education outside of their homes” (Dore 1965 : 254). Tokugawa education indoctrinated all levels of society, both men and women, with the goal dictated by Neo-Confucianism to serve the family, the group that one belonged to and ultimately, the country. The relationship between feminism and Confucianism has long been one-sided, with feminists criticizing the status of the women conferred by Confucianism, but recent research tried to contextualize it and discover other aspects related to the socio-political reality of that time. Confucianism cannot be blamed for discriminating women in a patriarchal society in which women’s subordination is seen as necessary for the whole hierarchy. It is worth mentioning that the fixed roles were not assigned only to women, but every member of the society should have known his place and should have behaved accordingly. It is said that the function of any philosophy is contextually determined and Confucianism is not an exception. That is why recent research on the classical books tried to redeem the subordinate status of women in Confucianism, “as their inferiority, at least as shown in the texts, is seen as contingent and functional rather than innate and biological” (Sin 2000: 165). The Confucianism made use of different means for disseminating its conception and one of them was the didactic literature. One majore part of this kind of writing was dedicated to women because the Confucianist thinkers considered necessary that women should be educated and instructed about the family matters. Feminists judged those texts as discriminatory and restrictive, but, at the same time, they re-evaluated and appreciated them for their educative value, even if limited to the domestic realm. The encounter between the Confucianism and feminism enriched them reciprocally and criticism was important and benefic for both of them. LUCIANA IRINA CĂRĂMIDĂ (VĂLUŢANU) 58 BIBLIOGRAPHY Roger T., Ames, Henry Rosemont Jr., (1999), The Analects of Confucius: A Philosophical Translation, Ballantine Books, New York. Chung, Priscilla Ching (1981), “Power and Prestige: Palace Women in the Northern Sung (960-1126)”, in Richard W. Guisso, Stanley Johannesen (ed.), Women in China: Current Directions in Historical Scholarship, Philo Press, Youngstown, New York, pp. 99-112. Clark, Kelly James, Robin Wang, (2004), “A Confucian Defense of Gender Equity”, in Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 72, 2, 395-422 Dore, R. P. (1965), Education in Tokugawa Japan, University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles. Guisso, Richard W., Stanley Johannesen (ed.) (1981), Women in China: Current Directions in Historical Scholarship, Philo Press, Youngstown, New York. Hu, Shi (1931), “Women’s Place in Chinese History”, in Li Yu-Ning (ed.), Chinese Women Through Chinese Eyes, M.E. Sharpe, Armonk, New York. Ko, Dorothy (1994), Teachers of the Inner Chambers: Women and Culture in Seventeenth Century China, Stanford University Press, Stanford. Legge, James (1935), The Chinese Classics, vol. 1, vol. 2, Shanghai: Oxford University Press, reprint Hong Kong University Press, Hong Kong. Li, Chenyang a. (1994), “The Confucian Concept of Jen and the Feminist Ethics of Care: A Comparative Study”, Hypatia: A Feminist Journal of Philosophy, 9:1 Li, Chenyang b. (2000), “Introduction: Can Confucianism Come to Terms with Feminism?”, Chenyang Li (ed.) The Sage and the Second Sex: Confucianism, Ethics, and Gender, Open Court Publishing Co., Illinois. Lin Yutang (1935), “Feminist Thought in Ancient China”, Li Yu-ning (ed.), My Country and My People, The John Day Company, New York. Mann, Susan (1997), Precious Records: Women in China’s Long Eighteenth Century, Stanford University Press, Stanford. Raphals, Lisa (1998), Sharing the Light: Representations of Women and Virtue in Early China, The State University of New York Press, Albany, New York. Rosemont Jr., Henry (1997), “Classical Confucian and Contemporary Feminist Perspectives on the Self: Some Parallels and Their Implications”, in Douglas Allen (ed.) Culture and Self: Philosophical and Religious, East and West, Westview Press, Boulder, Colorado. Sin Yee Chan (2000), “Gender and Relationship Roles in the Analects and the Mencius”, in Asian Philosophy: An International Journal of the Philosophical Traditions of the East, 10:2, 115-132. Tu, Wei-Ming a. (1984), Confucian Ethics Today: The Singapore Challenge, Curriculum Development Institute of Singapore, Singapore. Tu, Wei-Ming b. (1998), “Probing the Three Bonds and Five Relationships”, in Walter H. Slote, George A. De Vos (ed.), Confucianism and the Family, The State University of New York Press, Albany, New York. Wawrytko, Sandra A. (2000), “Kongzi as Feminist: Confucian Self-Cultivation in a Contemporary Context”, in Journal of Chinese Philosophy, 27:2, 171-186. Woo, Terry (1998), “Confucianism and Feminism”, in Sharma, Arvind, Katherine K. Young (ed.), Feminism and World Religions, The State University of New York Press, Albany, New York. Xinyan Jing (2009), “Confucianism, Women, and Social Contexts”, in Journal of Chinese Philosophy, 36.2: 228-242. Yin, Jing (2006), “Toward a Confucian Feminism: A Critique of Eurocentric Feminist Discourse”, in China Media Research, 2(3), 9-18. TIME AND CHRONOLOGY IN TERTULLIAN’S ADVERSUS IUDAEOS (VIII. 8-15) LEVENTE PAP∗ Although early Christians attempted to reject the heritage of the Antiquity, they could not succeed in this, therefore this legacy survived together with the Hebrew values they were deeply attached to. This duality characterizes the works of Tertullian as well. In Adversus Iudaeos, he uses The Book of Daniel, one of Bible’s eschatological prophecies to prove that the Christ founded Christianity himself and he was the expected Messiah, his advent having already been foretold. In order to support these assertions, Tertullian enumerates the rulers of the ancient world, calculating the years of the prophecy by seven-year long septennial years. His major goal was to prove the authenticity of the prophecy, and nonetheless a strict historical accuracy – this could be the reason why he uses malleably both the Jewish approach to time and the Greek linear concept of time in the treatment of time and dates. Keywords: Tertullian, time, Daniel, Christianity, emperors. Man is unable to perceive time directly. Therefore, we form our concepts of time with the help of spatial ones. We live in time, and we approach its changes by the concepts of motion in space, observing its pulsation from our own perspective. Everyone is situated at a certain point of a temporal vector, with his face towards the future and with his back towards the past. In approaching time in this way, we are the followers of the ancient Greeks. The Hebrew conception of time is a completely different one. In its foreground there stand not the duration, direction, or its movement, but its content and meaning. Its nature is determined by the fact that, contrary to the Greek way of thinking, dealing primarily with things, the Hebrew way of thinking focuses on the characteristics and meaning of the events, and on their relationships with each other. Consequently, in the Hebrew language time is expressed not with the help concepts of space, but through the forms of everyday activities. It is natural that while we can form quantitative terms about space, the nature of the events is described in qualitative terms. Rékai (2000: 70-72) The Ecclesiastes says: “A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up.” (Ecclesiastes 3:2-3.) ∗ University Lecturer, Sapientia Hungarian University of Transylvania, Romania, [email protected] 60 LEVENTE PAP The dating according to the years of reign was the typical method of determining time in despotic monarchies, not only in the ancient Orient, but also in Hellenistic monarchies, in the Byzantine Empire and in medieval feudal kingdoms. It expressed the view that the person of the actual ruler primarily determined the character of a particular year. A different way of dating emerged in societies governed in a non-despotic manner, or where the memory of an earlier “primitive democracy” was stronger. Eponymous dates consist in the fact, that each year was named after the annually changing person, usually fulfilling a sacerdotal (but in any case a highly esteemed) office, the dates bearing his name. This eponymous system formed the basis of the Greek record of years as well. Each Greek city-state possessed an own system in this respect. In Athens, the year was defined by the name of “the archon”. This title was worn by the leader of a nine-member “archonic” body, who therefore was later conferred the title of “archôn epônymos”, the “eponymous archon”. The Roman Republic also followed the eponymous system, counting the years according to the consuls. Each year was marked by the names of the two consuls. Even the omnipotent emperors of the fourth century emitted their decrees dated according to the consuls. Only Justinian abolished the office of the consulate in 537 and restored the ancient Oriental and Hellenistic pattern of dates according to the years of reign. Hahn (2004) The ideological basis of developing Christian world-eras were the eschatological approach – i.e., regarding Doomsday as the final goal of the history of mankind – and, respectively, one of its forms of manifestation, chiliasm. According to this very approach, the history of the world forms a closed unity, which, from the beginning – from the creation of the “first man” – advances throughout vast milenial ages (chilioi = “thousand”, hence “chiliasm”) according to a divine schedule towards the ultimate outcome, the eschaton, i.e. the final divine judgment. Hahn (2004) First of all, we should posit a generally accepted principle. While Greek thinking was static, in other words, the Greeks were looking for real, authentic existence in an unchanging permanence, taking only the unchanging and resting phenomena as real, Hebrew thinking was concerned with motion, action and the event itself. For the Hebrew thinking of the Old Testament, real existence is to be found in the events, in change. For this thinking, real existence means dynamism. From this position, we can comprehend the concern of Hebrew thinking for history, alongside with its positive approach to time. Here time serves as the unitary and universal framework for actions and events. The Greeks, like other European nations, cannot imagine time without associating it with space. In other words, when there is mentioned a duration, a date, a period or an interval, these mean a certain spatial order in every instance. We perceive time, tempus in this spatial order. The past is what is behind us, the present is the very point we stand at, while the future has to be ahead of us. When a Greek is speaking about time, he divides it into past, present and future, thus also making it abstract and even relativising it. The Hebrew, on the contrary, does not emphasize the measurability and quantitative importance of TIME AND CHRONOLOGY IN TERTULLIAN’S ADVERSUS IUDAEOS (VIII. 8-15) 61 time, but rather its quality, the events taking place in it. For him, time does not exist merely in itself. He does not possess such an abstract image of time. He is not able to separate time as an abstract concept. Instead he always perceives it as closely related to events and happenings. Adorjáni (2000: 2) Early Christian thinking, wanted to deny pagan Roman world, however, it could not succeed in this, because without the culture of the Antiquity this religion would have been condemned to death. The values of Hebrew culture were also an integral part of the new religion. Thus, they could not omit the Greek-Roman culture, while they were attached to Hebrew culture as well. This duality characterized early Christian literature and, accordingly, the works of Tertullian as well. The prophecies of the The Book of Daniel have always been an interesting gleam in the series of the Bible’s eschatological prophecies. Hammer (1976) The events of the 1st century BC had increased the interest of the Jews in this topic. This was the time of the actual split of the unity of Hebrew religion, new directions have appeared, trying to provide newer and newer explanations of this prophecy, and have excelled in its precise calculation. Without attempting to discuss here the period of its edition in a more detailed manner, in which the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls provided nevertheless an undoubtedly important support, The Book of Daniel is now important for us rather from the aspects of its content. Vermes (1998) The origins of this book are also linked to an important event, since it was written when the army led by Cyrus the Great conquered the capital of the Babylonian empire. In addition, this was the year when Cyrus allowed the Jews to return home and build their Temple. Collins (1994) Let us see the text: It was the first year of Darius son of Artaxerxes, a Mede by race who assumed the throne of Chaldaea. In the first year of his reign I, Daniel, was studying the scriptures, counting over the number of years – as revealed by Yahweh to the prophet Jeremiah – that were to pass before the desolation of Jerusalem would come to an end, namely seventy years... When your pleading began, a word was uttered, and I have come to tell you. You are a man specially chosen. Grasp the meaning of the word, understand the vision: 'Seventy weeks are decreed for your people and your holy city, for putting an end to transgression, for placing the seal on sin, for expiating crime, for introducing everlasting uprightness for setting the seal on vision and on prophecy, for anointing the holy of holies. Know this, then, and understand: From the time there went out this message: "Return and rebuild Jerusalem" to the coming of an Anointed Prince, seven weeks and sixty-two weeks, with squares and ramparts restored and rebuilt, but in a time of trouble. (Dan 9, 1-2; 23-25)1 Daniel’s prophecy speaks about the building of the Temple, about its destruction and about the Messiah. Along the centuries, various explanations were born regarding this issue, but a unified position did not exist, therefore the highly respected Rav stated in 246: “All the settled points of the end of times have already passed, the thing now depends only on repentance and on good deeds”. Ruff (2006) 1 Translation from: Wansbrough (1985) 62 LEVENTE PAP In the Middle Ages Maimonides wrote the following about this, “Daniel has elucidated to us’ ‘the knowledge of the End Times. However, since they are secret, the Wise, may their memory be blessed, have barred the calculation of the days of the Messiah’s coming so that the untutored populace will not be led astray when they see that the end times have already come but there’s no sign of the Messiah. For this reason the Wise, may their memory be blessed, have decreed: “Cursed be he who calculates the End Times.” But we cannot assert that Daniel was wrong in his reckoning.” Santala (1992: 24), Davidson (2005) Ruff T. has an appropriate remark to this in the concluding part of his article cited above: “Anyway, the prohibition did not have enough results: both the Jews and the Christians are still often preocupied with Daniel’s prophecy.” Ruff (2006). All these are valid also for the early Christian era, since this question raised a general interest namely to what extent the prophecy can be related to the birth of Christ (John the Baptist, Paul the Apostle, etc). These approaches were not uniform, but their essence was the same: when should the Messiah arrive, and did Christ actually arrive within this interval? Tertullian2 in this debate tries similarly, to exploit the argumentative potential of Daniel’s prophecy in his work Adversus Iudaeos.3 Accordingly the times must be inquired into of the predicted and future nativity of the Christ, and of His passion, and of the extermination of the city of Jerusalem, that is, its devastation. For Daniel says, that "both the holy city and the holy place are exterminated together with the coming Leader, and that the pinnacle is destroyed unto ruin." And so the times of the coming Christ, the Leader, must be inquired into, which we shall trace in Daniel; and, after computing them, shall prove Him to be come, even on the ground of the times prescribed, and of competent signs and operations of His. Which matters we prove, again, on the ground of the consequences which were ever announced as to follow His advent; in order that we may believe all to have been as well fulfilled as foreseen. (Adv. Iud. VIII. 8-10)4 It is an important matter that he should demonstrate to his debate partner, of course, with the help of the Bible again, that Christ had to be born, 2 Tertullian was born in Carthage c. 160 and died before 240 AD. He is a controversial personality from several points of view. There exist many controversies regarding his life (including the date of his birth and of his death), his qualification and profession (whether he was a lawyer or not), his theology, his argumentative methods, and his style as well. This controversy also persisted throughout his entire further reception. While he had brought an enormous effort in the defence of the Christian faith, he could not enter the ranks of the Church Fathers. While the Decretum Gelasianum condemned his writings, none of these Fathers of the Church could have ignored them. His works are still subject to divergent approaches throughout the world, both by ecclesiastic and secular scholars. 3 This work was written around 197; its authenticity is being debated even nowadays. Its major objective was to prove to the Hebrews that the Christ himself, who was also the expected Messiah, had founded Christianity and the prophets had already foretold the advent of Christianity. This work uses the text of the Old Testament in order to persuade his opponents (retorsio criminis), and is aiming to prove at the same time that Christendom had replaced the Hebrews in being the chosen people of God. 4 English translation by: Thelwall (1870) TIME AND CHRONOLOGY IN TERTULLIAN’S ADVERSUS IUDAEOS (VIII. 8-15) 63 moreover, he even had to have to suffer, and all these were consummated in their due time. Besides, he also wanted to prove that the prophecies also speak about the destruction of the Temple, and that the Jews will become outcaste, and their homeland will be burnt up, which actually came true in the early spring of 70 AD Pap (2008). In order to support his arguments, Tertullian, enumerates the rulers of the ancient world and the calculation of the years of the prophecy. He starts the enumeration exactly from the (end of the) reign of Cyrus the Great (559-530), which can be considered logical, since, as already mentioned, Cyrus made important concessions toward the Jews, and therefore his reign is a real milestone. The prophet made his predictions in the time of Darius, who in 519 BC allowed the Jews – in line with the previous decree of Cyrus – to rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem. It made sense that he should start his calculations from the end of the reign of the great king, respectively from the beginning of Darius’ reign. The series of the rulers living before Christ ends with Augustus, whose reign is supposed to be of 46 years, and even though – as Tertullian himself also asserts – survived with 15 years the birth of Christ, his whole reign should entirely be added to the reign before Christ, because this leads to the completion of the foretold 62 and half septennial years that should elapse until the coming of Christ: Let us see, therefore, how the years are filled up until the advent of the Christ: For Darius reigned XVIIII years. Artaxerxes reigned Xl and I years. Then King Ochus (who is also called Cyrus) reigned XXIIII years. Argus one year. Another Darius, who is also named Melas XXI years. Alexander the Macedonian XII years. Then, after Alexander, who had reigned over both Medes and Persians, whom he had reconquered, and had established his kingdom firmly in Alexandria, when withal he called that (city) by his own name; after him reigned, (there, in Alexandria), Soter XXXV years. To whom succeeds Philadelphus, reigning XXX and VIII years. To him succeeds Euergetes XXV years. Then Philopator XVII years. After him Epiphanes XXIIII years. Then another Euergetes XXVIIII years. Then another Soter XXXVIII years. Ptolemy XXXVII years. Cleopatra XX years V months. Yet again Cleopatra reigned jointly with Augustus XIII years. After Cleopatra, Augustus reigned another XIIII years... For, after Augustus who survived after the birth of Christ, are made up XV years. To whom succeeded Tiberius Caesar, and held the empire XX years, VII months, XXVIII days. (In the fiftieth year of his empire Christ suffered. being about XXX years of age when he suffered.) Again Caius Caesar, also called Caligula III years, VIII months, XIII days. Nero Caesar XI years, IX months, XIII days. Galba VII months, VI days. Otho III days. Vitellius VIII months, XXVII days. The problem of the 15 years should not be considered a complete anachronism, since, Tertullian’s list of rulers, as it was mentioned earlier, assigns a determining role to the years of the rulers from the point of view of counting the septennial years and not from that of the exact dates of the significant events during these reigns. This seems to be supported also by the fact that Theodotion’s – version of Daniel’s prophecy operates with intervals and not with exact dates. If we take LEVENTE PAP 64 this into account, then the argumentation seems to be logical; even if it may seem ahistorical at certain points – we should not forget that it was not the sequence of the events that was important, but the justification of the Christian narrative of redemption embedded into this series – but his argumentative deduction is logical. Pap (2008:89-92) Even to that extent that afterwards he can easily demonstrate that the fall of the Temple in Jerusalem and the dispersion of the Jews were foretold exactly with the same precision. The following chart attempts to provide a summary of this: RULER Darius Artaxerses Cyrus the Great Argos Darius Melas Alexander the Great Soter Philadelphus Euergetes Philopator Epiphanes Euergetes Soter Ptolemy Cleopatra Anthony & Cleopatra Augustus Septennial years Tiberius Caligula Nero Galba Otho Vitellius missing Claudius included YEARS 19 41 MONTHS DAYS 24 1 21 12 35 38 25 17 24 27 38 37 22 5 13 43 437 5 437*12=5244+5=(5249/12)/7=62.5 22 3 11 36 (36*365+42*30+93)/365/7=5.6 7 8 9 7 3 8 42 5,6 (49*365+42*30+93)/365/7=7.5 7,5 28 13 13 6 5 28 93 TIME AND CHRONOLOGY IN TERTULLIAN’S ADVERSUS IUDAEOS (VIII. 8-15) 65 The emperor list of the chart clearly shows that the name and reign of Claudius are missing. This could be assigned to the author's inattentiveness, however, as the calculations show, their sum total should also contain the reign of Claudius, because the required seven and half septennial years will be complete only this way. The dates of the reign of none of the emperors would be appropriate – we would need 13 years – since Augustus himself also reigned 15 years after the birth of Christ, according to the calculation of Tertullian, therefore he would not fit into the formula. Vespasian, whose reign, according to the former logic, – according to which only the reigns of those rulers are enumerated, when important events took place, relevant for the prophecy – is rightfully missing, reigned for 10 years. Why is Vespasian omitted from the list? Or what is more, why is also Claudius? From a mathematical point of view Vespasian’s reign would have been uncomfortable in the process of argumentation, but Tertullian could have left it out, without any particular explanation, because the war waged to defeat the Jews, together with the mobilization against Jerusalem, had already begun, also during the former emperor's reign, and the decisive victory had not even been fought by the emperor himself, but by Titus. The omission of Claudius can probably be traced back to a lacuna, a copy mistake, as Tränkle also notes, not naming this lacuna explicitly, although his interpretation does not rule out this possibility. Tränkle (1964) Although the explanations do not seem documented enough, sometimes, we can conclude that Tertullian actually had a single important goal: to prove the authenticity of redemption and the rightly adverse fate of the Jews, and nonetheless a complete historical accuracy. Of course, in the centre of this enumeration Christ himself stands as a cardinal argumentative point of this issue. This is also a reference point in the prophecy of the prophet, dividing it into two parts, being inserted between the time of building and the Temple and that of its destruction the Jews will be punished because of their sins; they will lose the divine grace, represented by the destruction of the Temple. However, this is a historical fact which could not have been denied even by the Jews of Tertullian’s age, as it was also a historical fact the reconstruction of the Temple after the Babylonian captivity, and therefore between these two events the coming of Christ should be regarded also as a similar historical fact, having been mentioned by the prophet Daniel. In the treatment of time and dates, Tertullian uses malleably both the Hebrew approach to time (see the case of Vespasian) and the Greek linear concept of time (most obviously in the enumeration of the rulers). The Christian literature of this age was mostly characterized by this duality, until it succeeded to acquire its own voice, which naturally would also be an alloy of these two. LEVENTE PAP 66 BIBLIOGRAPHY Adorjáni, Zoltán (2000), “A bibliai időszemlélet”, in Keresztény Szó, tome XI, no. 10, pp. 2-6. Collins, John Joseph (1994), “Daniel: A Commentary on the Book of Daniel”, Hermeneia: a Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible, Fortress Publishers, Augsburg. Davidson, H. A. (2005), Moses Maimonides: The Man and his Works, OUP, Oxford. Hahn, István (2004), Naptári rendszerek és időszámítás, Neumann Kht., Budapest., accesat în 2012-02-29, http://mek.niif.hu/04700/04744/html/naptarirendszerek0004.html Hammer, Raymond (1976), The Book of Daniel, C U P, Cambridge. Pap, Levente (2008), “Tertulliani Adversus Iudaeos”, in L. Pap L., Zs. Tapodi (eds.) Közösség, Kultúra, Identitás, Scinetia, Cluj-Napoca, pp. 89-103. Rékai, Miklós (2000), “Az idő a zsidó kultúrában”, in F. Zoltán (ed.), A megfoghatatlan idő. Tabula könyvek, 2., Budapest, pp. 70-84. Ruff, Tibor (2006), “A Messiás-kód, Dániel elrejtette könyvében a megváltás dátumát”, in Hetek, tome X, no. 24, accesat în 2012-02-29, http://www.hetek.hu/hit_es_ertekek/200606/a_messias_kod Santala, Risto (1992), The Messiah in the Old Testament in the Light of Rabbinical Writings, Keren Ahvah Meshihit, Jerusalem, p. 24, accesat în 2012-02-29, http://www.ristosantala.com/rsla/OT/index.html Thelwall, S. (1870), Adversus Iudaeos, ANCL vol. III., T. & T. Clark, Edingburgh, pp. 201-208. Tränkle, Hermann (1964), Q. S. F. Tertulliani Adversus Judaeos, Franz Steiner, Wiesbaden. Vermes, Géza (1998), The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English, Penguin, London. Wansbrough, Henry ed. (1985), The New Jerusalem Bible (NJB), Darton-Longman & Todd and Les Editions du Cerf, London-Paris. “FOR IMMORTALITY IS BUT UBIQUITY IN TIME”: MOBY DICK ON THE HORIZON OF MYTH IRINA DUBSKÝ∗ The present study aims to offer a glimpse of the White Whale as an expression of an Absolute Presence, for, as Theodor Adorno writes, “time fixed into space creates the illusion of an Absolute Presence”. Moby Dick is declared by some “superstitious” whale-men “not only ubiquitous, but immortal (for immortality is but ubiquity in time)” (Moby Dick). As Mircea Eliade writes in Images and Symbols, “a myth is something unfolding in illo tempore, actually in the “space” where time is no more, for illud tempus is synonymous with eternity and with the Principle.” The whale’s “ubiquity in time” (Moby Dick) places it on the horizon of myth, in illo tempore, where time turns into space, where the alchemical squaring of the circle is accomplished. Sequentiality, the defining trait of the elusory dimension of being, is foreign to Moby Dick. The whale is “true” in that it exists in simultaneity. The conjoining of these attributes points to the mythical nature of the whale. Myths, being rooted in the realm of essential truths, dwell simultaneously in two different worlds, in the same way as the whale does. Therefore, myths are two-faceted: one face is turned towards the sublunary world, while the other one looks upon the sphere of the fixed stars. Correspondingly, the whale is a double-faceted entity: its face is analogous to the unseen side of myth, whereas its tail is related to the visible manifestation of myth in its lower aspect. Keywords: time, ubiquity, myth, whale, timeless, chronology, sequentiality. William Shurr acknowledges Melville as “the most intellectual and philosophical of the [American] canonical writers,” (371) a description which masterfully grasps the awe-inspiring complexity of the Melvillean Opus. In his absorbing study of Melville’s “reputation” and of “Melville” as a literary criticism construct, Paul Lauter discusses his students’ response to the writer and their resistance to reading his work: ‘You really feel belittled when you are reading Melville,’ one said. ‘I know this is art, and I can’t understand it.’ ‘You feel,’ another added, that ‘something’s wrong with you; that you’re missing something’ (2). Professor Lauter assesses that his students feel “ignorant before the dense web of Melville’s allusive, syntactically intricate style and his convoluted plotting” (2). Moreover, they seem to “actively dislike Melville” as a consequence of their being “humiliated by his prose” (2). ∗ “Spiru Haret” University, Bucharest, e-mail: [email protected] 68 IRINA DUBSKÝ In fact, what is so unsettling and intellectually disquieting in Melville’s texts is his handling of the mystery with his “visible hands” (Moby Dick 131) and his agonizing struggle to put into writing “the glimpses (…) of the mortally intolerable truth” (Moby Dick 105) which he catches during his “wandering to and fro” – to quote Hawthorne’s description of his friend’s intellectual inquiry – throughout the vast expanse of the known and the unknown. As the author of The Scarlet Letter insightfully remarks, Melville has a proclivity towards “reason[ing] of Providence and futurity, and of everything that lies beyond human ken” (qtd. in Bartlett 112-113) which is sure to account for the esoteric aura of his work, which, in its turn, explains the discouraging and humiliating effect his writing has upon some segments of both his contemporary and modern readership. In fact, Melville identified himself with his quest – what D. H. Lawrence terms “the last hunt, the last conquest” (235) – the quester and the quest fusing together to strive for the ultimate. This mystic conflation of subject and object in Melville’s vision has also been noted by Martin Bickman who writes that “the paradox (…) Melville seem[s] to be confronting is that one cannot seize the mystery of life consciously, but must allow oneself to be seized by it”(Bickman 77). Melville’s artistic and existential status as a herald and interpreter of “the mystery of life” sealed him with a mark of excellence which cut him off from his contemporary cultural environment and his reading audience. His “discomfort with and alienation from the culture in which he found himself” (Schneider 193) pervade most of his work and are reflected in the centrality of his position in the American literary canon. Melville “cross[ed] the frontiers into Eternity” (Mosses 295) or, as a literary scholar most poetically phrases it, “Melville, through his living vision, has killed or conquered time” (Wolf 92). The squaring of the circle, the transmutation of time into eternity, is the corner-stone of Melville’s literary edifice, a fact illustrated by his “preoccupation with the circle image” (Wolf 29). “The idea of eternity possessed by man in time” has been identified as a recurrent theme in the work of Melville and “other great writers of the Romantic (…) era” (Poulet 673). The Alchemical Opus is carried to perfection in the Athanor of Melville’s writing; his knowledge certainly outstrips that which is conveyed in his literary art, for he professed that he clung to the strange fancy that in all men hiddenly reside certain wondrous, occult properties (…) which by some happy but very rare accident (…) may chance to be called forth here on earth not entirely waiting for their better discovery in the more congenial, blessed atmosphere of heaven (Hawthorne and His Mosses 300). “The wondrous, occult properties” of Melville’s vision have been “called forth on earth” and materialized in his art, but they are still waiting for “a better discovery”. Thus, he reveals the magnitude of his spiritual insight and his intuition of timelessness which René Guénon describes as the “awareness of eternity”: “what can time do against those who carry within themselves the awareness of eternity?” the esoteric writer asks rhetorically (Etudes sur l'Hindouisme 25-26). “FOR IMMORTALITY IS BUT UBIQUITY IN TIME”: MOBY DICK ON THE HORIZON OF MYTH 69 If unvanquished by time, “those who carry within themselves the awareness of eternity” are tormented “with an everlasting itch for things remote"(Moby Dick 7) and they are destined to “wander to and fro over these deserts” (Hawthorne; qtd. in Bartlett 112-113) of unanswer/-ed/-able questions. Melville himself, as the hero of an existential adventure, was “a seeker, not a finder yet” – a phrase he used to grasp the essence of Hawthorne's artistic stance which can also function as a most felicitous illustration of the perpetual pilgrimage his own work embodies. “Melville is a kind of wizard. He writes of strange and mysterious things that belong to other worlds beyond this tame and everyday place we live in” – a contemporary reviewer for the New Bedford Mercury most aptly observed (qtd. in Beecher 95). These “strange and mysterious things that belong to other worlds” pertain to the realm of the esoteric, of knowledge transcending the sphere of the immediate and the ordinary. Ishmael, the narrative voice of the Melvillean epos, makes a memorable statement which encodes an essential dimension of the whaling tale, namely, the lack of common measure between the worlds within whose boundaries the action unfolds: So ignorant are most landsmen of some of the plainest and most palpable wonders of the world, that without some hints touching the plain facts, historical and otherwise, (…) they might scout at Moby Dick as a monstrous fable, or still worse and more detestable, a hideous and intolerable allegory (Moby Dick 203). By pronouncing the unenlightened “landsmen” to be “ignorant”, Ishmael points to their condition as prisoners of that ignorance which in the Vedantic scriptures is referred to as “avidyā, (…) the cause of bondage (…) [which] is not intellectual ignorance but spiritual blindness” (Radhakrishnan 21). However, “fables” and “allegories” are the most adequate means of encoding truth, for, “whatever they mean, they certainly do not mean what they seem to mean” (Müller 157). In his Essay on Compensation Emerson reveals the quality of “fable” as a vehicle for secrecy, as a way of concealing “the wonders of the world” for, he writes: “the voice of fable has in it somewhat divine (…) it comes from thought above.” And yet, the “ignorant landsmen”, confined to the common dimension of existence in a state of spiritual bondage, are unable to grasp the wondrous quality of the White Whale because of the lack of common measure between Moby Dick’s level of being and theirs. In order to comprehend what is beyond the bounds of their reality, the ignorant try to anchor the core realities into the limited world of “plain facts”; thus, their perception gets utterly distorted and, in their eyes, the Absolute assumes the shape of “a monstrous fable, or (…) a hideous and intolerable allegory”. Therefore, the “fable” of The White Whale imparts the light of the “above” to the “landsmen”, revealing and re-veiling “the wonders of the world”. The above-quoted excerpt from the novel makes direct reference to time understood as a means of mapping a familiar territory, as a way of making the “wonders of the world” comprehensible to the unenlightened who need “historical (...) hints” in order to accommodate the unknown into the patternable known. 70 IRINA DUBSKÝ Moby Dick counterposes two modes of temporality: the linear, the sequential and the limited versus the vortical simultaneity of timelessness. The human world is governed by time limitations which are underlined with mathematical accuracy in the text. When it comes to describing some “plain fact”, bearing upon the mundane and the temporal, the narrator resorts to exact time phrases such as “one hundred years”, “more than two centuries past”, “some three centuries ago”: It is the whale which for more than two centuries past has been hunted by the Dutch and English in the Arctic seas (134). (...) originally in the old Dutch Fishery, two centuries and more ago (...) (142) And some three centuries ago, an English traveler in old Harris's Voyages, speaks of a Turkish Mosque built in honor of Jonah (...) (364) I opine, that it is plainly traceable to the first arrival of the Greenland whaling ships in London, more than two centuries ago (408). The narrator emphasizes his awareness of both the a-temporal and the temporal. Moreover, he reveals the connection established between humanity and temporality, the former being regarded as a source of the latter. He describes the pre-temporal state as a “wondrous period” in implicit contrast to the undesirable transience which governs the human world: I am, by a flood, borne back to that wondrous period, ere time itself can be said to have begun; for time began with man (Moby Dick 454). In decided contrast to the transitory stands the world of a-temporality to which the text speaks abundantly in terms of “a million years”, “billion years”, “antiquity”, “Eternities”, “many millions of ages” and the list may continue. The narrator equates timelessness with the awe-inspiring reality of the whale which presides over time itself as well as over the history of the human race: I am horror – struck at this antemosaic, unsourced existence of the unspeakable terrors of the whale, which, having been before all time, must exist after all humane ages are over (454). These words point to the “unbegun” and unfinished state of the whale, seen as a non-temporal reality. Projected against such a backdrop, the “humane ages” bear the seal of the fleeting unreality of the here and the now, standing for a parenthesis in a state of permanence which transcends the common temporal and spatial determinations. The text contrasts the puniness of mankind and its endeavors with the incomprehensible vastness of the whale reality – “some centuries” versus “millions of ages”: “FOR IMMORTALITY IS BUT UBIQUITY IN TIME”: MOBY DICK ON THE HORIZON OF MYTH 71 THAT for six thousand years – and no one knows how many millions of ages before – the great whales should have been spouting all over the sea, and sprinkling and mystifying the gardens of the deep, as with so many sprinkling or mistifying pots; and that for some centuries back, thousands of hunters should have been close by the fountain of the whale, watching these sprinklings and spoutings (367). The perspective the narrator offers upon the a-temporal is in harmony with the majesty of the eternal, being expressed in grandiose terms: Nor must there be omitted another strange attestation of the antiquity of the whale, in his own osseous post-diluvian reality (...) (455). The universe is finished; the copestone is on, and the chips were carted off a million years ago (9). This whole act's immutably decreed. 'Twas rehearsed by thee and me a billion years before this ocean rolled (554). INASMUCH, then, as this Leviathan comes floundering down upon us from the head-waters of the Eternities (...) (455) (...) for six thousand years – and no one knows how many millions of ages before – the great whales should have been spouting all over the sea (...)(367) The underlying opposition which the text foregrounds through the contrast between the mathematical exactness of the time phrases versus the expressions of the uncountable is that between “discontinuous quantity, which is represented by the number per se and continuous quantity, mainly represented by spatial and temporal measures” (René Guénon, Le Règne de la Quantité 24). This polarity further suggests the indefinite, immeasurable quality of Moby Dick seen as a container of potentialities, the very “head-waters of the Eternities” (Moby Dick 455). If projected against the background of the chronological flux, generation necessarily entails destruction. However, this implication does not hold true in the whale dimension for, “in the long course of his generations, he has not degenerated from the original bulk of his sires” (Moby Dick 455). These references to the immortality of the whale anchor its reality into the mythical time of the beginning. What Melville depicts as “the head-waters of the Eternities” (455) coincides with the cosmogony, the foundation of the worlds, contemporary with the Leviathan in its extra-temporal dimension. This is what Mircea Eliade describes as “a primordial history, placed in a mythical time” (Eternal Return 155). The “unsourced existence” of the whale is suggestive of what Ernst Cassirer refers to as “an absolute past”: What distinguishes mythical time from historical time is that for mythical time there is an absolute past, which neither requires nor is susceptible of any further explanation (qtd. in Short 166). 72 IRINA DUBSKÝ Hans Blumenberg locates the source of this binary opposition between mythical time and identifiable, describable chronology in the Greek thought: The Greek mython mytheisthai [to tell a 'myth'] means to tell a story that is not dated and not datable, so that it cannot be localized in any chronicle, but a story that compensates for this lack by being 'significant' [bedeutsam] in itself (149). Moby Dick holds a double function, being concomitantly part of substance and part of essence. Melville captures this dual condition in a masterful description: the whale “live[s] in this world without being of it”, remains “warm among ice” and “cool at the equator” (…). It retains “in all seasons a temperature of [its] own” (Moby Dick 306). In other words, the Leviathan is equal with itself, and remains undefiled and unharmed by the shifting conditions of the corporeal. If regarded from an existential perspective, the whale is essentially “true” in the esoteric sense of the word, as opposed to illusionary. According to one of the teachings contained in Corpus Hermeticum (…) all that alters is untrue. It does not stay in what it is, but shows itself to us by changing its appearances into one another. All that is subject to genesis and change is verily not true (Mitchell 45). Sequentiality is the defining trait of the elusory dimension of being. “The orderly succession of phenomena may be taken as proof of the unreality of phenomena in themselves” (Gaskell 383). But sequentiality and fragmentariness are foreign to Moby Dick. The whale is “true” in that it exists in simultaneity: “Moby Dick is not only ubiquitous, but also immortal; for immortality is but ubiquity in time” (Moby Dick 179). In this statement the text encodes an essential quality of time, namely, time can be evaluated only in spatial terms, by spatializing its interpretation. The whale emerges as a continuous, homogenous mode of reality beyond the Cartesian discontinuity which claims that time, and implicitly existence itself, are nothing but a series of discontinuous moments. These attributes reveal the mythical nature of the whale: it is “ubiquitous” (Moby Dick 179) and “immortal” (Moby Dick 179), participating in the foundation of the Cosmos, being substantially identical with the realm of myths. According to Mircea Eliade, A myth is something unfolding in illo tempore, actually in the “space” where time is no more, for illud tempus is synonymous with eternity and with the Principle (Images and Symbols 168). The whale’s “ubiquity in time” (Moby Dick 179) places it on the horizon of myth, in illud tempus, where time turns into space, where the squaring of the “FOR IMMORTALITY IS BUT UBIQUITY IN TIME”: MOBY DICK ON THE HORIZON OF MYTH 73 circle is accomplished. And yet, to the stare of the profane, the whale appears like “that geometrical circle which is impossible to square” (Moby Dick 346). The squaring of the circle, a synonym for Magnum Opus, equates with the attainment of spiritual enlightenment. Moby Dick launches a challenge to the postulant to try to perform this hermetic operation. In his essay on Wagner, Theodore Adorno masterfully captures the idea that “time fixed in space” generates “the illusion of an Absolute Presence” (33), an idea which most aptly describes Moby Dick’s timelessness. This understanding of Moby Dick as Absolute Presence, as overwhelmingly present, yet elusive, reinforces the mythical dimension of the whale. The transmutation of time into space is encoded somewhere else in the text in such a way that it bears reference to the overpowering quality of the whale: the “Polar eternities” reigned supreme when “the whole world was the whale’s”, while the perpetually rejuvenated “eternities” of the deep, the abode of the same leviathanic being, become the very foundation of the world. The spatial meaning is enhanced by the plural form of the word “eternity”: Here Saturn's grey chaos rolls over me, and I obtain dim, shuddering glimpses into those Polar eternities; (...). Then the whole world was the whale's (...) (454). (...) and among the joyous, heartless, ever-juvenile eternities, Pip saw the multitudinous, God-omnipresent, coral insects, that out of the firmament of waters heaved the colossal orbs (413). The end of the story is crowned by the “closing vortex” (Epilogue), symbolic of the Spherical Universal Vortex which is an all-absorbing spiral, “whose center is simultaneously nowhere and everywhere, pure absence, yet self-evident omnipresence” (Mitul 124). These mutually-exclusive attributes (absence and ubiquity) are also displayed by Moby Dick. The whale exhibits both “muteness” and “universality” – as the narrator points out in his description of The Whiteness of the Whale - that is, absence (“muteness”) and ubiquity (“universality”). Furthermore, Ishmael depicts the whiteness of the whale by making use of the apparently paradoxical locution “visible absence”, which is evocative of the absent ubiquity of the center. Thus, Moby Dick possesses qualities based on binary oppositions which trigger the analogy between the whale and the Universal Vortex, a force generating simultaneity and canceling the dominion of unidirectional chronology. The spirals of the VORTEX of timelessness when projected upon the human level into “the soul of man”(364) which acts as a receptacle of eternity take on the shape of what the narrator portrays as “one insular Tahiti”, a genuine oasis of immortality: 74 IRINA DUBSKÝ In the soul of man there lies one insular Tahiti, full of peace and joy, but encompassed by all the horrors of the half known life. God keep thee! Push not off from that isle, thou canst never return! (364). “Thou canst never return” is a warning against the irreversibility of the temporal flux which governs “all the horrors” of an existence circumscribed by the indomitable rule of becoming. The mythical time in which both the White Whale and the spot of “peace and joy” are lodged unfolds in circularity – linearity and measuring are foreign to it. As the Old Testament scholar Brevard Childs pertinently observes in relation to the quality of illo tempori There is no actual distinction in mythical time between the past, the present, and the future. Although the origin of time is projected into the past, to the primeval act of becoming, this is only a form in which an essentially timeless reality is clothed. Time is always present and yet to come. It transcends the modern categories of empirical time. Moreover, the mythical time is in no sense an abstraction by which relations between temporal things are measured in terms of space as, for example, 'length of time'. Rather, it is substantialized as a concrete reality which is identical with its content (72-73). In his provocative study of “Patagonia” and its place in the American literary imagination, Julian Cowley identifies “the whiteness of the whale” as a “classic desert space of American literature” (309). Ishmael embarks upon the expedition lured by “all the attending marvels of a thousand Patagonian sights and sounds” (Moby Dick 6). In Patagonia Revisited Bruce Chatwin remarks that Patagonia "lodged itself in the Western imagination as a metaphor for the Ultimate, the point beyond which one could not go"(7). And indeed, the climax of Ishmael’s journey is the very boundary of spacelessness and timelessness, namely, the vortex in which “polarities are resolved in motion and binary oppositions dissolve into kaleidoscopic, polychromatic reality” (Cowley 309). The description of Moby Dick’s head, which contains “a certain mathematical symmetry” (Moby Dick 327) masterfully illustrates the whale’s emblematic role as the union of opposites: “The sideway position of the whale’s eyes” (Moby Dick 328) is a peculiarity; therefore, it must be able to “analyze two distinct prospects” in exactly opposite directions at the same time. This marvelous quality is further proof of the Leviathan’s mastery over duality and capacity to transcend binary oppositions; contraries can dwell in it without clashing. Moby Dick stands for the Center where opposites are resolved in a harmonious way. It is emblematic of the unity which harmonizes the discord. Harmony is the bond which unites the opposites and causes them to be productive. The whale exhibits the indivisibility of the Principle. The peace of Oneness develops into the strife of the manifold, of “the generations pouring/From times of endless date” (Melville, Selected Poems 41). Chronological linearity is also circumvented through the force of the ritual. An emblematic ritualistic scene is that of the dark oath the crew of the Pequod are made to take as a response to the nefarious urges of captain Ahab. “FOR IMMORTALITY IS BUT UBIQUITY IN TIME”: MOBY DICK ON THE HORIZON OF MYTH 75 In the memorable episode of the oath, Ahab asks his “mates” to “cross” their lances “full” in front of him so that he can “touch the axis”(Moby Dick 163-164). “The axis” is emblematic of Axis Mundi linking the three worlds – the underworld, the Earth and Heaven – thus establishing the cosmic hierarchy. Ahab’s gesture is symbolic of his reaching the core of being. It is a ritualistic gesture laden with mystical value: by touching the axis, he places himself in the center of the world which marks the opening of the tangible into the invisible. As Mircea Eliade writes in The Myth of the Eternal Return: the time of any ritual coincides with the mythical time of the 'beginning.' Through a repetition of the cosmogonic act, concrete time (...) is projected into mythical time, in illo tempore wherein the foundation of the world occurred. Thus the reality and the duration of a thing made are assured, not only by the transformation of the profane space into a transcendent space ('the center'), but also through the transformation of concrete time into mythical time (21). By this symbolic reaching of Axis Mundi Ahab attempts to project himself ritualistically onto the same existential level as the White Whale, by transmuting the here and the now into the transcendent. Still, he fails in his enterprise, for he has already “pushed off from that isle” of “peace and joy” (364) severing himself from the harmony of the circle” Towards thee I roll, thou all-destroying but unconquering whale; (...); from hell's heart I stab at thee; (...) still chasing thee, though tied to thee, thou damned whale! Thus, I give up the spear!" (565) Ahab’s gesture of “giving up the spear” while still “chasing” the whale is tantamount to a violation of the sanctity of the circular through the aggression of the linear: thus, chronology wages war on immortality. However, the denouement asserts the supremacy of the non-temporal over the flux of time: “then all collapsed, and the great shroud of the sea rolled on as it rolled five thousand years ago” (566). The continuity between “those primeval times when Adam walked majestic” (188) and the time of the story, moments related through unidirectional chronology is ensured through the permanence of “rolling”, suggestive of the undulating spirals of the mythical Universal Vortex, of which the White Whale is a token. BIBLIOGRAPHY Bartlett, Irving (1967), The American Mind in the Mid-Nineteenth Century, Thomas Y. Crowell, New York. Beecher, Jonathan (2000), “Variations on a Dystopian Theme: Melville's Encantadas”, in Utopian Studies 11, pp. 88-102. 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Melville, Herman, Henning Cohen (1991), Selected Poems of Herman Melville, Fordham University Press, New York. Mitchell, Michael (2006), Hidden Mutualities: Faustian Themes from Gnostic Origins to the Postcolonial, Rodopi, Amsterdam. Müller, Max (1881), Chips from a German Workshop, IV, New York. Poulet, Georges (1962), “Timelessness and Romanticism”, in Philip P. Wiener, Aaron Noland (eds.), Ideas in Cultural Perspective, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, 658. Radhakrishnan, S. (1960), The Brahma Sutra: The Philosophy of Spiritual Life, Harper & Brothers, New York. Schneider, Herbert N., Homer B. Pettey (1998), “Melville's Ichthyphallic God”, in Studies in American Fiction 2, pp. 193-202. Short, Bryan C. (1992), Cast by Means of Figures: Herman Melville's Rhetorical Development, University of Massachusetts Press, Amherst. Shurr, William H. (1986), “Melville's Poems: The Late Agenda”, in John Bryant (ed.), A Companion to Melville's Studies, Greenwood, New York, pp. 370-385. Wolf, Jack C. (1986), Hart Crane's Harp of Evil: A Study of Orphism in the Bridge, Whitston Publishing, Troy, NY. WHITMAN’S SONG OF MYSELF AND THE MYTH OF OSIRIS ANCA RONCEA∗ Walt Whitman’s influence in American poetry is perhaps one of the strongest. His work has been included in the canon of Western literature and discussed from humanist, transcendental, realist points of view. This paper will try to analyze the influence of Egyptian mythology on one of his most well known poems, “Song of Myself” where he employs the myth of Osiris to suggest a different manner of seeing the connection between nature and man. In this great poem of him there is a strong plea for man to allow himself to be reconnected to nature through the experience of the the poem itself. I will try to show that Whitman tried to do so by including the ideological framework of the myth of Osiris into Song of Myself, showing man as fragments of the natural world. Keywords: Walt Whitman, myth of Osiris, ecocriticism, shamanism, poetry of nature. Walt Whitman’s influence in American poetry is perhaps one of the strongest. His work has been included in the canon of Western literature and discussed from humanist, transcendental, realist points of view. This paper will try to analyze the influence of Egyptian mythology on one of his best known poems, Song of Myself where he employs the myth of Osiris to suggest a different manner of seeing the connection between nature and man. Though not always drawing inspiration from the Egyptian myths, Whitman’s interest in Egyptian philosophy was quite strong throughout his life. If we consider the historical context in which he lived the fascination of the West for Egypt was becoming increasingly widespread within both America and Europe. It had started with Napoleon’s conquering of Egypt when Europe became interested in discovering the legends and philosophy of Ancient Egypt. At the time that Whitman lived there was already a great deal of historical research carried on about Egyptian civilization and mythology and thus he had many sources both modern as well as translations of classics such as Plutarch available at hand. Stephen Tapscott notes in his article “Leaves of Myself: Whitman’s Egypt in Song of Myself”: Whitman showed a marked interest in Egyptian lore and myth throughout his life. Evidence in his notebooks shows that he knew, either through books and lectures or through conversations with professional Egyptologists, the work of several of the most ∗ Faculty of Foreign Languages & Literatures, University of Bucharest, e-mail: [email protected] 78 ANCA RONCEA prominent writers on Egypt, including Champollion. Whitman’s Life Illustrated article of 1855 suggests that by then he was familiar both with the scholarly work of other major authorities, such as Rosellini, Wilkinson, Lesius, and also with popularized versions of Egyptology, such as George R. Gliddon’s book and lectures which Whitman also mentioned in other lectures.(Tapscott, 50) Whitman was therefore fully aware of the myth of Osiris, one of the most important in Egyptian mythology when writing Song of Myself and, undoubtedly, there are references to it however unnamed. The myth of Osiris has spread around the world as the pieces of the Egyptian god around the land. It is the story of the god Osiris who, as Plutarch recounts, attracted the envy and rage of his brother, Set who deceived him and threw him in a box which he threw into the Nile. As the story goes, his wife, Isis, found the coffin in a tree trunk in which Osiris was dead already. She managed to hide the body but Set found it and tore it into pieces which he scattered all over Egypt. After a while, however, Isis managed to gather all of the pieces of his body, except for his phallus, and gave him a proper burial. Impressed by Isis’ devotion the gods resurrected Osiris as the god of the underworld. In Egyptian mythology Osiris has always been associated with the yearly flooding and retreating of the Nile and also with the fertility of the crops in Egypt. Thus the cult of Osiris was one of the most important in Egypt since he was considered to influence the essence of Egypt’s well being. One of the most important ideas that springs from this myth and one which Whitman uses in “Song of Myself” is that of man as scattered around the natural world. Although Osiris was considered a god his body was represented as human and its spreading all over the environment stands for a unification of man with nature. It is one way of endowing nature and the environment with a sense of sacred but at the same time it explains the bond that man has with the land and shows that man is part of nature and that his own body is in life as it will be in death merged with the natural world. Man will be reborn just as nature goes on through cycles of death and regeneration but at the same time he will contribute to the regeneration of nature through his body’s return to the ground. This is one interpretation of this myth which Walt Whitman took in writing Song of Myself. It is a complex poem with many philosophical implications on the status of man in the universe as well as in his own society, while at the same time through it Whitman shows us his view on the status of man in relation to the environment and implicitly to nature. Throughout the poem we see Whitman’s description of the poet-Self as a model for man blending with natural elements. In order for man and nature to merge in this way he first begins by deconstructing man into fragments either material or spiritual which he then places into the environment surrounding him. In his shamanistic experience he associates himself with every other man in the world and implicitly with his reader whomever he may be. He assumes this role in the WHITMAN’S SONG OF MYSELF AND THE MYTH OF OSIRIS 79 26th stanza of Song of Myself while deconstructing himself into “my own body, or any part of it”, “translucent mould of me”, “shaded ledges and rests” while finally declaring with “Hands I have taken, face I have kiss’d, mortal I have ever touch’d” which he all transcends to his listener in a phrase that he repeats over and over again in this section “it shall be you”. This dissipation of the self in all material and spiritual form comes in the representation of the self as Osiris who also rejoined the environment and nature after being split into pieces. Whitman will do the same thing with his split self and will unify its pieces as included into the environment. The smoke of my own breath, Echoes, ripples, buzz'd whispers, love-root, silk-thread, crotch and vine, My respiration and inspiration, the beating of my heart, the passing of blood and air through my lungs, The sniff of green leaves and dry leaves, and of the shore and dark-color'd sea-rocks, and of hay in the barn,[…] Walt Whitman, a kosmos, of Manhattan the son, Turbulent, fleshy, sensual, eating, drinking and breeding (Whitman, 5) As we can see from these lines in “Song of Myself” in order for the self to reach nature it must first blend into the environment in which it exists, including both nature and the urban realm, the latter being that which the self would transcend in order to reach the natural world. Whitman suggests that man be absorbed by nature and allow himself to become once again part of it despite the urban reality in which he now finds comfort. This idea is created through the constant representation of man as being absorbed by water, an element which represents nature and the fluidity of this bonding, an image that served Whitman well in creating the feeling of nature as encompassing every part of the self. Twenty-eight young men bathe by the shore,[…] Where are you off to, lady? for I see you, You splash in the water there, yet stay stock still in your room. […] The beards of the young men glisten'd with wet, it ran from their long hair, Little streams pass'd all over their bodies. (Whitman, 7) Later in the poem water will be seen as the element through which both the environment and man are able to exist, therefore the basis and connector for all forms of life. Whitman’s message is for man to allow himself to be absorbed by nature bit by bit while also absorbing nature within himself. The young men in the lines above seem unaware of how much water is truly part of their bodies and existence now and the poet is the only one who sees and is aware of this. 80 ANCA RONCEA As a poet Whitman sees himself as the mediator between the environment, nature and man. He thus assumes the role of the shaman and takes a commanding tone while addressing his listeners. According to Harold Bloom: […] Emerson was correct in his first impression of Whitman as the American shaman. The shaman is necessarily self-divided, sexually ambiguous, and difficult to distinguish from the divine. As shaman, Whitman is endlessly metamorphic, capable of being in several places at once, and a knower of matters that Walter Whitman, Jr., the carpenter’s son, scarcely could have known. (Bloom, 257) This instance in which the poet becomes the shaman exists in the context in which Whitman gives a mythological dimension to his poetry. While using the myth of Osiris in creating the Self, nature is given a spiritual dimension and thus becomes the sacred space sung by the poet. By taking the part of the mediator between this spiritual realm and the material one, Whitman embraces the role of shaman and becomes a “conductor of forces” (Coupe, 51) who through poetry connects the reader, whomsoever he might be, to the spirituality of the environment. As it has been argued previously by critics such as Harold Bloom, Whitman makes the distinction between the body and the soul, the latter belonging entirely to nature and the former being somewhat alienated from nature; however, in interpreting the poet-Self as a shaman one can say that the soul represents for Whitman that spirituality belonging to nature to which he strives to bring the body by metaphorically deconstructing it and reconstructing it in the natural world. O I perceive after all so many uttering tongues, And I perceive they do not come from the roofs of mouths for nothing. I wish I could translate the hints about the dead young men and women, And the hints about old men and mothers, and the offspring taken soon out of their laps. […] I am not an earth nor an adjunct of an earth, I am the mate and companion of people, all just as immortal and fathomless as myself, (They do not know how immortal, but I know.) (Whitman, 6, 7) The poet-Self sees himself as constantly aware of being in contact with this spirituality of nature and as a poet, armored with words to pass on his message he becomes the translator of the natural world to man. He thus gives language a great emphasis and even goes so far as to associate grass with a “uniform hieroglyphic” (Whitman, 6) to which he goes on and gives an interpretation “And it means, Sprouting alike in broad/ zones and narrow zones […]” (Whitman, 6). In using the notion of a hieroglyph he suggests that reconnecting to nature is as though the reader must understand a new language while at the same time it is a process which he must be willing to be initiated into in order to understand. A hieroglyph is also a cultural marker attesting the use of elements of Egyptian mythology into the content and the nature of the poem. WHITMAN’S SONG OF MYSELF AND THE MYTH OF OSIRIS 81 At the same time the word “grass” in the entire poem is not just a metaphor for the environment or for nature, it is to some extent also a metaphor for man and for the poet-Self, and in this sense Whitman shows that man is contained within this natural world and part of his message is for man to allow himself to be absorbed by his own environment by assuming his identity as a “leaf of grass”. As a shaman, Whitman also assumes his position in the natural world, as he is aware of this knowledge which he passes on only by being part of the spiritual world which he sings of to man. His senses seem to be exaggerated to the point where he feels everything around himself to the outmost extent. Thus the natural world which he sings in his poetry also becomes experience for Whitman, a world which he can sing because he had the ability to experience it, and at the same time he turns the poem into an experience for the reader through which he can reach the spirituality of the natural world. Also, by constructing the poem as a means for man to experience the spirituality of nature, the poet as a shaman aims this experience towards the soul which may return to nature in this manner and then lead the body in the same direction. In creating a poem as an experience for the one he’s addressing, Whitman was aware of the fact that he needed to bring back into poetry a classical element which modern poetry had long left behind, namely music. He clearly sees his poem as being endowed with music or with the qualities of music in poetry. Even the title shows distinctly that the reference is to the classical understanding of poetry as song, and thus as an audible message. In his role as a shaman giving the form of a song to his poem is part of the ritual, as he also suggests in the poem, it becomes an experience exclusive to one who is initiated. He creates lengthy lines of enumerations and repetitions which are mantra verses in the poem as a shamanistic ritual, and though he uses free verse there are frequent alliterations and assonances in his choice of words. But beyond giving musicality to the poem itself he makes frequent references within the poem to music as a means of expressing the environment. Hence music becomes the sound of the environment which the poet-shaman can hear and interpret as such in order to pass it on to man. Man is not included in the environment solely by being absorbed by water, he is also to be brought back to the natural world through its echoes and sounds which if unheard by man are delivered to him by the poet-shaman who declares himself as the deliverer of the voices of the environment. The impassive stones that receive and return so many echoes, […] What living and buried speech is always vibrating here, what howls restrain'd by decorum, […] I mind them or the show or resonance of them--I come and I depart. […] With music strong I come, with my cornets and my drums, I play not marches for accepted victors only, I play marches for conquer'd and slain persons. (Whitman, 7) ANCA RONCEA 82 At times he places nature above all of man’s creations and when he declares that “A morning-glory at my window satisfies me more than the metaphysics of books.”, he seems to be condemning the world constructed by man which creates a barrier between him and nature. However, in stanza #26 he asserts himself prepared to listen and “To accrue what I hear into this song, to let sounds contribute toward it.”, and thus in his position as a shaman he is able to perceive everything surrounding him as the sounds that constitute the environment. In continuing this stanza he enumerates sounds which make up an urban space and which he calls “Being”. It is here that he accepts urban space as part of the environment and withholding as much spirituality as nature, he thus urges man to allow himself to be absorbed by his environment through the music of its sounds, although that environment may be a universe constructed by man. In creating this poetry and urge for man to reconnect to nature and equally to his environment there is also a political purpose which Whitman included in Song of Myself. Historically speaking he was writing this poem in the context of the Civil War which threatened to destroy America’s unity. Thus he employed his poetry to send out a message of unity and democracy to the American people. By urging man to reconnect with nature and with his environment he also called out for a social unification, as there is no greater form of democracy as in nature, while at the same time a return to nature is a return to “the paradise which has been lost”. In this sense he frequently uses the word “democracy” as well as naming political figures to help him in carrying on his message. He thus becomes a shaman who hears not only the sounds of nature and of the environment but also of the voices of social injustice and political flaws. BIBLIOGRAPHY Whitman, Walt, 2011, Leaves of Grass, Classic Books International, New York. Coupe, Laurence, 1997, Myth, Routledge, London and New York. Eliade, Mircea, 1957, The Sacred and the Profane, Harcourt Inc., San Diego. Ploutarch, Isis and Osiris, http://thriceholy.net/Texts/Isis.html ; accessed on October 28th 2010, 10:15 PM. Bloom, Harold, 1994, The Western Canon (Chapter 11 – “Walt Whitman as Center of the American Canon”), Riverhead Books, New York. Tapscott, Stephen, 1978, “Leaves of Myself: Whitman’s Egypt in Song of Myself”, in American Literature, vol 50, no 1, Duke University Press. Killingsworth, M. Jimmie, 2005, “Walt Whitman and the Earth: A Study in Ecopoetics”, in Walt Whitman Quarterly Review, vol. 22, no. 4, pp. 201-203. DER JESIDISMUS: EIN BEISPIEL FÜR RELIGIÖSEN SYNKRETISMUS1 GEORGE GRIGORE∗ THE YAZIDISM: AN EXAMPLE OF RELIGIOUS SYNCRETISM The Yazidis or Yezidis are adherents of a small religious cult with ancient origins, organized in small villages spread out in Iraq, Turkey, Syria, Iran, Georgia and Armenia and are estimated to number in total approximately half million individuals. Early writers attempted to describe Yazidi origins, broadly speaking, in terms of Islam, or old Iranian religions, or sometimes even pagan religions; however, publications in the last fifteen years have shown such an approach to be very simplistic. The religion of the Yazidis is, in fact, a highly syncretistic one: elements from Zoroastrianism, Manichaeism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam can be found. Also, Islamic mystic influence and imagery can be seen in their religious vocabulary, especially in the terminology of their esoteric literature, but much of the mythology is non-Islamic, and their cosmogonies apparently have many points in common with those of ancient Iranian religions. Keywords: Yazidism, Yazidis, ancient Kurdish religion, Yaravism, Black Book, Yazdan. Die Jesiden oder Jeziden sind Anhänger eines kleinen religiösen Kults uralten Ursprungs, die rund um kleine Ortschaften im Irak, in der Türkei, in Syrien, im Iran, in Georgien und Armenien organisiert sind und deren Anzahl auf ungefähr eine halbe Million geschätzt wird (Tawa, 2005: 10). Die Jesiden gehören zu der kleineren der drei Abzweigungen des Jesidismus. Die beiden anderen, bevölkerungsreicheren sind Alevismus und Yarsanismus, die sich vom Jesidismus dadurch unterscheiden, dass sie die islamische taqiyya “Verheimlichung” anerkennen. Die drei Zweige sind geographisch abgegrenzt und gegenseitige Kontakte sind selten. Die Jesiden sind im Wesentlichen ethnische Kurden, und beschäftigen sich mit Ackerbau oder Tierzucht – sie ziehen mit ihren Herden zu den alpinen Weiden und zurück. 1. Ursprung Der Ursprung des Jesidismus ist in der Urgeschichte des Nahen Osten verschleiert. Obwohl die Jesiden Kurdisch sprechen, zeigt ihre Religion wichtige 1 ∗ Übersetzung ins Deutsche: Lucian Stănescu (Universität Bukarest). Universität Bukarest, Rumänien, e-mail: [email protected] GEORGE GRIGORE 84 Einflüsse uralter levantinischer und islamischer Religionen. Ihre wichtigste heilige Stätte befindet sich neben Mosul, im Irak. Die eigene Bezeichnung der Jesiden lautet Êzidî oder Êzîdî. Einige Wissenschaftler vertreten die Meinung, der Name Yazidi stamme vom alten iranischen yazata “Gott”, andere wiederum sagen er sei vom Umayyad Caliph Yazid I (Yazid bin Muawiyah) abgeleitet, den die Jesiden als Inkarnation der göttlichen Figur Sultan Ezi betrachten (dies ist nicht mehr weitgehend akzeptiert). Die Jesiden selbst finden, ihr Name sei von Yezdan oder Êzid abgeleitet, die Bezeichnung für Gott. Die kulturellen Bräuche der Jesiden sind kurdisch, und die meisten unter ihnen sprechen Kurmanjî (Nordkurdisch). Ausnahme machen einige Dörfer – wie Bayqa und Bahazane im Nordirak – wo mesopotamisch Arabisch gesprochen wird. Kurmanjî ist die Sprache fast aller mündlich übermittelten religiösen Traditionen der Jesiden. Während des XIV.ten Jahrhunderts werden wichtige kurdische Stämme, deren Einflusssphäre bis weit in die heutige Türkei reichte (für eine Zeitlang auch die Herrscher des Fürstentums Jazira) in geschichtlichen Quellen als Yazidi bezeichnet. 2. Der Glaube der Jesiden Obwohl die Jesiden viele eindeutige Besonderheiten aufzeigen, schenken sie ihren Glauben einem einzigen und einmaligen Gott, Khoda. Dieser ist voller unendlicher Liebenswürdigkeit, und doch so weit weg. Er wird hier auf Erden von sieben Engeln vertreten (kurdisch ezad/ezîdiyan “Engel” sg./pl.) die Ihm beistehen. Jeder dieser Engel wird der Reihe nach leibhaftig und herrscht eine Weile über die Menschheit. Somit hat man eine klare Darstellung wie berühmte Persönlichkeiten, historische oder legendäre, als Verkörperungen der Engel betrachtet werden: von Moses bis Jesus, bis Mansur al-Hallaj und so weiter. Dies bietet auch eine passende Erklärung für die große Anzahl der Engel die im Pantheon der Jesiden zu finden sind. Von all den Engeln zeichnet sich Malak-Tawus, der Pfau-Engel, ab und unterscheidet sich als der einzige felsenfeste, standhafte Engel. Er ist der stärkste, derjenige der all die anderen Engel anführt. Anfangs von Gott selbst vertrieben, da er Seine Gottheit nicht verehren wollte, ist Malak-Tawus, der Pfau-Engel letztendlich wieder eingesetzt worden, aber nur nachdem er 7000 Jahre lange bittere Tränen geweint hat. Eigentlich ist es Malak-Tawus, der Pfau-Engel, derjenige, der die Welt regiert. Eine Betrachtung dieser Religion von außen würde zur Schlussfolgerung führen, Malak-Tawus sei der Teufel selbst. Er ist die Quelle des Bösen, der Grund allen Unglücks und Leides. Um seinen Zorn nicht zu entfesseln, ist die bloße Aussprache seines Namens zu vermeiden (Tawa, 2005: 11). Malak-Tawus zu verehren ist anders, als Gott zu verehren. Während der Pfau-Engel mit Furcht und Anflehung und Demut verehrt wird, erfreut sich Gott DER JESIDISMUS: EIN BEISPIEL FÜR RELIGIÖSEN SYNKRETISMUS 85 der Verehrung mit viel Erkenntlichkeit und Zufriedenheit. Trotz dessen war die Furcht, die die Jesiden in sich trugen so erdrückend, dass sie Schritt um Schritt Gottes Verehrung aufgaben. Heutzutage erwähnen die Jesiden Gottes Namen nur ab und zu, und dann nur symbolisch, und haben sich gänzlich der Verehrung des Pfau-Engels gewidmet. Die Erklärung, die sie geben, ist sehr einfach: Gott würde ihnen, in Seiner Güte und Liebe für Seine Geschöpfe, in keiner Weise je ein Leid zufügen, wobei der Pfau-Engel nur um des Bösen willen existiert. Deshalb muss jeder, der sich Glückseligkeit wünscht, Gott beiseite lassen und Ihn nicht mehr verehren – dagegen sollte er den Pfau-Engel verehren, um Barmherzigkeit und Verzeihung flehen um somit das Böse, das Dieser entworfen, auf Abstand zu halten. 3. Jesidismus und andere Religionen Mittlerweile hat es der Jesidismus geschafft, andere Religionen, mit denen er in Berührung kam, teilweise oder in Gänze einzugliedern. Um dies zu erreichen wurden neue Zweige des Kults gebildet indem die höchsten Persönlichkeiten dieser anderen Religionen in dem jesidischen dynamischen Kosmogoniensystem der fortfahrenden Inkarnationen eingegliedert wurden. Etliche alte und inzwischen verschwundene Bewegungen und Religionen scheinen ihre Existenz auch als Zweige des Engelkults begonnen zu haben, unter ähnlichen Bedingungen wie diejenigen, die zur Geburt des Jesidismus geführt haben. 4. Ähnlichkeiten mit dem Zoroastrismus Der Zoroastrismus und der Kult der Engel haben viele gemeinsame Merkmale, darunter auch den Glauben an sieben guten Engeln und sieben “bösen”, die die Welt in Aufsicht haben, und auch eine hereditäre Pfarrerklasse. Diese Gemeinsamkeiten sind das natürliche Ergebnis langer und ereignisreicher Kontakte zwischen den beiden Religionen. Andere gemeinsame Elemente könnten das Ergebnis des religiösen Gepräges der arischen Siedler in dieser Gegend sein. Die Religion dieser Siedler muss dieselbe gewesen sein wie diejenige, die der Prophet Zarathustra später reformiert und in den Zoroastrismus umgewandelt hat. Das Symbol des Feuers nimmt einen wichtigen Platz in den Ritualen der Jesiden ein und ist gewiss auch ein zentrales Element der Parsi Ikonografie. Eigentlich wird auch über die Etymologie des Wortes Yazidi spekuliert es stamme vom avestischen Yazata, das “Gottheit” bedeutet. Die Mythen zur Schöpfung haben in beiden Kulturen viele Gemeinsamkeiten (beide kennen z.B. zwei Etappen der Schöpfung) und es gibt auch eine Heptade (amesha spentas) ähnlich zum jesidischen haftan. Es gibt des Weiteren sogar entsprechende Feste in beiden Kulturen wie auch den Brauch um das Tragen eines heiligen Hemdes (Kreyenbroek 1995: 57-60). GEORGE GRIGORE 86 Obzwar die Symbole und Bräuche auf einer bestimmten Ebene vergleichbar sind, ist es wahrscheinlicher, dass die Parsi Elemente im jesidischen Paradigma eigentlich Artefakte der Bewegung und Verbreitung einer Variante des Zoroaster Glaubens über Entfernungen und Zeit sind. Denn es gibt zwischen den beiden auch Unterschiede: die Jesiden (und Ahl-i Haqq) glauben in Reinkarnation – im Zoroastrismus gibt es keinen solchen Glauben, auch gibt es keine Parallele zur Idee der Seelendauswanderung, die wir in der Yardanist-Tradition finden. 5. Ähnlichkeit mit dem Engelkult In “The Concise Encyclopaedia of Islam” meint Cyril Glasse, dass Ahl-i Haqq “Volk des Absoluten, Wahren Gottes” nur eine etlicher Sekten ist die kollektiv ‘Ali ilahis “‘Alis Vergötterer” bezeichnet wird. Ahl-i Haqq ist ein kleiner, dualistischer Kult, der bei einigen Persern, Kurden und Turkmenen im Irak und Iran zu finden ist. Im Iran sind die Anhänger im Westen des Landes konzentriert, insbesondere um Tabriz, aber kleine Gruppen sind überall zu finden. Diese sind mit den Jesiden eng verwandt, und entfernter auch mit den anderen dualen Sekten des nahen Osten. Ihr Glauben lehrt von sieben Göttlichen Erscheinungen, angefangen mit einer Figur genannt Khawandagar. Des Weiteren sind sie überzeugt, dass der Cousin ‘Ali bin Abi Talib des Propheten eine dieser Erscheinungen war, und diese Serie gipfelt mit dem "Gründer" des Kults, eine Figur namens Sultan Sohak (Ishaq), der im 9ten / 15ten Jahrhundert gelebt hat. In diesem Kult wird der Hahn geopfert, als Symbol des Schwellenmoments des Tagesanbruchs. Daraus wird ersichtlich dass der Hahn als populäres Symbol in Religionen erscheint, in denen es eine Licht/Dunkelheit Polarisierung gibt. Die Ahl-i Haqq haben eine Zeremonie, die sie sabz namudar “grün machen” nennen, die auf den Glauben der Manichäer zurückzuführen ist, dass das Göttliche Licht in der Welt in größtem Maße in den Pflanzen konzentriert ist (deshalb waren die Manichäer Vegetarier). Der Glauben der Ahl-i Haqq, der von Gruppe zu Gruppe variiert, beinhaltet Elemente die typisch für gnostische oder manichäische Abweichungen sind, die am Rande des Islams, und eigentlich aller Religionen, zu finden sind. Wie die Ahl-I Haqq, glauben auch die Jesiden in die Seelenauswanderung und sogar in die Reinkarnation, die vier Formen annehmen kann (siehe Al-Hasani, 1980: 81): • fashkh – Reinkarnation der Seele in ein Mineral; • rashkh – Reinkarnation der Seele in eine Pflanze; • mashkh – Reinkarnation der Seele in ein Tier; • nashkh – Reinkarnation der Seele in ein menschliches Wesen. Die Jesiden glauben, gleich anderer Zweige des Engelkults, nicht an Hölle oder Himmel in physischer Form, voll Teufel oder Engel die am Ende der Zeit erscheinen werden, sondern an Hölle und Himmel in figurativem Sinne. Die Gräuel der Hölle und Genüsse des Himmels finden in dieser Welt statt, da DER JESIDISMUS: EIN BEISPIEL FÜR RELIGIÖSEN SYNKRETISMUS 87 die Menschen nach ihrem Tod durch Verkörperung entweder ein Leben voller Wohltätigkeit und Gesundheit leben oder umgekehrt, voller Elend und Armut – je nach dem, welch ein Leben sie in ihrem ehemaligen Körper gelebt haben. Niedrigste Form der Reinkarnation ist die eines Minerals, höchste Form die eines menschlichen Wesens. Am Ende der Zeit jedenfalls werden nur die gerechten und vollständigen "Menschlichen" die es schaffen, die verfängliche Brücke des Jüngsten Gerichts zu überqueren (auch mit koranischem al-Sirat al-Mustaqim “Der Gerade Weg” zu vergleichen), der Ewigkeit des Universalgeistes beitreten. Sie glauben an Metempsychose so sehr, und diese Überzeugung ist bei den Jesiden so tief verwurzelt, dass Reiche Leute, die unfolgsame, verschwenderische Söhne haben, ihr Reichtum begraben, aus Angst, die Söhne könnten es vergeuden. Sie merken sich den Ort und sind überzeugt, dass ihre Seele den Ort wiederfinden wird und sie dann die Schätze ausgraben werden und ein Leben in Schmaus und Braus führen können. Die misslungenen Seelen werden zusammen mit der materiellen Welt für immer zerstört. 6. Ähnlichkeit mit dem Christentum Die Jesiden haben religiöse Praktiken die nur in der christlichen Kirche wiederzufinden sind – die Taufe und die Eucharistie. Es stimmt zwar, dass die Benutzung des Wassers als Ritus auch bei anderen, nicht-christlichen Sekten vorkommt, aber die Ähnlichkeit diese Sakraments bei den Jesiden ist dem der Christen so ähnlich, dass dessen Wurzeln im Christentum liegen müssen, eher als in irgend einem anderen System. Wie auch ihre Nachbarn müssen die Jesiden ihre Kinder so früh wie möglich taufen. Im Ausführen dieses Brauchs benutzt der Scheich, gleich dem christlichen Priester, Weihwasser. Das Weihwasser der Jesiden entspringt einer kleinen Quelle namens Zamzam, aus dem Lalish Tal in Nordirak. Das in diesem Brauch benutzte Pokal trägt den Namen Jesus-Pokal. Sie benutzen auch eine besondere Erde (genannt baratta), die vom Grab des Scheichen ‘Adi stammt und ähnlich mit der Eucharistie der Christen ist. Diese wird den Sterbenden oder Todkranken verabreicht und ist als Allheilmittel gepriesen: “Wer ein wenig baratta über das ganze Jahr hindurch zu sich nimmt wird in Körper und Seele glücklich sein” (Grigore, 1994: 47-48). Nicht zu letzt verehren die Jesiden das Christentum und die christlichen Heiligen. Sie achten die Kirchen und Gräber der Christen und küssen die Tore und Wände wenn sie eintreten. Im schwarzen Buch wird gesagt, dass die Braut auf dem Wege zum Hause des Bräutigams den Tempel eines jeden Gottes besuchen soll, an dem sie vorbeigeht, auch wenn es eine christliche Kirche ist. Sie verehren auch ‘Isa (Jesus), und zu bestimmten Zeiten waren sie der Meinung, er wäre eine der Verkörperungen eines der sieben Engel. GEORGE GRIGORE 88 7. Ähnlichkeit mit den Ophiten Wie auch Habib Tawa (2005: 17) bemerkte, gibt es interessante Ähnlichkeiten zwischen den Jesiden und den Ophiten (aus dem griechischen óphis, “Schlange”). Die Ophiten waren im Nahen Osten ungefähr zwischen 100 A. D. und 400 A. D. verbreitet, dann wurden sie vom Konstantinischen Christentum vernichtet. Das gemeinsame Merkmal dieser zahlreichen gnostischen Kulte (z.B. Naassener Juden – na’asch “Schlange”; Mandäer, Sethianer, Peraten, Borboriten usw.), die die alten orientalischen, der Schlange gewidmeten Kulte weiterführten, ist die große Bedeutung, die sie der Schlange schenkten. Die Schlange der biblischen Geschichte von Adam und Eva, als Gewährer der Erkenntnis, als Verbindung zwischen dem Baum der Erkenntnis (von Gut und Böse) und Gnosis. Im Unterschied zu christlichen Interpretationen der Schlange als Satan waren die Ophiten der Meinung, dass der Wegöffner für die Menschen zur Erkenntnis der Herr dieser Welt sei. Da die Bibel die Schlange als nur eine Schlange identifiziert, fanden sich die Ophiten in ihrer Position perfekt gerechtfertigt, und zeigten, dass die Schlange Adam und Eva Zugang zur Erkenntnis gewähren wollte – verboten wird diese Erkenntnis von der Figur die Christentum und Judaismus als Gott identifizieren (Legge, 1914). Eines der sichtbaren, doch stillgeschwiegenen Symbole des Jesidismus ist die Schlange, die praktisch in keinem religiösen Text der Jesiden (mündlich oder schriftlich) explizit erwähnt wird. Der einzige Ausdruck dieses Symbols ist das zwei Meter große Bild der schwarzen Schlange am Eingang zum Heiligengrab des Scheichen ‘Adi in Lalish (Asatrian & Arakelova 2003: 7-8). 8. Pantheon der Jesiden Neben der Heiligen Triade – die heilige Triade besteht aus Malak-Tawus, Sultan Yezid, und Scheich ‘Adi bin Musafir, eine historische Figur, Gründer des ‘Adawiyya Sufi Ordens, der später zur Basis der Gründung der Jesidengemeinschaft steht (gem. Asatrian, Arakelova 2003: 4-9) – die die sogenannte dogmatische Basis der Religion der Jesiden bildet und sich im Kult und Glauben eindeutig hervorhebt, beinhaltet der Pantheon der Jesiden eine Vielfalt von Gottheiten und Schutzgeister die nicht sehr einfach zu ermitteln sind, aus Mangel an verfügbaren Materialien. Das Erfassen der Identität der jesidischen heiligen Figuren wird durch Vielfalt und Verschiedenartigkeit der verehrten historischen Persönlichkeiten versperrt – Angehörige und Milieu des Scheichen ‘Adi, lokal wichtige Heilige, mit begrenzter Einflusssphäre, die Sufi Heiligen (Mansur al-Hallaj, der den berühmten Satz Ana al-haqq “Ich bin die Wahrheit” aussprach; Rabi‘a ‘Adawwiya, die immer mit einem brennenden Stück Kohle in der Hand umherzog, bereit, den Himmel anzuzünden, und einem DER JESIDISMUS: EIN BEISPIEL FÜR RELIGIÖSEN SYNKRETISMUS 89 Holzeimer mit Wasser, um die Hölle zu löschen, und somit frei zu sein, Gott ohne jegliche Einschränkung zu lieben), biblische und Qur’anische Figuren, wie Ibrahim “Abraham”, Musa “Moses” , ‘Isa “Jesus”, ‘Ali, usw., wie auch einfache Scheiche and Pirs die einen bestimmten Heiligenschein tragen. Zur gleichen Zeit haben sich viele mythische und halb-mythische Figuren, Heilige, oft historische Persönlichkeiten, die aus Kulten verschiedener Religionen aus dem Nahen Osten stammen, z.B. aus dem Islam und insbesondere aus dessen sogenannter häretischen Umgebung, bei den Jesiden großer Beliebtheit erfreut und werden bei diesen zusammen mit den authentischen Göttlichkeiten verehrt. Eine bestimmte regionale Figur dieser Kategorie kann in das Paradigma der jesidischen Göttlichkeiten aufgenommen werden wenn sie sich tief im Volksgedächtnis eingeprägt und an die religiöse Tradition angepasst hat (z. B. Ibrahim-khalil, Hidir-nabi). Für die Figuren im Volkspantheon ist es unmöglich, die eindeutigen Attribute der Heiligkeit für eine gegebene Figur zu identifizieren, auch nicht in den Religionen, die ein offizielles Institut für Heiligsprechung haben (wie das Christentum). Umso mehr ist es mit den Glaubenslehren verbunden, wo die Gottwerdung oder Heiligsprechung informal stattfindet, durch Volkstradition. Im Jesidismus können diese informellen Kriterien von einer Figur erfüllt werden wenn sie in der mündlichen religiösen Tradition vertreten ist, wie auch, in den meisten Fällen, wenn sie in einer legendären Grabstätte in Lalish beerdigt wurden. Heiligsprechung (Gottwerdung) kann auch über Abstammung von Verwandten oder Untergebenen des Scheichen ‘Adi begründet werden (Scheich Hasan, Fakhruddin, und Scheich Shams). Die Figuren, die hier als Gottheiten identifiziert werden, sind diejenigen, die diverse Sphären menschlicher Tätigkeit beschirmen oder natürliche Phänomene personifizieren. Diese Liste beinhaltet die sieben Inkarnationen Malak-Tawus´ nicht: ‘Asrael, Dardail, Israfil, Mikail, Jabrail, Shamnail, und Turail (davon wird ‘Asrael, das angebliche Oberhaupt der Sieben zumeist als Malak-Tawus identifiziert, und die Sieben sind insgesamt Bildnisse des Letzteren), wie auch die meisten ihrer Gegenüber im Heiligensystem – historische Persönlichkeiten des 'Adawiyya Ordens, und zwar Scheich Abu Bakr (Kurdisch: Sexobakr), Sajaduddin (oder Sijadin, verantwortlich für die Begleitung der Seelen der Toten in die Unterwelt), Nasruddin (als Todesengel identifiziert; er war der Henker unter Scheich ‘Adi, tötete jeden der sich diesem widersetzte). Als Ausnahmen gelten Scheich Shams, der die Sonne symbolisiert, und Fakhruddin, der mit dem Mond identifiziert wird. Die jesidische shaykhy Tradition meint dass, zum Unterschied von allen anderen Völker, die von Adam und Eva stammen, die Jesiden nur einen Urvater hatten, Adam: Eva spielte in ihrer Genese keine Rolle. Einst, so erzählt uns die Legende der Jesiden, behauptete Eva, dass sie alleine Kinder zeugte, und dass Adam keinen Anteil an deren Schaffung hatte. 90 GEORGE GRIGORE Um diese Aussage zu testen wurden Samen der beiden in zwei verschiedenen Töpfen verschlossen. Neun Monate später, als diese geöffnet wurden, fand man in Evas Topf Schlangen, Skorpione und giftige Insekten, während in Adams Topf ein wunderschöner Knabe mit Mondgesicht lag. Den Jungen nannte man Shahid bin jarr (im Arabischen “Shahid, Sohn des Topfes”); er heiratete später eine Huri und wurde Vorfahre der Jesiden (Spat 2002: 27-56). Diese Darstellung über die Herkunft der Jesiden wird auch in einem der Heiligen Bücher der Jesiden bestätigt, im “Schwarzen Buch”: “Der Große Gott sagte zu den Engeln: Ich erschaffe Adam und Eva, und mache sie zu menschlichen Wesen. Aus Adams Kern wird Shahid bin jarr erscheinen, und von ihm wird auf der Erde ein Volk entspringen, das später die Menschen des ‘Azrayil, d.h. Malak-Tawus, zeugen wird, und das sind die Jesiden (Al-Hasani, 1980: 37). Eine andere Version derselben Legende spricht von zwei Kindern in Adams Topf (Al-Hasani, 1980: 50). Was die Gottheiten betrifft, die Naturphänomene kontrollieren, wird von den meisten geglaubt, dass sie diejenigen Krankheiten heilen, die von den entsprechenden Sphären verursacht werden, die unter der Gewalt der jeweiligen Gottheit stehen. Man muss dazu noch sagen, dass die heilende Funktion den Heiligtümern, Gräbern und bestimmten Scheichklans zugeschrieben ist, als eines der wichtigen Elemente der funktionierenden Wunder (Arakelova 2001). Die Namen der Gottheiten, Schutzgeister und Heiligen erscheinen zumeist zusammen mit den Titeln der Kaste. An der Spitze der Hierarchie stehen der Scheich (im Kurdischen şex, vgl. arabisch šayh “alter Mann”), der Pir (vgl. Kurdisch pir “alter Mann”, synonym mit dem arabischen šayh), und auch der Derwisch. Meistens werden zusammen mit den Namen der Gottheiten, Schutzgeister und Heiligen folgende Beinamen benutzt: malak (vgl. arabisch malak) “Engel”, xas (vgl. arabisch khass “besonders”), “auserwählt”, “edel”, xudan “Meister”, “Beschützer”, “Patron”, mer (vgl. kurdisch mer “Mann”) “heiliger Mann”, aziz (vgl. arabisch ‘aziz “mächtig”, “geachtet”) “heilig”, wali (vgl. arabisch wali “Freund”) “geliebt”, “nahe [zu Gott] “heilig”, qanj (vgl. kurdisch “gut”, “stattlich”) “heilig”, “Heilig” (im Ausdruck qanje Xwade “Gottes Heiliger”), usw. Die Götter, Götterinnen, Heiligen und Schutzgeister der Jesiden scheinen hauptsächlich in Ritualen zu existieren und werden zumeist in bestimmten kultischen Ereignissen, die mit ihrem Kompetenzbereich in Zusammenhang stehen, beschwört. (Asatrian; Arakelova, 2004: 233). Dementsprechend sind im jesidischen Pantheon, nebst Göttern und Heiligen, zusätzlich zur Heiligen Triade, folgende Figuren zu berücksichtigen: der Donner-Gott (und eine Anzahl äquivalenter Figuren); der Herr des Windes und der Luft; die Ur-Mutter der Jesiden und Schutzheilige der Frauen in den Wehen; die Herrin der Schwangeren und der Kleinkinder; die Gottheit des Phallus; die duale Gottheit der Rinder; der Gott der Erde (Unterwelt); der Beschützer der Wanderer; der Geist der Furche, der Geist des Haushalts; der DER JESIDISMUS: EIN BEISPIEL FÜR RELIGIÖSEN SYNKRETISMUS 91 Geist des Bettes; der Herr der Gräber; die universelle Gottheit (Khidir-nabi); Gottes Freund (Ibrahim-khalil); der Herrscher der Genies; der Geist der Baumeister; die Gottheiten der Sonne und des Mondes, und die des Gewands (kiras). Hier sind ein paar dieser jesidischen Gottheiten: Birus (auch Malak-Birus genannt, “Der Engel Birus”) ist von birusk “Blitz” abgeleitet. Das ist aber nicht der einzige jesidische Göttliche der den Donner und ähnliche Phänomene kontrolliert. Ba-raş –“Geist des Orkans” (wörtlich “Schwarzer Wind”) sind Namen derselben Gottheit, mit unterschiedlichen Eigenschaften: “strömender Hagel”, “schleudernd (Blitz)”, “blinkender Blitz” (oder “Wolken-Blitz”), und “Orkan”, “Wirbelsturm” (Asatrian; Arakelova, 2004: 234). Das Beiwort Raş(o) (vgl. kurdisch, raş) bedeutet “schwarz”, Farbe die oft benutzt wird, um die Namen überirdischer Geschöpfe zu definieren. Die Bezeichnung des jesidischen Geistes des Windes, Ba-raş, benutzt auch die Partikel raş, “schwarz”, als Attribut zu ba “Wind”, und heißt “schwarzer Wind” (Asatrian; Arakelova, 2004: 235). Sex Musê-sor “Roter Scheich Moses” – eine atmosphärische Gottheit, die die Winde und die Luft kontrolliert. Wird dann aufgerufen, wenn am Dreschboden mit der Getreideschwinge gearbeitet wird und man Wind bei gutem Wetter benötigt, um Korn von Heu zu trennen. Dann werden wir für dich rotes gebackenes Brot zubereiten (Kreyenbroek, 1995: 106). Sex Musê-sor wird zumeist mit dem Titel Sorê-soran, d.h. “Der Rote der Roten” verherrlicht. Das Attribut sor “rot” könnte hier die Heiligkeit unterstreichen, da rot im Gegensatz zu blau steht und blau bei den Jesiden die Farbe der Abtrünnigkeit darstellt. Sultan Yazid benutzt dieses Attribut auch: Siltan Ezidê Sor “Sultan Yazid der Rote” (Asatrian; Arakelova, 2004: 242). Verschiedener Legenden zu Folge gehört die Kontrolle über den “weißen” Wind auch Sexisin “Scheich Hasan”, der angeblich auch Herr der Tafel und des Griffels ist. Somit dürfen nur seine Nachkommen unter den Jesiden die Fähigkeit zu lesen und zu schreiben besitzen. Obwohl eigentlich Sex Musê-sor (Sorê Soran – “Der Rote der Roten”) Herr der Tafel und des Griffels hätte sein sollen, genau wie sein Gegenüber unter den Ahl-i Haqq, der Erzengel Pir Musi, erinnert das Motiv klar an die biblische Erzählung mit Moses, der die Tafeln mit den zehn Geboten von Gott erhielt. Die Verschiebung der Funktionen von Sexmus zu Scheich Hasan fand durch die Kontaminierung der Bilder statt, was auch zur Verflechtung der Kräfte zur Kontrolle des Windes und der Luft führte. Scheich Hasan, der einen historischen Archetyp hat, ist eine Randfigur zwischen den jesidischen Heiligen (Asatrian; Arakelova, 2004: 243). Das Bildnis Moses in der Tradition der Jesiden muss eine doppelte Durchschlagskraft gehabt haben, vielleicht eine parallele: ein Mal als Sexmus, als ein Gott, und ein Mal als ein Charakter aus der Folklore, Musa Pexambar, d.h. der Prophet Moses; ihm wurde sogar eine Hymne gewidmet “Qawle Musa Pexambar” (Celîl; Celîl, 1978: 366-368, 438-439). 92 GEORGE GRIGORE In den religiösen Konzepten der iranischen ländlichen Gemeinschaften ist der Prophet Moses eine populäre Figur, die viele lokale Figuren primitiver Verehrung ersetzt hat. Die Ahl-i Haqq sehen Pir Musi als eine Inkarnation des Engels Israfil (Ilahi; Mokri, 1966: 24, 28). Pira-Fat ist die Herrin der Schwangeren und der Kleinkinder: sie beschützt sie vor der bösen Dämonin (Asatrian 2001). Eine gebärende Frau bittet Pira-Fat um Hilfe: Yā Pīrā-Fāt, ālī min bika! “Oh Pira-Fat, hilf mir”! Die Anwesenden äußern ihre Hoffnung für die Hilfe der Göttin: Çārā Pīrā-Fāt bē hawara ta! – “Möge der Samen Pira-Fats dir helfen!” (Celîl; Celîl, 1978: 434). Das Wort çar in dieser Formel bedeutet “Samen”, Bedeutung die sich aus der ursprünglichen – “Mittel, Möglichkeit” entwickelt hat, über die zwischenzeitliche Bedeutung “Flüssigkeit, Medizin” (vgl. kurdisch çara “Medizin”, “Lösung”). Dieser Satz drückt den Wunsch der Frau aus, einen puren Jesiden zu gebären, vom Originalsamen des Volkes der Jesiden – da Pira-Fat die traditionelle Beschützerin dieser Samen ist. In ähnlicher Weise beschwören sie diesen Samen wenn sie sich auf eine Reise begeben: Yā Pīrā-Fāt çāra ta sar ma “Oh Pira-Fat, lass deine Hilfe (Samen) mit uns sein”. Pira-Fat ist eigentlich die Urmutter der Jesiden, denn sie hat diesen Samen, aus dem das Volk stammt, vor Zerstörung gerettet. Der Name dieser Gottheit, Pira-Fat, bedeutet wörtlich “alte Frau Fat”, und ist anscheinend zurückzuführen auf den Namen der Tochter des Propheten Mohammed, Fatima. Diese Persönlichkeit hat viele Charakterzüge vor-islamischer Gottheiten der Fruchtbarkeit und Familie in sich vereint, und wird in der ganzen muslimischen Welt verehrt, insbesondere bei den Schiiten (Asatrian; Arakelova, 2004: 245). Die Jungfrau Maria (Maryam) hat im Islam fast dieselbe Funktion, und gebärende Mütter beten im Regelfall beide Heiligen an (Donaldson 1938: 31). Dass Fat eine Form von Fatima ist zeigt sich durch die Benutzung beider Namensformen, in besonderen Kontexten, für die Tochter des Propheten. Die Hymne, die ‘Ali gewidmet ist, Gottes Löwe (Bayta Ali Şerê Xwade), gibt dazu einen klaren Hinweis (Celîl; Celîl 1978: 403). Die Abkürzung des Namens Fatima oder, um genauer zu sein, der Wegfall der Endsilben ergibt sich offensichtlich aus der kurdischen Interpretation des Namens: Fatima war als izafet Konstruktion verstanden Fatima “Fat-i-ma”, d.h. “unsere Fat”. “Die Hand der Fatima”, das Symbol der fünf Hauptpersönlichkeiten in der Schia – der Prophet Mohammed, ‘Ali, Fatima, Hasan und Husayn – ist ein Hauptelement der Talismane und Amuletten die vor bösen Geistern und Dämonen schützen (Budge, 1961: 467-472). Eine metallene Darstellung der “Hand der Fatima” ist ein wichtiges Accessoire in jedem gottesfürchtigen Schia Haus, nebst einem Portrait von ‘Ali, dessen Bildnis zugleich bestimmte Charakteristika alter iranischer Mystiker angesammelt hat – von Verethregna bis Rostam. Der Heilige Engel ist, wie zu erwarten, auch in den Hochzeitsbräuchen zu finden. Die Jesiden schmückten einen der Bäume vor des Bräutigams Haus und legten einen Stock in phallischer Form zwischen den Ästen. Bevor das neu vermählte Paar das Haus betrat, standen sie eine Weile unter dem Baum, und die Freunde des Bräutigams schüttelten diesen und sprachen: “Mögen Bräutigam und Braut so fruchtbar sein wie dieser Baum”. DER JESIDISMUS: EIN BEISPIEL FÜR RELIGIÖSEN SYNKRETISMUS 93 Der Name dieser Figur, Xudane-male, kann als “Meister des Hauses” übersetzt werden. Er verkörpert das Wohlergehen für Haus und Familie, unterstützt die Moral der Familie, fördert die Vermehrung der Rinder und gute Ernten. Xudane-male wohnt in der Feuerstelle,* aber manchmal nimmt er die Form einer Schlange an und verlässt das Haus. Deshalb stellt das Töten einer Hausschlange eine große Sünde dar, die das Glück abwenden kann und Ärger und Not bringen kann. (Christensen, 1941: 83-84; Seferbekov, 2001: 140-141). Die Verehrung für Khidr, “den grünen Mann”, ist eine allgemein akzeptierte Praxis unter den muslimischen Kurden. Khidrs heilige Stätten sind im Kurdistan überall neben natürlichen Quellen zu finden. Die Muslime haben die Überlieferungen zu Khidr mit denen über den Propheten Elija verbunden, denn beide sind unsterblich, da sie aus dem Brunnen des Lebens getrunken haben. Ein Geist der Erde und des Wasser, der unsterbliche Khidr lebt in den tiefen Wassern der Seen und Teiche. Er nimmt verschiedene Gestalten an und erscheint Menschen, die ihn um Hilfe bitten, um deren Wünsche zu erfüllen. Khidr (im kurdischen Xidir-nabi “der Prophet Khidr”), hat offensichtlich muslimische Wurzeln (ein Andeutung an ihn, vielleicht ohne ihn beim Namen zu nennen, erscheint im Koran: XVIII, 59-81). In der Tradition der Jesiden ist er einer der Söhne des Scheichen Sham; er ist in erster Reihe ein himmlischer Krieger, ein Reiter auf einem weißen Pferd (haspe siyare boz) (Al-Hasani, 1980: 73). Ibrahim-Xalil (vgl. arabisch khalil “naher Freund”) in das Pantheon der Jesiden aufzunehmen ist gewiss ziemlich vorläufig, denn er hat keine klaren Einflusssphären und auch keine Rollen in der Praxis des Kults. Dies ist vielleicht ein vergötterter Heiliger, der während eines Mahls, insbesondere eines rituellen Mahls adressiert werden soll. 9. Abschließende Bemerkung Die Religion der Jesiden ist eine sehr synkretische: man kann darin Elemente des Zoroastrismus, des Manichäismus, des Judentums, des Christentums und des Islams finden. Zur gleichen Zeit erkennt man den Einfluss des islamischen Mystizismus und der Symbolik im religiösen Wortschatz, insbesondere in der Terminologie der esoterischen Literatur, doch große Teile der Mythologie sind nicht-islamisch, und die Kosmogonien scheinen viel mit denen der alten Religionen aus dem Iran gemeinsam zu haben. Frühe Studien haben versucht, die Wurzeln des Jesidismus allgemein im Islam zu verankern, oder in alten Religionen aus dem Iran; wurde manchmal sogar als heidnische Religion eingestuft – Veröffentlichungen der letzten fünfzehn Jahre haben aber gezeigt, dass diese Angehensweise sehr simplifizierend ist. GEORGE GRIGORE 94 LITERATURVERZEICHNIS al-Hasani, Abd ar-Razzaq (1980), Al-yazidiyyuna fi hadhirihim wa madhihim, Al-Umma (Verlag), Bagdad. Arakelova, Victoria (2001), Sufi saints in the Yazidi Tradition, in Iran & The Caucasus, vol. 5, 183-192. Arakelova, Victoria (2002), Three Figures from the Yazidi Folk Pantheon, in Iran & The Caucasus, vol. 6, 1/2, 57-73. Arakelova, Victoria (2004), Notes on the Yazidi Religious Syncretism, in Iran & The Caucasus, vol. 8, 1, 19-28. Asatrian, Garnik, Victoria Arakelova (2003), Malak-Tawus: The Peacock Angel of the Yazidis, in Iran & The Caucasus, vol. 7, 1/2, 1-36. Asatrian, Garnik, Victoria Arakelova (2004), The Yazidi Pantheon, in Iran & The Caucasus, vol. 8, 2, 231-279. Celîl, Ordixanê, Celîlê Celîl (1978), Zargotina Kurda, vol. 1-2, Nauka (Verlag), Moskau. Christensen, A. (1941), Essai sur la démonologie iranienne, Ejnar Munksgaard (Verlag), Copenhagen. Donaldson. Bess Allen (1938), The Wild Rue. A Study of Muhammedan Magic and Folklore, in Iran. Luzac & Co. (Vrerlag), London. Drower, Ethel Stefana (1941), Peacock Angel. Being Some Account of Votaries of a Secret Cult and their Sanctuaries, John Murray (Verlag), London. Grigore, George (1994), Slujitorii Diavolului; Cartea Neagră; Cartea Dezvăluirii, Călin (Verlag), Bukarest. Kreyenbroek, Philip G. (1995), Yazidism: Its Background, Observances and Textual Tradition. Edwin Mellen Press (Verlag), New York. Legge, Francis (1914), Forerunners and Rivals of Christianity. From 330 B.C. to 330 A.D., University Press (Verlag), Cambridge. Ilahi, Nur Ali, Mohammad Mokri (1966), L'ésotérisme kurde. Aperçus sur le secret gnostique des fidèles de vérité, A. Michel (Verlag), Paris. Seferbekov, R. (2000), On the Demonology of the Tabasaranians, in Iran & The Caucasus, vol. 5, 139-148. Tawa, Habib, Les Yezidis, www.edph.auf.org/IMG/pdf/Tawa-Yezidis.pdf TRANSITION NOVELS ÉVA BÁNYAI∗ In my study I examine Zsolt Láng’s novel entitled Bestiarium Transylvaniae IV. The Animals of the Earth in the light of transition narratives, highlight the following aspects: How do the geocultural specificities, the border tensions of alterities influence the poetics of memory? How is the transition from ritual coherence to textual coherence represented, how is it textualised? To what extent are the language of objects and the language of concepts determining from the viewpoint of understanding the novel, are they comprehensible also for those who live outside the social and spatial perspective of the novel, heavily relying on geocultural bonds? Keywords: geocultural narrative, border identity, cultural memory, chronotopic coordinates, name maps. The prose trend which I call prose of the turn is becoming a pronounced element of contemporary Hungarian prose. A major characteristic of novels or short story volumes which I consider as belonging to this trend is that they try to grasp, to describe, to speak about the Romanian turn of the eighties-nineties of the past century through language, they try to transform the turn into narration. I emphasize the tendency of formation, as the structure and construction of the various literary works are also influenced by the story, the Romanian regime change: the problematization of the possibility of rendering through words the preceding totalitarian regime and the subsequent “turn”. The narrow scope of the topic is especially traceable in four volumes: Zsolt Láng: Bestiarium Transylvaniae IV. The Animals of the Earth (2011), Andrea Tompa: The Hangman’s House (2010), Sándor Zsigmond Papp: Lives of No Great Importance (2011) and Márta Józsa: Until Grandma Turns Up (2007). I examine the above works in the first place, but in a wider spectrum Róbert Csaba Szabó’s Funeral at Ten in the Evening (2011) and Black Dacia (2012), Gábor Vida’s Fakusz’s Three Solitudes (2005) and Ádám Bodor’s The Visit of the Archbishop (1999), Melissza Bogdanowitz’s Footprint (2003) and Verhovina’s Birds (2011) as well as novels by Péter Demény, György Dragomán and Zsuzsa Selyem, previously already analysed by me, also belong to the trend of transition narratives. ∗ Lecturer at the University of Bucharest, Romania, Faculty of Foreign Language and Literature, Department of Hungarology, e-mail: [email protected] 96 ÉVA BÁNYAI In the interpretation of most of the above listed works there emerges the viewpoint of the manifestation of geocultural determinedness. In the prose works implying intercultural experiences, born in an intercultural border-space, the heterogeneity of the cultural space comes to the front, this is why not only the space concept resulting from cultural heterogeneity offers itself for examination, but also the way in which the notion of border identity manifests. Márta Józsa’s essay novel, Until Grandma Turns Up, is related to the author’s childhood in Cluj and its outgrowths; the primary purpose of the text is not to present the transition, the turn, but rather to relate its antecedents and partly its consequences, to present the Cluj of the seventies-eighties and of the following years, together with its micro- and macro-social aspects. In Sándor Zsigmond Papp’s novel entitled Lives of No Great Importance the final days of the Ceauşescu regime1 and the transition existence after the turn, with its ambiguity, plasticity and entropy, are revived through the dwellers of the – I quote the opening of the novel – “massive corner house turned into grey-brown” of Törekvés street 79, in an unidentifiable Transylvanian town, situated at the border, with allusions to Satu Mare (but bearing characteristics of Cluj). Andrea Tompa’s book, The Hangman’s House, similarly to the novels by Márta Józsa (as well as by Péter Demény and Zsuzsa Selyem), is also a Cluj-novel; we are informed about the raging and the final days of dictatorship, about the euphoric atmosphere of the first days after the regime change, the turn (as it has not been called revolution lately) through the stories, memories, reflections and family history of a 17-18-year-old adolescent girl. In The Animals of the Earth Zsolt Láng presents the periods before and after the Romanian turn, also from the viewpoint of a 17-18-year-old adolescent girl, Bori (rendered through a third-person narration throughout the novel), the macho dictatorship from a (slightly) feminine viewpoint (Károlyi 2011). In the present study I will especially focus on the space concepts formed in Zsolt Láng’s novel entitled Bestiarium Transylvaniae IV. The Animals of the Earth, paying attention to geocultural aspects; in my approach I will mainly resort to Kornélia Faragó’s geocultural theories (Faragó 2009), and I will spatialize the following set of questions: How do the geocultural specificities, the border tensions of alterities influence the poetics of memory? How is the transition from ritual coherence to textual coherence represented, how is it textualised in the above mentioned prose text? To what extent are the language of objects and 1 The problematic character of narration is indicated by a pronounced feature of these novels, namely that they refrain from writing down the name Ceauşescu, in the same way as we used to refrain from uttering it; in Papp’s novel it also occurs only once, in the rest of the novels it does not occur at all or it occurs rarely, being mentioned as secretary general or the leader of the nation, etc. With the plural I indicate my subjective involvement in the interpretation, which I experienced, throughout the reading and interpreting the novels, “As if all this had happened to me” (Bodor 1999: 49). TRANSITION NOVELS 97 the language of concepts determining from the viewpoint of understanding the novel, are they comprehensible (that is, does the linguistic-poetic construction provide interpretation) also for those who live outside the social and spatial perspective of the novel, heavily relying on geocultural bonds? The exploration of the latter set of questions can be of utmost importance from the viewpoint of geopoetics: in the text displaying well-determined time segments, explorable by means of strong topographical markers, of a concrete town map or one displaying ambiguous, floating places, we can also highlight the permanent topic of totalitarian regimes, namely the nature and landscape of fear, depicted in its incomprehensibility and difference, rendering the occurrences of the end of the eighties in Romania from an adolescent perspective. The text construction, structure formation out of memory mosaics also has a poetic relevance; it is materialized in the language of the writings, it is embodied in various linguistic-poetic forms in the above mentioned novels: the fragmented, corrective language schemes or the several-page-long sentence flows also problematize the narration and/or inexpressible nature of the respective turn. As what is common in these stories is the experiment of their narration; in spite of the fact that as a consequence of its undefinability, the existence changing role and special importance of that particular turn, that is, the 1989 “event” from Romania, is undeniable, still, the Great Story is impossible to narrate, it can only be put together out of mosaics, shavings, memory fragments (at the same time the act of assembling, putting together is also questionable). One aspect of some of the novels, which I regard as highly relevant, can be linked to this, namely the child/adolescent perspective of the narrators; the novel-constructing significance of the adolescent girl viewpoint, the multiply burdened gender perspective (linguistic, social, ethnic, gender etc., minority perspectives), rendering the historical-social-gender turn(s) from the turning point of the own life, is not at all ignorable. In the case of all the four novels the definability of the chronotopic coordinates has a text constituting character (in a narrower angle: it can be determined in each case that the text space is constituted by a Romanian, Transylvanian town and the period of time narrated in the novels can be restricted to the eighties in Romania as well as to the turn, to the transition), consequently, the co-texts, the influx of external worlds into the texts also determine the context of the textual world. Earlier I examined space concepts manifesting in prose writings (by Ádám Bodor, Zsolt Láng, György Dragomán, Gábor Vida and Sándor Zsigmond Papp) in the case of which the cultural spatial embeddedness and spatial dependence had a text constituting force, but all this was relevant with respect to the relativisation of referenciality and the importance of highlighting the act of being created in language; however, most of the above mentioned texts are not afraid of the effect of decreasing the aesthetic value of referenciality, they are not afraid of the impediment of recognizability (as there is no reason for it). ÉVA BÁNYAI 98 What Jan Assmann formulates in his volume entitled Cultural Memory in connection with the transition from ritual coherence to textual coherence (Assmann 1999), can be encountered in Zsolt Láng’s novel, in its textual construction. In it we witness an example (but not a parable) of the literary construction of the twentieth-century Romanian totalitarian regime and one of its striking and relevant aspects is geocultural narration, the novel being a depository of linguistic and non-linguistic documents, revealing the culture in which it came to light.2 The novel (expected for a long time) is the manifest (also expected for a long time) of the transformation into text of seemingly undiscussable, unspeakable events, of ritual determinedness (not only in the Romanian) public sphere. Geocultural narratology becomes significant, in the first place, in the description and manifestation of fictitious ideas pertaining to the spatialization of culture, turning attention to spatial dimensions hidden in the treatment of the issues of historical situatedness manifesting in them, as well as in the prefix geo- of geoculture – and especially to border motions, transitions (Faragó 2009: 8). In the novels under discussion, and especially in The Animals of the Earth the process of reading is guided by referencializable chronotopic coordinates. The temporal layers – similarly to spatial ones – are multilayered, on the one hand, there is a relatively linear thread of storytelling – except the dialogue of half idiots opening the novel, “socialising” the reader into its world –, the action starts on 13 May 1989, and – apart from the ten-page, one-sentence closure unveiling the dénouement – the story (fetus) evolves in 8-9 months, reinforcing the strong body-poetical parallel. The fragmentary storytelling, the continuously intercalated historical-anecdotical parts are embedded (sometimes not expressly organically) into the loose set of happenings. The space of action can be precisely defined: apart from a few parallel, anecdotical digressions (pointing towards Cluj and Târgu Mureş), it takes place in Satu Mare, thus, the space of a north-western Romanian town constitutes the space of the novel. As Kornélia Faragó also states, the “world” to be narrated, which becomes presentable through the geocultural narrative, is unnaratable from one single cultural viewpoint (Faragó ibid.). In other words, it resists the strategies of homogeneous narratability; heterogeneity, a multilayered and many-coloured perspective becomes indispensable. The geocultural perspective also presupposes and entails the distancing from it, that is, from itself. Thus, not a single characteristic can be identified: the poetic construction creates a network of relations and viewpoints. In Láng’s novel this becomes relevant, on the one hand, in the many-colouredness of narration and speech styles, in the continuous 2 Cf.: “Reading places the various perspectives into roles completing each other; a kind of assembling thinking, the mosaic-method known from the specialist literature of anthropology can lead to the »whole«. We can consider the narration theories of a geocultural foundation important due to the turn into the textual.” (Faragó 2009: 7) TRANSITION NOVELS 99 alternation of the narrative modes and in their adjustment to the style of the language of narration, on the other hand, in the continuous presence of ethnic and cultural multilayeredness, in the (re)presentation of their past and present differances, in the emphasis on otherness. What is that provides the particularity, the identity of belonging to the cultural area – simultaneously with the differences – in these novels, that is, in geocultural narratives? It is, on the one hand, the pronounced feature of nationality, ethnic distinction (Hungarian vs. Romanian; extended to the Central-EasternEuropean space concept it could be Slovakian, Serbian, Ukrainian, etc.), on the other hand, from the angle of the others, of those observing from outside, a kind of “landscape spirit”, some kind of unknowable space formation – which, as a cultural space, is unapproachable from the perspective of one single nationality (Cf. Faragó ibid.). Thus, in the narratives discussed here the space, the landscape, the “earth” are not means to express national identity, belonging there, identity, but rather they form a cultural space, a multilayered, hybrid identity, one attribute of a kind of border identity, formed through various relations, in which cultural meanings and values are encoded. Thus the interpretation of space – in the examination of which border and periphery come to the front –, of culturally interpreted landscapes (Mitchell 1991: 30) becomes indispensable, as they constitute basic features of geocultural narratives. The spatial layers of Láng’s volume are superimposed out of the layers of the past, of story and history; the access to the past and to memory is multiply problematized, all this being complemented by a temporal stratification, connected to the several-century-old historical turns, transitions. The chronological layers of space construction start with the foundation of Szatmár/Satu Mare (with Zotmár’s story, full of ironical comments otherwise characteristic of the whole novel; for instance, the potential name giver, Burebista, is also included in it), and continue with the end of the nineteenth century, with squares and street names, the period after World War I, World War II, stories of totalitarian regimes, 1989 May to December, then indicate the town square after the turn – the latter closes the text in form of the texture of a ten-page sentence flow. However, these are not clearly distinguishable, precisely identifiable chronotopes; changes, transitions, turns and their consequences are narrated, such as the history of the building of the gendarme post; the space change is defined in terms of the smell of foreigners who moved into the houses emptied after the Jews had been deported from the town – or in terms of the absence of earlier smells.3 At the same time, the renaming of the squares, of the space is also indicated by the small culture-historical essay on the act of symbolic territorialization, acquiring 3 Smells have an important role as identity indicators; the tight spaces, apartments, which can be linked to the different ethnic groups, can be distinguished based on smells. At the same time – see Ádám Bodor’s The Smell of Prison (2001) – the smell of fear – sometimes compared to the smell of drains – is identified as a text constituting attribute. 100 ÉVA BÁNYAI completeness in time, which can be read on pages 17-18 and which includes the history and culture of the town. It is culture that is spatialized and spatializes – it is the spatializing force of culture that forms geoculture. The relations of naming (which in my interpretation result in name maps in several masterpieces of contemporary Hungarian prose) are significant elements of geocultural narration; however, in the above indicated part names are not the indicators of stability, but due to symbolic territorialization, they are indicators of transition, transformation, changeability (or the perpetuation of transition), of permanent metamorphosis. The names of certain characters from the novel also belong here, Vizi from Vízi, Caricaş “(pronounce: karikás)” from Karikás, Deacu “(pronounce: deáku)” from Deák, in the case of which the absence of the historical, cultural “background knowledge” also adds to the (possible) lack of knowing the Romanian language, as the pronunciation or the sounding of these names is (roughly) the same as the original name, but this interpretation is not provided by the “reading” according to Hungarian grammar.4 These names do not only designate, but they also activate spaces of association, they create relations, forming a geocultural narration instead of national identity. As the regions belonging toghether geoculturally can never achieve the stabilization of certain names, and here and now I am not only thinking of the pseudonyms from Ádám Bodor’s Sinistra District, where identification is made problematic from the start by the fact that every character has a pseudonym received from the authorities, the names of the representatives of power also change (sometimes in an unreasonable and deceptive way), but also of the toponyms. Thus the issue of name change, of the double or plural name use also reinforces the presence of border identity (referring to the impossibility of fixing, grasping identity). Geocultural experience makes its effect felt in the differenciation of understanding: due to the use of various linguistic and objectual attributes, distinguished, localized narratives and interpretations are born. That is, the interpretation of those who live within the cultural and linguistic boundaries differs from the one of those who live outside.5 One feature of these texts is musealisation: objects conceived as cultural signs, various immaterial artefacts as well as “culture collecting aspects” fulfill the role of text organization (Faragó 2009: 16). Thus, the transition from the ritual coherence to the textual 4 This is why the text provides “assistance” with the instructions in brackets. It is a memorable locus of the irony and parody characterizing the whole novel when the instruction urges the reader to “pronounce as desired” the unpronunceable Dacian sentence. (Láng 2011: 261) 5 “A given literary text is read differently by those who dispose of communicative memory about the spatio-temporality rendered by the text, at least about one segment of this temporality, and in whom every name, notion and object opens up a past, inner world segment; they can read their own stories, their own former questions into them. And it can be understood totally differently by those who read it in the absence of biographic memory, and their new questions are born within the time of reading.” (Emphasis in the original.) (Faragó 2009: 42) TRANSITION NOVELS 101 one is created by these cultural museal pieces and textual loci, the presence of which also influences the role of the poetics of memory, as it compels the reader to apply various collating strategies by resorting to the poetics of recognition. According to Kornélia Faragó, these things, objects, immaterial artefacts do not only belong to space, but they are themselves the geocultural spaces. For instance, the Kárpáci without filter6 with Láng, Dragomán and Papp (with each writer it occurs differently, with a different spelling), or wearing the hateful, detested school uniform and matriculation number in Láng’s and Tompa’s novels, together with presenting the act of not wearing them or wearing them differently, are – besides emphasizing otherness – the signs of latent resistance in all cases, while they can be interpreted as the geocultural motifs of dictatorship. The idioms identified as geocultural brand names7 also belong here: for instance, the expression they took the light away, which provides insight into the degree of exposedness during the totalitarian regime, but the one who does not have first-hand experience of the respective period, interprets it, in the best case, as an incorrect grammatical formulation – or ignores it. The poetics of musealization has a role of indicating space and time, of depicting the age: the novel contains series of relics of the totalitarian regime: the screw-top jar as a scarce commodity; queuing (and its social-psychological aspects); buying food in exchange of food tickets; the greengrocer’s at the corner; nylon bag; the resistants are taken to the [Danube] Canal; people wearing leather coats; the Szabad Európa [radio programme] is disturbed; Gyorgyudézs [Gheorghiu Dej]; the big boss stays in streets where even the street lamp is armored; the party secretary is expected by the crowd; cabinet no. II; patriotic work; harvesting corn; cars allowed to be used only every other Sunday, etc. As Kornélia Faragó states: “The geocultural meaning components can be especially recognized in the zone where even the »outside« reader belonging to the same language culture is characterized by uncertainty and loss of orientation; s/he has to recognize that s/he does not fully »understand« everything and that for him/her the co-texts are not fully readable or are fully unreadable” (Faragó 2009: 21). I would remark in addition: the interpretation becomes problematic also for the “inner” interpreters not disposing of biographic memories, as the young generation, born in the narrated time, the generation of the present students, can get to know (or recognize) the respective period only from the narratives of the parents or grandparents.8 6 Carpaţi fără filtru – a sort of cigarette without filter. “But let’s think about these brand names in the absence of the denoted thing: without the knowledge of the meaning-background of the discourse, without the cultural background knowledge and in the absence of cultural memory not even the possibility of misunderstanding or wild reception can occur. The reduction to the name presupposes the referential sameness of the interpretive plane.” (Faragó 2009: 11.) 8 The lack of knowledge related to the basic terms of the period can be a relevant example of the way of reading and (mis)understanding in the absence of biographic memory: when I put down the first notes with the purpose of writing the present study, I encountered the following situation in the 7 ÉVA BÁNYAI 102 At the same time, that emphasized layer of the novel which can be approached from the poetics of the body, can address the young generation, Bori’s generation from the novel: besides the social-historical turn, the mapping of the female body (mainly) from a female perspective, the depiction of the turn in the sexual (maturation) process acquires a special role. The Animals of the Earth is a border novel: not only due to its geographic position, but also because of the border existence of adolescence and sexuality. The space, Szatmár/Satu Mare is also articulated as a female town – the architecture of unfulfilled love culminated in the construction of the town (Láng 2011: 152); the town built upon Zotmár’s grave is the town of the woman, it is indestructible, those many who tried to destroy it all perished. “The memory of the bitter and sweet love contoured the labyrinth swallowing the enemy. But the town also revolted against the tyranny of its own dwellers; and even if the oratories can repress the desire for freedom for a while, the subconscious of the town will erode the dictators’ pedestal, the bark of the applause square, polished out of cheap marble, will collapse under them.” (Láng 2011: 153–154) Bori’s attitude to her own body is similar to the town space formed through the desire of love. The absence of the discourse about the body, the fantasizing about sexuality gets completed with the compulsory gynecologic examination, which indicates that corporeality cannot be withdrawn from the confinement, emanating fear, of the all-controlling dictatorship; the gynecologic lamp correlates with the interrogator lamp of the Securitate, this is why it is important to highlight the liberation-story from the end of the novel, which is, both concretely and figuratively, the stepping out, the liberation from the drains: getting out from under the ground Bori notices that light has inundated the square; she experiences freedom as orgasm: a light has lit up also in the brain. The previous outer as well as inner confinement has been replaced by the freedom of spirit and body. BIBLIOGRAPHY Assmann, Jan (1999), A kulturális emlékezet [Cultural Memory], Atlantisz, Budapest. Bodor, Ádám (1999), Az érsek látogatása [The Visit of the Archbishop], Magvető, Budapest. Faragó, Kornélia (2009), A viszonosság alakzatai [Figures of Correlation], Forum, Novi Sad. Józsa, Márta (2007), Amíg a nagymami megkerül [Until Grandma Turns Up], Noran, Budapest. Szabadság, the daily newspaper from Cluj: when translating a piece of news taken over from the Romanian newspapers, the translator and the editor proved that they had probably not been socialized before the turn, as the widely known UTC (Uniunea Tinerilor Comunişti, Union of Young Communists) had never been the Fiatal Kommunisták Egyesülete (Szabadság, 29 February 2019), but KISZ (Kommunista Ifjak Szövetsége). The latter mosaic word also occurs in Zsolt Láng’s novel. TRANSITION NOVELS 103 Károlyi, Csaba et al. (2011), “ÉS Kvartett” [“ÉS Quartet”], in Élet és Irodalom, 27, p. 8, http://www.es.hu/;es-kvartett;2011-07-08.html [2011. 09. 10.] Láng, Zsolt (2011), Bestiárium Transylvaniae IV. A föld állatai [Bestiarium Transylvaniae IV. The Animals of the Earth], Kalligram, Bratislava. Mitchell, W. J. T. (1991), “Birodalmi táj. Tézisek a tájképről” [“Imperial Landscape. Theses on Landscape”], in Café Bábel, 1, pp. 25-42. Papp, Sándor Zsigmond (2011), Semmi kis életek [Lives of No Great Importance], Libri, Budapest. Tompa, Andrea (2010), A hóhér háza [The Hangman’s House], Kalligram, Bratislava. DAS INTERKULTURELLE POTENTIAL DER PROSA RUMÄNIENDEUTSCHER AUTOREN NACH 1990 DANIELA IONESCU-BONANNI∗ THE INTERCULTURAL POTENTIAL OF THE PROSE WRITTEN BY ROMANIAN AUTHORS OF GERMAN EXPRESSION AFTER 1990 Intercultural competence is one of the most important skills for any individual who wants to succeed on the job market. Political and development sciences researchers have shown how literary products are invaluable sources of cultural knowledge and emphasize their inclusion in special management training. In terms of content, literary products are so profoundly interconnected with cultural features that literary fragments with a strong biographical element are increasingly used to exemplify theoretical knowledge about a foreign country. But since we live in a global world, one particularly interesting question arising in this context is whether literary productions can be understood correctly without any references to the cultural background from which they emerge. In this respect it is valuable to examine how literary products by German authors with a Romanian background may be read or even misread because the appropriate cross-cultural background is lacking. After Herta Müller won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2009, the intriguing question is whether a far-reaching imagination or more a mixture of images from different cultures lend such literary productions their unique intercultural dimension? This paper will take a closer look at literary fragments by some German authors with Romanian backgrounds such as Herta Müller, Richard Wagner, Franz Hodjak and Dieter Schlesak. The purpose is to investigate whether their meaning can be influenced by such a lack of cultural background, and also in considering their provocative images whether we can find explanations for this literary output in the specific content of Romanian culture. Keywords: German literature, inter- and cross-cultural communication, Herta Müller, Romanian background, cultural dimension. Ich träume schwarzweiß. Wenn ich aufwache, spreche ich Rumänisch mit der toten Lerche auf dem Balkon, nachdem ich, kurz zuvor, im Schlaf noch Deutsch gesprochen hatte [...]1 Dieses Zitat aus Franz Hodjaks Roman Ein Koffer voll Sand ist symptomatisch für die literarischen Texte der rumäniendeutschen Autoren – das Leben zwischen kulturellen Räumen ist eine zutiefst prägende Eigenschaft ihrer Persönlichkeiten und ihrer Schriften. Die einschlägige Literatur verzeichnet zahlreiche Studien, in denen die Entwurzelung, die Heimatlosigkeit oder die Unfähigkeit in irgendeiner ∗ Dozentin für Neuere Deutsche Literatur an der Universität Bukarest, Rumänien, e-mail: [email protected] 1 Hodjak 2003, S. 14. 106 DANIELA IONESCU-BONANNI Kultur anzukommen und sich zurecht zu finden thematisiert werden2. Jedoch gibt es meines Erachtens einen genauso interessanten Aspekt, der sich erst im gegenwärtigen Diskurs einer interkulturell angelegten Literaturwissenschaft zu konturieren vermag. In absentia einer Heimat, um die sich sonst der Dialog mit der spezifischen Fremdheit anderer Kulturen entfaltet3, bilden die rumäniendeutschen Autoren in ihren Werken hybride Kulturräume, die sowohl im spezifischen, sozialen und kulturellen Kontext ihres Herkunftslandes, Rumänien, als auch im kulturellen Kontext der Urheimat, Deutschland, verankert sind. Meine These ist, dass ein hoher interkultureller Lerngehalt hinter diesen Texten steht, der auch für die entstehende Literatur im europäischen Raum von hoher Bedeutung sein kann. Das Ziel des vorliegenden Aufsatzes ist eine kulturanalytische Betrachtung der Prosatexte rumäniendeutscher Autoren nach 1990. Eine solche Absicht kann man nicht fern von den existierenden Diskussionen durchführen, was die Berechtigung einer interkulturell angelegten Literaturwissenschaft anbelangt. Demnach zuerst eine kurze Bestandaufnahme und die eigene Positionierung in diesem Forschungsfeld. Konkrete Überlegungen zu einer interkulturellen Literaturwissenschaft kann man heutzutage meines Erachtens nicht von der zuweilen etwas überstrapazierte Diskussion über das Phänomen der Globalisierung trennen. Ausgehend von einer primär negativen Definition von Globablisierung als „keinen in sich gesättigten, von störenden Einflüssen abgeschotteten Vorgang“ 4 sondern vielmehr als Interaktion von „[...] lokale[n] und globale[n], differenzierende[n] und generalisiserende[n] Faktoren auf allen Ebenen des gesellschaftlichen Tuns und somit auch in der Literatur“ 5 werden wir schnell auf die Erklärung stoßen, warum es absolut notwendig ist, auch die rumäniendeutsche Literatur aus dieser Perspektive zu beleuchten. Es ist eine Literatur von Kulturbegegnungen, in denen die Dominanten: Internationalität, Pluralismus, Heterogenität, Differenz, Inter- und Multikulturalität, Inkohärenz und Interdependenz, Widersprüchlichkeit und Vielfalt6 bestens vertreten sind. Horst Steinmetz beschreibt in seinem Aufsatz Globalisierung und (Literatur)geschichte, wie transnationale Überlappungen entstehen und damit Veränderungen der literarischen Topographie. Besonders bei den rumäniendeutschen Autoren ist dieser Aspekt stark ausgeprägt. Die Literatur ist extrem wenig reduzierbar auf objektive Repräsentationen sondern die Welt stellt sich: [...] immer durch Kulturen gebrochen dar, so daß es verschiedene Welten und Wirklichkeiten gibt, die alle den gleichen Anspruch auf Anerkennung, nicht aber auf Alleingültigkeit erheben dürfen. Auch in der Literatur begegnet man dieser Einsicht. [...] 2 Vgl. hierzu die umfangreichen Veröffentlichungen des Instituts für Deutsche Kultur und Geschichte Südosteuropas (IKGS) an der Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München. 3 Vgl. Ertler 2006, S. 137. 4 Schmeling/ Schmitz-Emans/ Walstra 2000, S. 6. 5 Ebd. 6 Siehe Steinmetz 2000, S. 190. DAS INTERKULTURELLE POTENTIAL DER PROSA RUMÄNIENDEUTSCHER AUTOREN NACH 1990 107 Regionalität kennt ihre Grenzen, ohne darum ihren eigenen Universalismus aufzugeben, der einen anderen regional fundierten Universalismus nicht bestreiten, sondern sich mit ihm vergleichen will.7 Führt man diesen Gedanken weiter, kann behauptet werden, dass durch das Zusammenspiel des Besonderen und Regionalen sich das Universale herauskristallisiert, was widerum für die neue europäische Literatur eine wesentliche Rolle spielen wird. Selbstverständlich hat es Interkulturalität in der Literatur schon immer gegeben. Das, was allerdings neu ist, ist die Häufigkeit des Phänomens und die wachsende Bedeutung in der heutigen Zeit. In einer Zusammenfassung der Forschungsschwerpunkte einer interkulturellen Literaturwissenschaft führt Karl Esselborn vier große Hauptbereiche an. Nach der Literatur der deutschen Auswanderer nach Übersee, der Literatur der Arbeitsmigration in Deutschland, der der Umgesiedelten und Heimatvertriebenen ist die letzte Gruppe die der Minderheitenliteraturen im Ausland, beziehungsweise der weitgehend nach Deutschland vertriebenen rumäniendeutschen Literatur8. Jedoch setzt Esselborn hier seine Gedanken fort in dem Sinne, das die Grenzen zwischen dieser Literatur und der von ihm so benannten ausländerdeutschen Literatur relativ klar gekennzeichnet seien. Ich hingegen wähle einen Ansatz, der an die dekonstruktivistische postmoderne Haltung von Aglaia Blioumi9 anlehnt, denn meines Erachtens weist die Literatur rumäniendeutscher Autoren viele Gemeinsamkeiten mit der Literatur ausländischer Autoren in Deutschland auf. Gemeinsam ist nicht nur der Außenseiterstatus, sondern auch die Situierung in einem Zwischenraum, den auch Immacolata Amodeo für die sogenannte Gastarbeiterliteratur folgendermaßen beschreibt: Spracherwerb und Sprachverlust gehen nebeneinander her. Der Ablöseprozeß von den alten Wurzeln, der Status zwischen zwei Kulturen, wird immer als Gefährdung, als angstbesetzte Persönlichkeitskrise erfahren.10 Ohne der rumäniendeutschen Literatur ihren Sonderstatus absprechen zu wollen, sind die Ähnlichkeiten doch verblüffend. Auch nur die Tatsache, dass zwei unterschiedliche Autoren, einerseits die rumäniendeutsche Literatur als fünfte deutsche Literatur 11 andererseits die Gastarbeiterliteratur 12 als solche angeben, ist ein Beweis dieses Sachverhaltes. In der Diskussion um eine interkulturell angelegte Literaturwissenschaft wendet sich Immacolata Amodeo 7 8 9 10 11 12 Ebd., S. 198. Siehe Esselborn 2001, S. 343. Siehe Blioumi 2006, S. 14. R. P. Carl zitiert nach Amodeo 1996, S. 37. Vgl. dazu Ritter 1981, S 632 ff. Vgl. Amodeo 1996, S. 40. 108 DANIELA IONESCU-BONANNI insbesondere gegen die ersten Theorien in den achtziger Jahren von Harald Weinrich und Irmgard Ackermann, denen sie ethnozentristische und kolonialistische Ansichten vorwirft. Ohne auf diese Polemik eingehen zu wollen, gibt Amodeos Untersuchung jedoch interessante Hinweise auf die Perspektive der Autoren, die sich teilweise mit denen der rumäniendeutschen Autoren decken. So wird zum Beispiel das Gefühl der Heimatlosigkeit und der Unzugehörigkeit genannt, das oft eine Rolle spielt 13 . Immacolata Amodeo spricht ferner von einer Hierarchisierung und von dem Bestreben der Autoren auf den Status einer Minderheitenliteratur zu kommen – was die Schlussfolgerung nahe legt, dass diese als qualitativ höher eingestuft wird 14 . Diese Betrachtung würde eine Diskussion über Wertung in den Fokus rücken, die aber im Rahmen des vorliegenden Aufsatzes nicht geleistet werden kann. Der Unterschied zu den von Gilles Deleuze und Félix Guattari benannten kleinen Literaturen15 besteht allerdings laut Amodeo in der Tatsache, dass es sich um keine klar umrissene und homogene Literatur handelt, was auch durchaus stimmt. Die Vielfalt der Manifestation dieser Unzugehörigkeit, gegeben durch die Entstehung und Steigerung verschiedenster kultureller Begegnungen, und die immerzu wachsende Bedeutung interkultureller Bezüge können als gemeinsame Nenner dieser Literatur betrachtet werden16. Somit liegt es nahe, dass man bei den Minderheitenliteraturen und den gegenwärtigen Literaturproduktionen von Autoren mit Migrationshintergrund gemeinsame Nenner herausarbeiten könnte. Ich bin der Meinung, dass ein kulturwissenschaftlicher Ansatz für diese Untersuchung adäquat ist. Die von Thomas Göller vorgeschlagene Methode für eine kulturvergleichende Literaturwissenschaft sollte dabei wegweisend sein, denn erst eine Herausarbeitung der kulturspezifischen Charakteristika gewährleistet den Texten eine wesentliche Bedeutung17. Ein solcher vergleichender Blick wird auch mit diesem Forschungsvorhaben beabsichtigt: es gilt es zu untersuchen, in wie weit das Verständnis und die Interpretation literarischer Texte rumäniendeutscher Autoren nach 1990, durch ihr interkulturelles Potential beeinflusst werden kann. Genauer wird die Untersuchung sich auf zwei Aspekte konzentrieren. Auf der einen Seite werden Bilder der Interkulturalität untersucht – dort wo in den literarischen Texten bewusst mit Stereotypen und kulturellen Gehalten gearbeitet wird. Auf der anderen Seite gilt es Textstellen ausfindig zu machen, in der eine fehlende Kenntnis des kulturellen Referenzrahmens leicht zu Überinterpretation führen 13 Ebd., S. 52. Siehe Amodeo 1996, S. 53 ff. 15 Das 1976 erschienene Buch von Gilles Deleuze und Félix Guattari Kafka: für eine kleine Literatur spielt im Rahmen der interkulturell angelegten Literaturwissenschaft eine Pioniersrolle. 16 Siehe Amodeo 1996, S. 86 ff. 17 Vgl. hierzu Göller 2001, S. 35. 14 DAS INTERKULTURELLE POTENTIAL DER PROSA RUMÄNIENDEUTSCHER AUTOREN NACH 1990 109 können. Für beide Aspekte wird es eine besondere Rolle spielen, wie diese Texte in Deutschland wahrgenommen wurden. Selbstverständlich hat jede Rezeption und jede Interpretation ihre Berechtigung, es handelt sich stets um eine legitime Deutungsvielfalt bei einer fremdkulturellen Rezeption 18 , ich erhoffe mir jedoch interessante Beispiele, der daraus entspringenden Pluralität. Umso wichtiger ist die direkte Verbindung zu der Rezeptionsforschung, der auch Norbert Mecklenburg eine fundamentale Rolle in der interkulturell ausgelegten Literaturwissenschaft zusprach19. In diesem Zusammenhang ist der Mechanismus, der sich bei der Erschließung von Leerstellen bei der Lektüre fremdkultureller Texte einstellt interessant. Uta Schaffers spricht in diesem Sinne von einem „Zwischen“ in dem sie nicht im Gadamerschen Sinne den Ort der Hermeneutik sieht20, sondern einen positiven Ort der kulturellen Begegnung, der interkulturellen Verständigung in einer transterritorialen Sphäre: Mit einer Rezeptionshaltung, die universalisierend den eigenen Kontext absolut setzt, wird ein möglicher Rest von Unverstehbarkeit, der aus der kuturellen Differenz resultiert, >überlesen< und die Bedeutungszuschreibung vollzieht sich unter Verweigerung der Anerkennung von Differenz. Der Rezipient liest in das Unvertraute Vertrautes hinein, und eignet es sich, so weit es geht, an: Er füllt die Leerstellen, die der Text ihm bietet, mit seiner Erfahrungswelt und übersetzt die sperrigen Textstellen als ungewöhnliche Darstellung von eigentlich vertrautem. Das Andere wird angeeignet, assimiliert.21 Es geht also lediglich um die Konstitution von verschiedenen Bedeutungsebenen und deren Vergleich. Nicht unwesentlich wird dabei sein, wie sich die Schriftsteller selber zu diesen Sachverhalten positionieren. Im Sinne einer interkulturellen Germanistik und einer kulturdifferenten Auslegung literarischer Texte charakterisiert Thomas Göller im Anschluss an Dieter Krusche die Leerstellen als zweierlei: diejenigen, die ein kulturelles Vorwissen erfordern und diejenigen, bei denen die eigene Bestimmheit des Textes suspendiert ist22. Letzteres ist fundamental für die differentierte Wahrnehmung von Texten. Göller erweitert im Anschluss an Scheifele diesen Begriff der Leerstellen auch dahingehend, dass ihr Effekt bei der Rezeption von späteren Lesern aus einer fremden Kultur gar nicht einzukalkulieren ist23. Infolge der vorangehenden Betrachtungen empfiehlt sich für die Zwecke einer kulturanalytisch geprägten Literaturwissenschaft die Definition von Kultur als einer Dimension, einem Feld, einem Teilsystem der Gesellschaft, mit den Worten Norbert Mecklenburgs als „gesellschaftliches Feld symbolischer Formen und Praxis, als signifying system“24, das sich konsequent in der Literatur widerspiegelt und sich stets verändert. 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 Siehe Ebd., S. 33 und Steinmetz 1992, S. 386 ff. Vgl. Mecklenburg 2008, S. 23. Vgl. hierzu Schaffers 2003, S. 356. Ebd., S. 353. Vgl. Göller 2001, S. 14. Ebd. Mecklenburg 2008, S. 15. DANIELA IONESCU-BONANNI 110 Innerhalb der Minderheitenliteraturen spielt die rumäniendeutsche Literatur eine ganz besondere Rolle durch ihren ausgeprägt transnationalen Charakter zumal Forscher wie Karl Esselborn von der Gegenwart als einem Zeitalter der transnationalen Literaturen25 sprechen. Die systematische Analyse des interkulturellen Potentials dieser Literatur kann demnach einen interessanten Beitrag zur gegenwärtigen Forschung leisten. Wenn auch mitunter die Wirkung rumäniendeutscher Literatur auf dem bundesdeutschen Buchmarkt als enttäuschend dargestellt wird 26 , so ist es jedoch allgemein anerkannt, dass die rumäniendeutsche Literatur in diesem Zusammenhang eine wichtige Ausnahmerolle spielt, nicht zuletzt weil sich ihre Literatur zu zersetzen27 droht, genauso wie die Minderheit selber. Besonders wichtig scheint mir dabei die Bemerkung, dass die Literatur hier nicht erst durch Überschreitung der Herkunftsgrenzen interkulturell geworden ist, sondern dass es sich dabei um eine interkulturell geprägte Literatur per se handelt, durch den kulturell-geschichtlichen Kontext, dem sie entspringt. Sie ist in dieser Hinsicht modern und wegweisend, denn in einem vereinigten Europa wird es höchstwahrscheinlich der gemeinsame Nenner der zukünftigen literarischen Produktionen sein, ähnlich wie in den multiethnischen Staaten zuvor. Norbert Mecklenburg äußert in seinem Buch Das Mädchen aus der Fremde. Germanistik als interkulturelle Literaturwissenschaft eine interessante Bemerkung, da er festzustellen meint, dass es bei Celan eindeutige interkulturelle Bezüge gibt, während es sich bei Herta Müller seiner Meinung nach um einen Sieg der poetischen Alterität gegenüber der kulturellen handele 28 . Nach Mecklenburg spiele es bei einer Celan Lektüre durchaus eine Rolle, ob man etwas über die NS-Zeit weiß oder nicht, während es bei Herta Müller, wegen der Metapherndichte weniger wichtig ist. Eine adäquate Leseart wäre in diesem Fall mit oder ohne Kontext möglich. An diesem Punkt möchte ich Mecklenburg widersprechen und unterstreichen, dass auch für das Verständnis der Texte von Herta Müller das Hintergundwissen eine bedeutende Rolle spielen kann. In dieser Hinsicht weise ich auf den Aufsatz von John J. White hin, A Romanian in Germany: The Challenge of Ethnic and Ideological Identity in Herta Muller`s Literary Work29, in dem der Autor die Wichtigkeit der täglichen Erfahrungen für das Verständnis eines Textes hervorhebt. Meine These ist, dass man dem Text interessante Metaphern zuschreiben kann, wenn der kulturelle Kontext nicht bekannt ist, ohne dass die Bilder poetischen Metaphern entsprechen. Um diese Behauptung zu stützen möchte ich an dieser Stelle zwei Erzählung anführen, in denen die rumäniendeutsche Schriftstellerin und inzwischen Nobelpreisträgerin Herta Müller auf ihre eigene Interkulturalität hinweist. 25 26 27 28 29 Siehe dazu Esselborn 2001, S. 336. Vgl. Mecklenburg 2008, S. 454. Vgl. Ebd., S. 457. Siehe Mecklenburg 2008, S. 459 ff. Vgl. White 2002, S. 75. DAS INTERKULTURELLE POTENTIAL DER PROSA RUMÄNIENDEUTSCHER AUTOREN NACH 1990 111 Im ersten Beispiel handelt es sich um die Erzählung Die Insel liegt innen – die Grenze liegt außen30. Anhand des Begriffes Insel verdeutlicht Herta Müller in dieser Geschichte die ganz unterschiedlichen Leseweisen der Bundesdeutschen und der Rumäniendeutschen. Wenn die Ersteren sagen: man sei reif für die Insel, meinen sie einen Ort der Flucht, ein entspannendes Exil, während für die deutsche Minderheit gerade dieser Status einer Insel im rumänischen Kulturraum traumatische Züge aufweist, genauso wie die kommunistische Vergangenheit: Das Wort Inselglück hat für mich zwei auseinanderstrebende Teile. Das Wort „Insel“ lässt das Wort „Glück“ nicht zu. Ich habe über dreißig Jahre in einer Diktatur gelebt, jeder war für sich eine Insel und das ganze Land noch einmal. [...] Ich kenne aus der Kindheit das Inselunglück. Alle bestehen daraus: die im Haus, die im Dorf. Die Nachbardörfer waren zwei rumänische Dörfer, ein slowakisches und ein ungarisches Dorf. Jedes für sich mit einer anderen Sprache, seinen Feiertagen, seiner Religion, seiner Kleidung.31 Das zweite Beispiel stammt aus der Erzählung Bei uns in Deutschland und erläutert, wie man mit einer innerdeutschen Interkulturalität bei alltäglichen Beschäftigungen, wie dem Blumenkauf, auf ernüchternde Weise konfrontiert werden kann: Zweimal kaufte ich Blumen im selben Laden. Die Verkäuferin, eine Frau um die Fünfzig, behielt mich vom einen zum anderen Mal im Gedächtnis. Da suchte sie mir zur Belohnung für meine Wiederkehr die schönsten Löwenmäulchen aus dem Eimer, zögerte ein wenig und fragte: „Was für eine Landsmännin sind Sie, sind Sie Französin?“ Weil ich das Wort „Landsmännin“ nicht mag, zögerte ich auch, und es hing eine Schweigen zwischen uns, bevor ich sagte: „Nein. Ich komme aus Rumänien.“ Sie sagte: „Na, macht ja nichts.“, lächelte, als hätte sie plötzlich Zahnschmerzen. Es klang gütig, wie: kann ja passieren, ist ja nur ein kleiner Fehler. Und sie hob den Blick nicht mehr, sah nur noch auf den eingepackten Strauß. Es war ihr peinlich, sie hatte mich nämlich überschätzt. Schon als ich „Löwenmäulchen“ verlangte, mußte ich mir denken: „In meinem mitgebrachten Deutsch, in Rumänien heißen diese Blumen „Froschgöschl“, in der Dorfsprache von zu Hause ganz direkt „Quaken“, also nur das Gesinge, welches die Frösche von sich geben. Der Unterschied zwischen Löwen und Fröschen könnte nicht größer sein, der Vergleich beider Tiere ist abwegig. Das deutschlanddeutsche Löwenmäulchen ist ein grotesk überschätztes Froschmaul oder Froschquaken. Genauso wurde ich ein paar Minuten später überschätzt.32 Wäre diese Erzählung von Herta Müller anders ausgefallen, weniger berichtend, und hätte es im Text lediglich das Wort „Quaken“ gegeben, wäre es durchaus möglich gewesen, es ohne Kenntnis der Gepflogenheiten im Banat, als Metapher zu deuten und sich in der Interpretation zum Beispiels auf eine mögliche Synästhesie dieses Bildes zu beziehen, das seine Wurzeln allerdings 30 31 32 Müller 2008 (1), S. 160 f. Ebd. Müller 2008 (2), S. 177 f. 112 DANIELA IONESCU-BONANNI nur in einer sprachlichen Verschiedenheit zwischen dem Hoch- und dem Rumäniendeutschen hat. Ich fühlte mich in meiner Hypothese bestätigt, als mir ein rumänischer Student, der als DAAD Stipendiat in Tübingen war, berichtete, welche Frage bei einer Lesung Herta Müllers im November 2009 gestellt wurde: der Gesprächspartener, Prof. Jürgen Wertheimer, fragte, ob sie Wörter wie Meldekraut und Herzschaufel (es ging um den Roman Atemschaukel) erfunden hätte. Die Deutung des Professors war naheliegend, er vermutete starke Metaphern dahinter. Die Antwort war aber ganz überraschend für ihn – nein, sagte Müller, diese Wörter gibt es tatsächlich. Sie erklärte sogar, welche Funktion die Schaufel mit dem herzförmigen Blatt habe, und zwar die größeren Stücke Kohle mit der scharfen Spitze brechen zu können. Demnach kann man behaupten, dass sprachliche Elemente ein gutes Beispiel für das interkulturelle Potential der Prosatexte rumäniendeutscher Autoren nach 1990 darstellen. Ähnliche Bilder wie aus den Texten von Herta Müller finden sich auch beispielsweise in der Prosa von Franz Hodjak, so auch in seinem Roman Ein Koffer voll Sand, in dem die Hauptgestalt, Bernd Burger, durch das Bewusstsein, er verwendet in seiner Muttersprache Wörter, die es im Duden de facto gar nicht gibt, erst zum Sprachschöpfer wird: Bernd Burger konnte den Haß nicht begreifen, der in diesen Sätzen steckte. Die Sätze platzten vor Mord und Totschlag, und die Worte rechtfertigten alles. Während Bernd Burger nachdachte und nicht wußte worüber, buserierte33 ihn eine Fliege. Dieses Wort buserieren, aus dem er dann ein Hauptwort Buseration ableitete, ließ er sich genüßlich auf der Zunge zergehen, weil es in keinem Wörterbuch verzeichnet war, und vor Freude, daß es in keinem Wörterbuch verzeichnet war, erfand Bernd Burger Worte wie Tschutschu oder Gurkulu, oder Pupunusch [...].34 In einem weiteren Roman von Franz Hodjak liegt das interkulturelle Potential nicht im Bereich der dialektalen Unterschiede, sondern in den geschichtlichen Gegebenheiten. Grenzsteine ist 1995 erschienen, also relativ schnell nach der Übersiedelung des Schriftstellers in die Bundesrepublik, und der Text scheint in erster Linie ein Roman der Verarbeitung jüngster kommunistischer Vergangenheit, der Dezember Revolution 1989 und der so genannten rumänischen „societate de tranzitie“, der Übergangsgesellschaft. Die Problematik der Grenze, die schon im Titel aufgeworfen wird, ist zunächst die einer politischen und ideologischen Grenze, die durch territoriale Beschränkungen verstärkt wird. Der Roman beginnt in einer Auf- und Abbruchsstimmung. Die Hauptgestalt, Harald Frank, entscheidet sich alle Zelte seiner bisherigen Existenz abzubrechen und sie gegen ein kleines enges Zelt vor der Deutschen Botschaft in Bukarest 33 Das Wort „buserieren“ gibt es im Hochdeutschen nicht, man verwendet es allerdings laut online-Wörterbuch in Österreich [http://www.oesterreichisch.net/oesterreich-1068-buserieren.html abgerufen am 15.11.2010] 34 Hodjak 2003, S. 124. DAS INTERKULTURELLE POTENTIAL DER PROSA RUMÄNIENDEUTSCHER AUTOREN NACH 1990 113 einzutauschen, in dem er sich einquartieren will, um sich irgendwann in den Westen begeben zu dürfen. Hier handelt es sich auch nicht um eine Metapher, wie man vielleicht annehmen könnte, ähnlich wie in den Texten Herta Müllers, sondern um eine Realität der bereits angesprochenen Übergangsgesellschaft. Somit beginnt der Roman nicht etwa mit der Eröffnung von Spannungsfeldern oder Problematisierungen, sondern mit der bewussten Akzeptanz einer Übergangssituation in einem zwischenterritorialen Raum, der allerdings später im Roman vielsagende ideologische Züge annimmt. Trotz der Ekelgefühle die ihn anfangs auf der Reise befallen, passt Harald Frank sich, im Zeltlager angekommen, den absurden Bedingungen und Spielen perfekt an, und nimmt es sich fest vor, alles zu „überwarten“35, indem er sich mit dem Zelt als neue Heimat abfindet und mit der Sturmlaterne seines Großvaters wappnet. Der Raum vor der Botschaft wird zu einem exemplarischen Schauplatz grotesker Bilder politischer Gegenwart: die ablehnende und abwertende Haltung der Botschaftsvertreter, die Bergleute als Staatsmacht, politische Parteien die sich blitzschnell, je nach Interessen und Absichten, unter den Wartenden bilden, all dies ist in der rumänischen Geschichte der frühen neunziger Jahre nachweisbar: Ein Reporter rannte herbei. Er wurde sofort festgehalten. Im zelt bildeten sich etliche Parteien, die eine war der Meinung, man solle den Reporter laufenlassen. Die andere verkündete hartnäckig die Ansicht, man müsse ihn totschlagen, die dritte Partei machte den Vorschlag, wenn man ihn schon gefangen habe, solle man ihn überreden oder zwingen, das spiele im wesentlichen keine Rolle mehr, Spenden zu organisieren, die restlichen Parteien enthielten sich, indem sie erklärten, sie seien in der Opposition.36 Überhaupt ist die Art der Darstellung dieser Episode im Roman bezeichnend für Franz Hodjak – gekonnt grotesk stellt er die fragwürdige Rolle politischer Parteien dar, sowie die endlosen Diskussionen, die sich anhand lächerlicher Belange in solchen spannungsgeladenen Situationen entfalten. Dennoch, kennt man die rumänische politische Wirklichkeit der frühen neunziger Jahre nicht, entbehren diese Zeilen eines Resonanzbodens und werden sicherlich ganz anders verstanden und gedeutet, wie bereits im Falle der Texte von Herta Müller vorher beschrieben. Ein weiterer wichtiger Aspekt dieser Analyse ist die Untrennbarkeit des Phänomens Interkulturalität von dem der Identitätskonstituierung. Bettina Baumgärtel widmet diesem Thema ihre Dissertation, wo sie für die Migrantenliteratur folgendes festlegt und dadurch das wichtige Potential der Literatur im interkulturellen Diskurs37 unterstreicht: 35 36 37 Hodjak 1995, S. 11. Ebd., S . 18. Vgl. dazu Baumgärtel 2000, S. 320. DANIELA IONESCU-BONANNI 114 Der Zugang zu Identitätskonzepten in der modernen deutschsprachigen Literatur kann also nur im Spannungsfeld einer zweiseitigen Ausrichtung stehen, zum einen auf ihre Validität im interkulturellen Diskurs, zum anderen auf ihre kulturspezifische, anamnetische und wirkungsgeschichtliche Bedeutung hin.38 Die Identitätskonstituierung gestaltet sich in den Texten rumäniendeutscher Autoren ausnahmslos schwierig. Gerade in der neu in der Öffentlichkeit entfachten Diskussion über Integration und Migration kann dies ein interessanter Beitrag sein – denn diese Autoren müssten eigentlich über die besten Voraussetzungen verfügen, um sich integrieren zu können: sie sprechen Deutsch als Muttersprache und leben nun schon seit Jahrzehnten in Deutschland. Und dennoch fällt es auf, dass in keinem einzigen Text die kritische Gegenüberstellung des Mitgebrachten und der Zielkultur, die eigentlich die eigene sein sollte, und sich dennoch verschließt, fehlt. Ein sehr schönes Beispiel dafür finde ich die Erzählung Bei uns in Deutschland von Herta Müller, in der die Autorin zu ihrem für bundesdeutsche Verhältnisse leicht ungewöhnlichen Sprachgebrauch Stellung nimmt: Deutsch ist meine Muttersprache. Ich verstand von Anfang an in Deutschland jedes Wort. Alles durch und durch bekannte Wörter, und doch war die Aussage vieler Sätze zwiespältig. Ich konnte die Situation nicht einschätzen, die Absicht, in der sie gesprochen wurden. Ich ging den flapsigen Bemerkungen wie „Ist ja lustig“ nach, ich verstand sie als Nachsätze. Ich begriff nicht, dass sie sich als beiläufiges Seufzen verstanden, nichts Inhaltliches meinten, sondern bloß: „Ach so“ oder „Tja“. Ich nahm sie als volle Sätze, dachte, „lustig“ bleibt das Gegenteil von traurig. In jedem gesagten Wort, glaubte ich, muß eine Aussage sein, sonst wäre es nicht gesagt worden. Ich kannte das Reden und das Schweigen, das Zwischenspiel von gesprochenem Schweigen ohne Inhalt kannte ich nicht.39 Noch intensiver ist das Gefühl des nicht Ankommens in der Urheimat in den Werken Richard Wagners. Explizit gestaltet er in seinen Texten interkulturelle Spannungen, deren Gründe sich aus Stereotypen nähren. So auch in der Erzählung Begrüßungsgeld, wie es folgendes Zitat beweist: Stirner wusste nicht, wie er sich verhalten sollte. Ich kenne die Umgangsformen hier nicht, sagte er. Ich habe ständig den Eindruck, mich falsch zu verhalten. [...] Es ist zuviel, sagte sie, wir sind überfordert. Sie saßen in der Berliner Wohnung, und sie kamen sich vor, als wären sie allein auf der Welt. Sie übersetzten an der Welt, aber die Welt blieb, was sie war.40 Oft wählt Richard Wagner interkulturelle Ehen, um die Stereotypen besser im Kontrast darstellen zu können. So beispielsweise in seinem Roman Miss Bukarest, 38 39 40 Ebd., S. 33. Müller (2) 2008, S. 177 f. Wagner 2002, S. 101. DAS INTERKULTURELLE POTENTIAL DER PROSA RUMÄNIENDEUTSCHER AUTOREN NACH 1990 115 in dem die interkulturelle Ehe zwischen Lotte, der Deutschen, und Dino, eigentlich Dinu, dem Rumänen dargestellt wird. Der ganze Roman zeigt die Gegenüberstellung eigentlich unvereinbarer Lebens- und Kulturmodelle, angefangen von der Rollenaufteilung in der Familie und bis zu erzieherischen Ansichten. Auch hier, spielt das Verhalten bei einem Begräbnis eine wichtige Rolle, und Wagner zeichnet ein vielsagendes Bild der seit Jahrhunderten herrschenden kulturellen Unterschiede: Der Ordnungssinn der Lehrerin macht sich in allem bemerkbar. Deutsche Ordnung haben wir früher in Rumänien gesagt. Man konnte es bis zu den Begräbnissen hin beobachten. Die Deutschen in den siebenbürgischen Dörfern schritten diszipliniert in Reihen hinter dem Sarg her, die Rumänen liefen wir ein ungeordneter Haufen. Ein sympathischer ungeordneter Haufen, über den die Geschichte hinweggeht.41 Somit können solche Texte auch als Quelle kulturellen Wissens42 fungieren und sind umso ergiebiger, wenn sich der Widerspruch und die Gegenüberstellung so explizit realisiert, wie im Falle dieses Fragmentes von Richard Wagner. Überhaupt wäre eine ethnologisch orientierte interkulturelle Analyse der Darstellung des Todes ein sehr interessanter Aspekt der Forschung. Zeigen sich doch diese Bilder oft in den Texten der rumäniendeutschen Autoren. Franz Hodjak gestaltet in seinem Roman Grenzsteine ein originelles Todesbild in der Gestalt eines alten kleinen Weibleins, das der Hauptgestalt Harald Frank nach einer Irrfahrt mit dem Zug in einem Zwischengrenzgebiet, in einem transterritorialen Raum, am Ende seiner Reise begegnet. Erst in Anwesenheit dieser Gestalt reflektiert Harald Frank über seinen Status. Im letzten Dialog entdeckt er die absolute Identitätslosigkeit, die ihm durch den ewigen Zwischenstatus auferlegt wurde: Bevor das alte Weiblein die Autotüre zumachte, fragte es, Sabine43, sag mir jetzt, ist es dir egal, wo du stirbst? Ja, sagte Harald Frank. Und ist es dir ebenso gleichgültig, in welcher Erde du begraben wirst? Ja. Hast du überhaupt eine Identität? Nein. Das Weiblein küsste Harald Frank auf die Stirn und sagte, Sabine, dann bist du glücklich. Jede Identität ist ein Fluch, der dich bis ans Ende des Lebens verfolgt, da kannst du machen, was du willst, es hilft nichts, der Fluch lässt nicht locker, keinen Augenblick.44 41 Wagner 2001, S. 34. Julianne Roth vom Institut für Interkulturelle Kommunikation an der LMU, München ist dieser Frage unter anderem in einem Hauptseminar im WiSe 09 nachgegangen. Ich erhoffe mir auch im Rahmen dieses Forschungsaufenthaltes in detaliierten Gesprächen mit ihr zu eruieren, zu welchen Schlussfolgenrungen, sie inzwischen gelangt ist. 43 Die Hauptgestalt Harald Frank hatte sich zuvor als Frau verkleidet und die Identität „Sabine“ angenommen. 44 Hodjak 1995, S. 198. 42 116 DANIELA IONESCU-BONANNI Die Reise in Franz Hodjaks Roman endet somit in einem Raum der Zeitlosigkeit, der frei von Zugehörigkeit jeder Art ist, sei es eine gesellschaftliche, politische oder religiöse. Es ist ein abstrakter weißer Raum der durch die Entkoppelung, auch Erlösung und die Freiheit bringt, nach der Franz Hodjaks Hauptgestalt sich immer gesehnt hatte. Hier sind nur einige wenige Beispiele angeführt – Ziel des Forschungsaufenthaltes ist eine umfassende Darstellung dieser Problematik in der Prosa rumäniendeutscher Autoren nach 1990, die interdisziplinär ausgerichtet werden soll und deren Ergebnisse anhand der Rezeptionstexte überprüft werden. Ich möchte des Weiteren explizit darauf hinweisen, dass diese Art der Auslegung keinesfalls die Absicht verfolgt, die Texte rumäniendeutscher Autoren auf ihren kulturellen Hintergrund zu reduzieren, sondern lediglich einen Beitrag zum aktuellen Stand der Forschung im Bereich interkutureller Literatur zu leisten, in dem Sinne, dass ich glaube, dass man sich eines immer komplexeren Instrumentariums der Analyse bedienen muss, um solche Texte zu interpretieren und auch dass im Falle dieser Autoren eine besondere Berücksichtigung ihres kulturellen Hintergrunds unumgänglich ist, deswegen auch die Bedeutung der konkreten Aussagen der Autoren. Ich sehe diese Problematik vor allem in einem größeren Zusammenhang einer Neupositionierung der Diskussion um kulturelle Räume und Interkulturalität in einem Europa nach 1990, in dem die Mobilität eine zentrale Rolle spielt und umfangreiche Verschiebungen stattfinden. Nicht unwichtig ist, dass sich die Autoren der rumäniendeutschen Literatur teils selber so sehen, wie es folgendes Zitat aus Erwin Wittstocks Roman Das jüngste Gericht in Altbirk zeigt: Ich gestehe, daß mich bei Dichtern, die heute viel genannt werden – Nietzsche, Ibsen, Strindberg, Zola usw. – manches fasziniert. Was se schauen. Was sie können. Ihre Kunst, Schlüsse zu ziehen. Ihr Sozialismus genaosu wie ihre aristokratischen Auffassungen. Doch kaum, daß ich etwas von ihnen gelesen habe, komme ich von ihnen auch schon ab. Sie können mir bei meiner Aufgabe nicht helfen. Sie schrieben für zahllose – für Millionen – Leser, die in ihrer Vorstellung eine gleichartige gestige Haltung,gleichartige Lebensform und gleichartige Ideen haben. Ich aber lebe im Land der Unterschiede von Tür zu Tür, Haus zu Haus und Volk zu Volk. Wer mich verstehen will, muß meine Elastizität im Denken und Fühlen besitzen, die ihm ermöglicht, unsere Vergangenheit und Gegenwart in ihrer besonderheit zu verfolgen und zu dem Besonderen zu verbinden, das mir als Spiegelbild unseres Daseins, mit allen Freuden und Nöten, für mein Volk vorschwebte.45 Wenn man dieses Zitat liest, merkt man, dass es eigentlich auch auf viele andere deutschsprachige Autoren unserer Zeit zutreffen könnte, die alle ganz unterschiedliche Hintergründe und Lebenswege haben: Zafer Senocak, Yoko Tawada, Sevgi Özdamar, Ilja Trojanow oder auch Catalin Dorian Florescu, um nur einige der Namen zu nennen. 45 Wittstock 1972, S. 127, zitiert auch in Mecklenburg 2008, S. 466. DAS INTERKULTURELLE POTENTIAL DER PROSA RUMÄNIENDEUTSCHER AUTOREN NACH 1990 117 Norbert Mecklenburg vertritt in seinen Ausführungen die These, dass regionale Literaturen den allgemeinen Geltungsanspruch gerade daher gewinnen, dass sie sich ins Besondere versinken46, und gerade das wird meines Erachtens auch der gemeinsame Nenner, der in Europa produzierten Literatur sein – das Besondere wird durch die Mischung interkultureller Elemente gegeben. Was Mecklenburg heute noch als symptomatisch für die Minderheiten und Migrantenliteratur angibt, wird immer mehr Bedeutung gewinnen und nicht nur in der deutschsprachigen Literatur: Damit bietet sich für den Begriff der Interkulturalität in Hinblick auf Minderheiten- und Migrantenliteratur nicht nur ein literaturhistorischer und soziologischer, sondern auch ein literaturkritischer Gebrauch an: verstanden nämlich als interkulturelles Potential literarischer Werke, als ihr Vermögen, für Kulturunterschiede zu sensibilisieren, Vorurteile und Stereotype in Frage zu stellen, für Menschen anderer Kulturen Verständnis und Achtung zu wecken. In diesem evaluativen Sinne ist deutschsprachige Literatur im Ausland als eine Regionalliteratur in multikulturellen Regionen, ebenso wenig von Natur aus durchgängig als interkulturell anzusprechen, wie deutsche Migrantenliteratur in einer multikulturellen Gesellschaft. Ein interkulturelles Potential muss am einzelnen Text erschlossen und bewertet werden, und zwar als Teil seines poetischen Potentials. Kulturelle Alterität wird angemessen nur als poetische Alterität literarisch ins Spiel gebracht.47 Somit könnte man die rumäniendeutsche Literatur nach 1990 nicht nur als fünfte deutsche Literatur, als Subkultur charakterisieren, sondern auch als eine Literatur der kulturellen Überlagerung, die im Kontext des neuen europäischen Raums zum tragenden Merkmal wird48. Auch hier wäre es interessant weiter zu verfolgen, in wie weit diese Überlagerung nach der Übersiedlung in die Bundesrepublik präsenter wird. Sozusagen das Überschreiten der Grenze als Bewusstwerden der Alterität und als Beginn des Kampfes der Individualität. Dies wäre sicherlich nicht zuletzt im Rahmen der aktuellen Integrationsdebatte in Deutschland interessant – wenn man bedenkt, dass diese Autoren die besten Voraussetzungen haben, sich komplett zu integrieren und man dennoch ausnahmslos in allen Romanen spürt, wie schwierig es sich mit dem Thema Integration verhält, um auf die Episode im Blumenladen in Herta Müllers Erzählung Bei uns in Deutschland zurückzukommen. Die logische Schlussfolgerung der vorangehenden Betrachtungen ist somit, dass der kulturelle Rahmen für die Rezeption der Texte rumäniendeutscher Autoren nach 1990 eine wesentliche Rolle spielt, ohne dabei in irgendeiner Form auf eine Kategorisierung in richtig oder falsch zu verfallen. Die Resultate der Betrachtungen sind genauso gültig wie vielfältig subjektiv. Diese Texte sind Texte, in denen wir Zeugen einer Abgrenzung zwischen den Kulturen aber auch eines abwechselnden Lernprozesses werden. Sie sind Ausdrücke der Vielfalt, in 46 47 48 Vgl. Mecklenburg 2008, S. 467. Ebd., S. 473 f. Siehe auch Mecklenburg 2008, S. 473. 118 DANIELA IONESCU-BONANNI der eine ethnozentrische Isolierung undenkbar ist und gar nicht erst überwunden49 werden muss. Bezeichnenderweise malt Franz Hodjak in seinem Roman Ein Koffer voll Sand karrikierte Bilder einer authentischen Internationalität in einem historisch multikulturellen Gebiet: Siebenbürgen. In einer Episode des Romans geht es um einen erfolglosen Bahnhofvorsteher, der am Ende seines Arbeitslebens gezwungen ist, da sein Bahnhof stillgelegt wird, auf einem Friedhof zu arbeiten. Es wird zu seiner größten Genugtuung, zuerst die Kreuze und dann sogar die Leichen der unterschiedlichen Minderheiten zu vertauschen, ohne dass der Missstand entdeckt wird. Es ist seine Art eine Gemeinsamkeit, eine Transnationalität zumindest in der Transzendenz zu erreichen – in der Absicht einen wahrhaftigen Internationalismus zu erzeugen: Er vertauschte diskret die Grabsteine und Kreuze auf den Gräbern, weil er sich sagte, jeder soll für den Toten des anderen beten, nur so kommt Internationalismus auf. Schließlich ging er so weit, daß er nachts in der Leichenhalle jeden Toten aus seinem Sarg umbettet in einen anderen Sarg und so beerdigte jede Trauergemeinschaft einen anderen Toten. Er war der Meinung, nur so kann tasächlich Frieden auf Erden sein. Dabei blühte er buchstäblich auf. Acht Jahre hat er das gemacht [...] und als er starb, lag so viel Zufriedenheit in seinem Blick, eine Zufriedenheit, die größer war als das vereinte Europa, von dem wir nun sprechen.50 Eine interkulturelle Leseart solcher Texte kann nur aus der Verbindung unterschiedlicher Perspektiven entstehen. Einem Text mit einem komplexen kulturellen Rahmen wird man nur gerecht, wenn man versucht diesen Rahmen in verschiedene Spiegel zu reflektieren. Und so eine Vorgehensweise, wie sie beispielsweise von Hans Gehl für die Belange der multiethnischen Gebiete OstEuropas beschrieben wird51, wird in einem Europa, in dem die Kulturkontakte ständig zunehmen, zur adäquaten Herangehensweise. Ich möchte hierin explizit solchen Meinungen, wie der von Michael Böchler widersprechen, dass eine kulturdifferente Lektüre eines Textes mit Germanistik-Studenten nicht möglich wäre52. Meine Lehrerfahrung zeigt, dass nach einer entsprechenden Sensibilisierung und einer gezielten Formulierung einer Arbeitshypothese die Resultate sehr interessant sein können. Im Sommersemester 2010 bot ich an der Universität Bukarest ein Hauptseminar zum Thema: „Interkulturelle Elemente in den literarischen Texten 49 Wierlacher und Eichheim bekunden in ihrem 1992 erschienenen Aufsatz Der Pluralismus kulturdifferenter Lektüren. Zur ersten Diskussionsrunde am Beispiel von Kellers Pankraz, der Schmoller, dass eine interkulturelle Germanistik ethnozentrische Isolierung überwinden helfen kann. In: Jahrbuch Deutsch als Fremdsprache, Bd. 18/1992, München: 1992, S. 373. 50 Hodjak 2003, S. 17. 51 Vgl. Gehl 2002, S. 23. 52 Michael Böchler sollte als Teilnehmer des Workshops Der Pluralismus kulturdifferenter Lektüren. Zur ersten Diskussionsrunde am Beispiel von Kellers Pankraz, der Schmoller mit seinen schweizer Germanistik Studenten diese Texte lesen und interpretieren, was er verweigert, mit der Begründung, Germanistik-Studenten seien sowieso das Generalisieren gewohnt und ein solches Unterfangen wäre von vornherein zum Scheitern verurteilt. (Vgl. Böchler 1992, S. 518). DAS INTERKULTURELLE POTENTIAL DER PROSA RUMÄNIENDEUTSCHER AUTOREN NACH 1990 119 deutscher Autoren mit rumänischem Hintergrund“ an. Alle 28 Teilnehmer dieses Seminars verstanden auf Anhieb die Problematik, konnten sich für eine kulturorientierte Lektüre begeistern und das Resultat waren sehr interessante Fallstudien, die ohne eine entsprechende referenzielle Rückbindung nicht möglich gewesen wären. In die Texte rumäniendeutscher Autoren fließen umfangreiche kulturelle Erfahrungen mit ein, deswegen müssen sie im Anschluss an Doris BachmannMedick und James Clifford als Knotenpunkte, Schnittstellen von Diskursen und Konventionen 53 betrachtet werden. Daher auch meine feste Überzeugung der Produktivität einer solchen Herangehensweise, nicht zuletzt im Hinblick auf eine exponenzielle Steigerung der kulturspezifischen Symbolisierungen in einer europäischen Wirklichkeit. Im vereinten Europa schwinden nicht nur die territorialen Grenzen, sondern auch die kulturellen zwischen einem Eigenen und Fremden. Das was entsteht ist eine Welt von Zwischenschaftlern54, die auch für die rumäniendeutsche Literatur nach 1990 symptomatisch ist. Die eigentliche Fremde liegt nicht (mehr) in der räumlichen Ferne; sie liegt >dazwischen<, direkt nebenan, am Rande der Asphaltpisten.55 BIBLIOGRAPHY Amodeo, Immacolata (1996), Die Heimat heißt Babylon. Zur Literatur ausländischer Autoren in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Opladen. Bachmann-Medick, Doris (2008), „Rückkehr des Autors? Literatur und kulturelle Autorität in der interkulturellen Kommunikation”, in Árokay, Judit et al. (ed.), Essays in Honour of Irmela Hijiya-Kirschnereit on the Occasion of her 60th Birthday, München, S. 325-339. Baumgärtel, Bettina (2000), Das perspektivierte Ich. Ich-Identität und interpersonelle und interkulturelle Wahrnehmung in ausgewählten Romanen der deutschsprachigen Gegenwartsliteratur, Würzburg. Blioumi, Aglaia (2006), Transkulturelle Metamorphosen. Deutschsprachige Migrationsliteratur im Ausland am Beispiel Griechenland, Würzburg. Böchler, Michael (1992), „Versuch einer Schweizer Lektüre”, in Jahrbuch Deutsch als Fremdsprache, Bd. 18/1992, München, S. 516-535. Clifford, James (2004), „Über ethnografische Selbst-Stilisierung: Conrad und Malinowski”, in Doris Bachmann-Medick (ed.), Kultur und Text. Die anthropologische Wende in der Literaturwissenschaft, Basel/Tübingen, S. 194-225. Deleuze, Gilles, Félix Guattari (1976), Kafka: für eine kleine Literatur, Frankfurt am Main. Ertler, Klaus-Dieter (ed.) (2006), „Migration und Schreiben in der Romania”, Reihe Austria Forschung und Wissenschaft. Literatur, Band I, Lit Verlag, Wien. Esselborn, Karl (2001): „Autoren nicht deutscher Muttersprache im Kanon deutscher Literatur? Zur Erweiterung des Kanons deutscher Nationalliteratur um Texte der Interkulturalität”, in Kanon und Text in interkulturellen Perspektiven. Andere Texte anders lessen, Stuttgarter Arbeiten zur Germanistik, nr. 401, Stuttgart, Akademischer Verlag, S. 335-351. 53 54 55 Siehe Bachmann-Medick 2008, S. 328 und Clifford 2004, S. 195. Vgl. zu dem Begriff der „Zwischenschaftler“ Schlesak 1986, S. 217. Schmitz-Emans 2000, S. 299. 120 DANIELA IONESCU-BONANNI Gehl, Hans (ed.) (2002), Regionale Volkskulturen in Ostmitteleuropa. Abgrenzung- Nachbarschaft – Interethnik, Materialien 13, Tübingen. Göller, Thomas (2001), Sprache, Literatur, kultureller Kontext. Studien zur Kulturwissenschaft und Literaturästhethik, Würzburg. Hodjak, Franz (2003), Ein Koffer voll Sand, Frankfurt am Main. Hodjak, Franz (1995), Grenzsteine, Berlin. Mecklenburg, Norbert (2008) Das Mädchen aus der Fremde. Germanistik als interkulturelle Literaturwissenschaft, München. Müller, Herta (a) (2008), „Die Insel liegt innen – die Grenze liegt außen”, in Herta Müller, Der König verneigt sich und tötet, 3, Aufl., München/Wien, S. 160-175. Müller, Herta (b) (2008), „Bei uns in Deutschland“, in Herta Müller, Der König verneigt sich und tötet, 3, Aufl., München/Wien, S. 176-185. Ritter, Alexander (1981), „Deutschsprachige Literatur der Gegenwart im Ausland”, in Manfred Durzak (ed.), Deutsche Gegenwartsliteratur. Ausgangspositionen und aktuelle Entwicklungen, Stuttgart, S. 632-661. Schaffers, Uta (2003), „Fremde – Literatur – Verstehen? Fragestellungen einer interkulturellen Hermeneutik”, in Jannidis Fotis et al. (ed.), Regeln der Bedeutung. Zur Theorie der Bedeutung literarischer Texte, Berlin u.a., S. 349-375. Schlesak, Dieter (1986), Vaterlandstage. Und die Kunst des Verschwindens, Zürich/Köln. Schmitz-Emans (2000), „Globalisierung im Spiegel literarischer Reaktionen und Prozesse”, in Manfred Schmeling et al. (ed.), Literatur im Zeitalter der Globalisierung, Würzburg, S. 285-315. Sienerth, Stefan (1997), „Daß ich in diesen Raum hineingeboren wurde ...”, Gespräche mit deutschen Schriftstellern aus Südosteuropa. Veröffentlichungen des Südostdeutschen Kulturwerks: Reihe A, Kultur und Dichtung, Bd. 53, München. Steinmetz, Horst (a) (2000), „Globalisierung und (Literatur)geschichte”, in Manfred Schmeling et al. (ed.), Literatur im Zeitalter der Globalisierung, Würzburg, S. 189-201. Steinmetz, Horst (b) (1992), „Kulturspezifische Lektüren. Interpretation und fremdkulturelle Interpretation literarischer Werke”, in Jahrbuch Deutsch als Fremdsprache, Bd. 18/1992, München, S. 384-401. Steinmetz, Horst (c) (2001), „Sinnfestlegung und Auslegungsvielfalt. Die Rolle des Interpreten und das Gespenst der richtigen Interpretation”, in Helmut Brackert, Jürgen Stückrath (ed.), Literaturwissenschaft. Ein Grundkurs, Reinbek bei Hamburg, S. 475-491. White, John J. (2002), „A Romanian in Germany: The Challenge of Ethnic and Ideological Identity in Herta Müller`s Literary Work”, in David Rock, Stefan Wolff (ed.), Coming Home to Germany. The Integration of Ethnic Germans from Central and Eastern Europe in the Federal Republic, Oxford/New York, S. 173 ff. Wierlacher, Alois, Hubert Eichheim (ed.) (1992), „Der Pluralismus kulturdifferenter Lektüren. Zur ersten Diskussionsrunde am Beispiel von Kellers Pankraz, der Schmoller”, in Jahrbuch Deutsch als Fremdsprache, Bd. 18/1992, München, S. 373-383. Wierlacher, Alois, Georg Stötzel (ed.) (1996), Blickwinkel: kulturelle Optik und interkulturelle Gegenstandskonstitution, München. Wierlacher, Alois (1996), „Internationalität und Interkulturalität. Der kulturelle Pluralismus als Herausforderung der Lietarturwissenschaft. Zur Theorie interkultureller Germanistik”, in Lutz Dannenberg, Friedrich Vollhardt (ed.), Wie international ist Literaturwissenschaft? Methoden und Theoriediskussione in den Literaturwissenschaften: kulturelle Besonderheiten und interkultureller Austausch am Beispiel des Insterpretationsproblems. (1950-1990)., Stuttgart, S. 550-590. Wittstock, Erwin (1972), Das jüngste Gericht in Altbirk, Bukarest. Zima, Peter (1996), „Komparatistik als Metatheorie. Zur interkulturellen und interdisziplinären Perspektive der vergleichenden Literaturwissenschaft”, in Lutz Dannenberg, Friedrich Vollhardt (ed.), Wie international ist Literaturwissenschaft? Methoden und Theoriediskussionen in den Literaturwissenschaften: kulturelle Besonderheiten und interkultureller Austausch am Beispiel des Insterpretationsproblems. (1950-1990), Stuttgart, S. 532-549. TIME, MEMORY AND NARRATION IN W. G. SEBALD’S AUSTERLITZ JUDIT PIELDNER∗ The present paper investigates the possibility of reconstructing the personal and collective past related to the Holocaust trauma of European history. W. G. Sebald’s Austerlitz asserts the ethical responsibility of remembering, but profoundly questions the accessibility of the past due to the act of mediation inherent in it. Besides the temporal references implied by Austerlitz’s journey in search for his “own” self, and besides the epistemological uncertainty arising from the indexicality of photographs inserted into the text, the paper focuses on Austerlitz’s strategies of manipulating his own perception of time, experiencing the relativity of time, the epiphanic moments of simultaneity, juxtaposing past and present in a palimpsest-like manner and perceiving time in spatial configurations. The paper examines the narrative and discursive features of Sebald’s text, focusing on the tropes of reading which turn the trauma of discontinuity of the self into the pleasure of the text. Keywords: memory, trauma, simultaneity, discontinuity, indexicality. 1. W. G. Sebald, the Emigrant – W. G. Sebald’s Emigrants I wish to start the present investigation with a time reference: the year 2001 indicates, drastically and unchangeably, the birth of W. G. Sebald’s fourth novel, entitled Austerlitz, and the death of the author, unfortunately not merely in the Barthesian sense, but actually, in a road accident. The preoccupation of the novel itself with the complex interconnectedness between life and writing, the huge amount of “life” accumulated on the pages of the novel call the biographical data back from the exile of contemporary literary theory, and mark the author’s death as a significant moment of literary history and literary criticism, when Winfried Georg Sebald (1944–2001), author of the novels entitled Vertigo (1990), The Emigrants (1992), The Rings of Saturn (1995) and finally Austerlitz (2001), emigrates once and for all from contemporary literature to the realm of the classics. Prior to this moment of “emigration”, W. G. Sebald used to be an emigrant of German literature: he was born in Wertach, Germany; he worked as a secondary school teacher in Switzerland, then he moved to Norwich, East ∗ University lecturer, Sapientia University, Miercurea Ciuc, Romania; e-mail: [email protected] 122 JUDIT PIELDNER England, where he became member of the university staff. His significant works, both in the field of belles lettres and that of literary criticism, became known after 1990. Thus, for Sebald emigration is both a personal experience and a literary preoccupation, what is more, the boundary between the personal and the literary can never be localized with exactness. It may be due to the “migrant” character of his oeuvre – both in terms of authorial biography and textual reference – that W. G. Sebald’s prose seems to have had a greater echo in Great Britain and in the United States than in Germany. As Mark Richard McCulloh states: “Ironically, despite numerous literary prizes in his homeland, he seems to have struck a chord with English-speaking readers to a greater extent than with his fellow Germans. Part of the reason for this is precisely his ‘Europeanness’ in the minds of English-speaking readers; his idiosyncratic prose has a distinctly exotic appeal” (McCulloh 2003: 25). The predominant feature of his novels is the oscillation between fact and fiction, between memoir-like documentation and imagination, between private memories and the interpersonal heritage of cultural memory. The map of emigration of Sebald’s protagonists is in fact the map of Europe, modelling a geo-cultural terrain determined by the continuous confrontation between the self and the other, the private and the collective, the familiar and the foreign. Sebald’s heroes seem to be lost on the map of Europe and on the map of their own identity: they desperately try to find themselves and their roots in this territory, which is but a land of foreignness, a land of incurable, open wounds that remind of past traumas. Sebald is preoccupied with the relationship between the collective experience called history and the dramas inherent in personal fates: the events that have become part of the collective consciousness, speak of – or more often, repress into deep silence – the dramas of individual bodies and personal relations. Similarly, public places allude to the individual atoms that they are composed of. Thus, what survives past traumas undergoes a “sea change” and becomes, in the best case, a place of cult, a place of obligatory memory. Austerlitz, the spatial reference of the eponymous hero of Sebald’s last novel, is such a place: the scene of the Battle of Austerlitz, also known as the Battle of the Three Emperors (1805), one of Napoleon’s greatest victories, bears the burden of a huge number of dead soldiers, horses and local people; now it is a place of annual feasts, reviving the past in the annual reenactment of the Battle of Austerlitz, but at the same time, definitely blurring the former faces and voices and pushing them back into a never again namable past. Besides, the fact that Sebald gives the name of a place to his protagonist reveals his concept according to which there is a profound interconnectedness between the self and its spatial determination: the space, the unfolded map becomes the living body of memory, the only possibility, in fact, for us to preserve memories and to pass on memories that are not even our own. TIME, MEMORY AND NARRATION IN W. G. SEBALD’S AUSTERLITZ 123 Besides the above outlined predominant feature that W. G. Sebald’s novels share, further common thematic, narrative and stylistic features can be enumerated, without risking a too long list: the novels resort to first-person-narration, the (primary) narrator being/resembling the author’s figure, Sebald himself, being on the road, all’estero, that is, abroad. Thus, the texts conform to the generic requirements of memoirs and travel journals, and employ a flowing, sophisticated, essay-like style, which moves his works towards the boundary between fiction and non-fiction. And, maybe the most interesting feature of the Sebaldian prose is that textual references are completed, counterpointed by illustrations, photos, paintings, drawings, maps, various reproductions that are systematically inserted into the body of the texts. These common features however also make possible certain shifts in emphasis. For instance, in Sebald’s prose works preceding Austerlitz blurring the boundary between memoir and fiction is not so emphatic as in his last novel, where this epistemological uncertainty is even reinforced by the insertion of the photos, which contribute, on their own, to further blurring the silhouettes of fact and fiction. 2. Access to Memories: the Mediated Self in Austerlitz The author of Austerlitz, more precisely, its narrator, even more precisely, its (primary and secondary) narrators seem to be most profoundly preoccupied with the transmittedness, the mediated character of storytelling. The storyline unfolds in accordance with the meeting occasions, in various scenes in Europe, of Sebald’s primary narrator and Jacques Austerlitz, the secondary narrator, who conveys his “own” story, often quoting other implied people – further implied narrators – for the primary narrator to write it down with the implicit purpose of further tramsmitting it to the reader. Obviously, multiple narration is not a contemporary invention (a similar narrative procedure can be witnessed already in Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights), however, with Austerlitz, the reader may have the impression of some kind of novelty and unprecedentedness as concerns the employed narrative technique, as here multiple narration does not serve the introduction of a subjective filter that makes the reader reflect upon the mediated nature, the inaccessibility of reality; here this filter is inserted between the secondary narrator, Austerlitz and his own self, his own past, and the reader is invited to share this experience of inaccessibility. At every turn, at every corner of the text the reader is reminded of the manyfold mediatedness of narration by such formulae as “said Austerlitz, said Věra”. These embedded narratorial voices further mediate something that is becoming ever closer and ever more distant at the same time, resulting in the dizziness of confusion. Austerlitz desperately tries to find the traces of his own lost past, and as he gets closer, in parallel he 124 JUDIT PIELDNER also gets convinced that the deprivation of memories cannot be cured by a simple act of refilling the tanks of memory. The meeting occasions between the first-person narrator and the third-person Austerlitz transform the repetitive attempts of transmitting Austerlitz’s story into a ritual, thus, the act of storytelling acquires a surplus, it becomes a self-imposed rite of preservation, also involving the impression that the ultimate, total conveyance is doomed to failure from the start. Close to the ending of the book, we can read the following sentence: “I took the book Austerlitz had given me on our first meeting in Paris out of my rucksack” (Sebald 2002: 412). It is not the book that can be regarded here as the sign of transmission, though this could be taken for granted, but rather the rucksack: on one of the earlier pages of the book the reader can see a photo of Austerlitz’s rucksack, similar to the one Wittgenstein used to wear; the similitude of the rucksacks alludes to the fact that those wearing them are soulmates, and the Sebald-like primary narrator also joins their spiritual community by taking over the ethical task of remembering and of conveying, writing down Austerlitz’s “own” story: “Austerlitz also reminds us that the ethics of memory requires the necessity not of the silence Wittgenstein invokes at the end of the Tractatus (…), but of an ongoing journeying into new literary genres” (Straus 2009: 43). The “own” proves to be the most problematic issue for Austerlitz. The absence of memories related to his roots and early childhood urges him to start a private investigation and to explore his past. In the period immediately following World War II he is raised by a couple called Elias in Wales, in a dark and pressing environment that is inexplicably foreign to him. At the deathbed of his step-father he finds out that his real name is not Dafydd Elias but Jacques Austerlitz, however, he gets back nothing else but his name, sounding utterly foreign to him, from his obscure, effaced past. The ambitious adolescent finds out that his name coincides with a placename from Moravia, a battle scene from the early nineteenth century. The adolescent boy turns into a young scholar, who dedicates himself to research, pursued both as a profession and as a personal urge having the ultimate goal of finding himself. His confessions to the Sebald-narrator display the episodes of this quest for the self. However, his previous stage of life, when he lived his life being separated from the memories of his origins and early childhood, cannot simply be replaced by another stage that directly leads to the happy ending of finding oneself. In other words, finding oneself is losing thousands of other possibilities of being other selves. Finding oneself is another trauma: the found identity brings along the burden of collective memories, of the traumatic past of an ethnic community. The act of remembering creates, on the one hand, the illusion of the accessibility of the past, but on the other, due to the very act of mediation, the past remains foreign and, in the last instance, inaccessible. The reader gradually realizes, together with Austerlitz, that closeness and distance, TIME, MEMORY AND NARRATION IN W. G. SEBALD’S AUSTERLITZ 125 familiarity and foreignness, the self and the other are not opposing poles but different terms that label the same issue, the same phenomenon. 3. Archiving the Past: the Spatio-Temporality of Memory Austerlitz, the young scholar doing research into architecture, barricades himself from the mnemic void – a black hole – that splits him from his origins. Psychoanalytically speaking, he represses his wish to reveal the truth about his origins. He applies a twofold strategy: on the one hand, he accounts for history as if it had come to an end at the end of the nineteenth century, leaving – half willing, half unaware – the pages of his knowledge about the twentieth century empty; on the other hand, he constructs a huge building of knowledge in himself, as if reviving the scholarly ideals and practice of nineteenth-century positivism, led by the conviction that archiving as much knowledge as possible about the past constitutes the only way that guarrantees the possibility of reconstructing the past. Austerlitz confesses the following to the primary narrator: As far as I was concerned, the world ended in the late nineteenth century. I dared go no further than that, although in fact the whole history of the architecture and civilization of the bourgeois age, the subject of my research, pointed in the direction of the catastrophic events already casting their shadow before them at the time. I did not read newspapers because, as I now know, I feared unwelcome revelations, I turned on the radio only at certain hours of the day, I was always refining my defensive reactions, creating a kind of quarantine or immune system which, as I maintained my existence in a smaller and smaller space, protected me from anything that could be connected in any way, however distant, with my own early history. Moreover, I had constantly been preoccupied by that accumulation of knowledge which I had pursued for decades, and which served as a substitute or compensatory memory. (Sebald 2001: 201) Thus, Austerlitz’s immense effort of archiving in the manner of a positivist scholar, meant to collect knowledge referring to the past in order to provide the desired access to history, turns out to be a “substitute” or “compensatory” activity that is meant to protect him from being confronted with the true knowledge of his own self. In this way, the “archive fever” (Derrida 1995) proves to be but an artificial substitute of memory, a means of continuous postponement of the moment of completion, in the Derridean sense of the infinite regress of the ultimate signified. J. J. Long defines Austerlitz’s personality as embodying the “archival subject”: The archive is both a symptom of Austerlitz’s lack of memory and, at the moment of discovery that constitutes the provisional telos of the narrative, the resource of the cure. There is thus no escape: Austerlitz seems to represent an extreme example of a subject constituted entirely by the archive. (Long 2007: 20) 126 JUDIT PIELDNER In terms of knowledge, Austerlitz is led by opposing forces; he accumulates knowledge just to keep another set of knowledge apart, however, it is only later on that he realizes his own drives and motivations. He wishes to reestablish his connections with the real dimensions of the burdened European collective consciousness; however, this means leaving the artificially created “quarantine” behind and risking a profoundly personal confrontation. The gap that has been formed between Austerlitz’s present consciousness and his absent past, the split that separates him from his own past (and) self, push the question of time – the temporality of existence as well as the perception of time – to the forefront. In the building of the Centraal Station from Antwerp – the scene of the first meeting of Austerlitz and the Sebaldnarrator –, Austerlitz points at the symbols displaying the values of the nineteenth century. Among all, time occupies the highest position: The movements of all travellers could be surveyed from the central position occupied by the clock in Antwerp Station, and conversely all travellers had to look up at the clock and were obliged to adjust their activities to its demands. In fact, said Austerlitz, until the railway timetables were synchronized the clocks of Lille and Liège did not keep the same time as the clocks of Ghent and Antwerp, and not until they were all standardized around the middle of the nineteenth century did time truly reign supreme. It was only by following the course time prescribed that we could hasten through the gigantic spaces separating us from each other. (Sebald 2001: 14) The building of the Centraal Station stands as a memento of the nineteenth century, inserted into the present. For Austerlitz – not only for the scholar, but also for the individual, if the two can ever be separated – buildings bear a special relevance, as they remind us of the past, of a past about which we do not dispose of personal memories; it is the very role of these buildings to convey the spirit of the past for us, and in this way, past becomes part of our own presence, past becomes our own. Besides, buildings also remind us of the functioning of memory, which is not only temporal, but maybe even more significantly, also spatial: we can recollect memories par excellence through moving to and fro in space, through collecting scenes, spectacles, voices and smells, and in this way a – Proustian – repeated, re-generated spatial and sensory experience will serve as the basis of memories. The railroad stations are highly preferred by Austerlitz (the closure of the novel will reveal the real reason for this preference), they connect space and time, being chronotopes themselves. Austerlitz formulates the idea that time and space share the same nature, which can be experienced on the occasion of a journey: “And indeed, said Austerlitz after a while, to this day there is something illusionistic and illusory about the relationship of time and space as we experience it in traveling, which is why whenever we come home from elsewhere we never feel quite sure if we have really been abroad” (Sebald 2002: 14). TIME, MEMORY AND NARRATION IN W. G. SEBALD’S AUSTERLITZ 127 At the same time, buildings constitute the upper, visible layer in the actual structure of a city; the previous states are in part revealed, in part concealed, in other words, architecture stands the closest to the logic of memory, sharing its palimpsest-like configuration. This also implies an ethical dimension: what is that should be revealed for the coming generations to remember, and what is to be concealed, as it is a shameful and painful memento of the past? Austerlitz makes reference to the National Library from Paris: it is a building with inhuman proportions, disregarding the real necessities of the visiting reader. As a result of Austerlitz’s research into the history of the building, it turns out that prior to the building of today’s library, there used to be a huge storehouse in its place. By the end of World War II the Germans used that storehouse to store the possessions expropriated from the Jews. The monumentality and inhumanity of the actual building becomes a way of expression, a possible attitude to the past: repression, ignorance, indifference. Thus, Austerlitz’s interest in architecture is nourished by this wish to uncover, to bring to the surface the invisible layers, the unconscious contents. This is the source of his later interest in arcaeology, manifesting itself in his curiosity towards the layered structures of cities to the same extent as in his outbreaking wish to explore his private pre-history. As a real tour de force, Austerlitz’s denial of the past turns into a feverish self-archaeology. 4. Perception of Time and Sensing Identity As a strategy of accessing the past (at least apparently in the beginning), Austerlitz manipulates his own time perception, expressing his preference for a non-linear temporal experience. His spiritual, scholarly attitude denying the authenticity of linear time experience can be explained by his above-mentioned archiving effort, by his wish to store every moment of time in a huge storehouse of archived knowledge. It does not seem to me, Austerlitz added, that we understand the laws governing the return of the past, but I feel more and more as if time did not exist at all, only various spaces interlocking according to the rules of a higher form of stereometry, between which the living and the dead can move back and forth as they like, and the longer I think about it the more it seems to me that we who are still alive are unreal in the eyes of the dead, that only occasionally, in certain lights and atmospheric conditions, do we appear in their field of vision. (Sebald 2002: 261) According to Austerlitz’s perception of time, past and present, what is more, life and death are not some kind of stations successively occurring during a train journey; they should rather be conceived, again, in a spatial, palimpsest-like structure, similarly to buildings constructed one upon the other, in which the 128 JUDIT PIELDNER earlier stage is both effaced and preserved. Austerlitz sharply criticizes the way of life that subdues itself to the power of linear, objective, measurable time, and elaborates the principle of simultaneity, which seems to be, for yet unexplicable reasons, much easier for him to follow: (…) if Newton really thought that time was a river like the Thames, then where is its source and into what sea does it finally flow? Every river, as we know, must have banks on both sides, so where, seen in those terms, where are the banks of time? (...) Could we not claim, said Austerlitz, that time itself has been non-concurrent over the centuries and the millennia? It is not so long ago, after all, that it began spreading out over everything. And is not human life in many parts of the earth governed to this day less by time than by weather, and thus by an unquantifiable dimension which disregards linear regularity, does not progress constantly forward but moves in eddies, is marked by episodes of congestion and irruption, recurs in ever-changing form, and evolves in no one knows what direction? Even in a metropolis ruled by time like London, said Austerlitz, it is still possible to be outside time, a state of affairs which until recently was almost as common in backward and forgotten areas of our own country as it used to be in the undiscovered continents overseas. The dead are outside time, the dying and all the sick at home or in hospitals, and they are not the only ones, for a certain degree of personal misfortune is enough to cut off from the past and the future. (Sebald 2002: 142-143) The principle of simultaneity determining subjective time perception does not leave the wheel of history untouched either. From this perspective, history as such, the historical sense of Western thinking becomes utterly questionable. In his wish to perceive the true nature of time, Austerlitz expresses his hope that (…) time will not pass away, has not passed away, that I can turn back and go behind it, and there I shall find everything as it once was, or more precisely I shall find that all moments of time have co-existed simultaneously, in which case none of what history tells us would be true, past events have not yet occured but are waiting to do so at the moment when we think of them, although that, of course, opens up the bleak prospect of ever-lasting misery and never-ending anguish. (Sebald 2002: 144) Austerlitz’s perception of time radically opposing the linear perception of time betrays something essential about identity. Perceiving time from the inside, accounting for it not in terms of duration but in terms of content, the concept of time indicated by the action or event, is basically the specificity of the Hebrew time conception (see “a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted” – Ecclesiastes 3.2), whereas the linear time conception is a Greek-Roman invention. The way Austerlitz perceives and experiences time indicates the fact that his time perception takes place in accordance with the Hebrew time conception before he knows about himself that he is Jewish. It can be concluded thus that identity construction is much more profound and much more elemental that the knowledge pertaining to it. The relativity which overwrites the linear concept of time is revealed in strange moments of revelation, when the sense of simultaneity breaks into the TIME, MEMORY AND NARRATION IN W. G. SEBALD’S AUSTERLITZ 129 realm of everyday experiences. It is such a moment when in the waiting-room in Liverpool Street, London Austerlitz suddenly discovers “himself” as a little boy, with a rucksack, sitting on the bench. (…) in the gloomy light of the waiting-room, I also saw two middle-aged people dressed in the style of the thirties, a woman in a light gabardine coat with a hat at an angle on her head, and a thin man beside her wearing a dark suit and a dog-collar. And I not only saw the minister and his wife, said Austerlitz, I also saw the boy they had come to meet. He was sitting by himself on a bench over to one side. His legs, in white knee-length socks, did not reach the floor, and but for the small rucksack he was holding on his lap I don’t think I would have known him, said Austerlitz. As it was, I recognised him by that rucksack of his, and for the first time in as far back as I can remember I recollected myself as a small child, at the moment when I realised that it must have been to this same waiting-room I had come on my arrival in England over half a century ago. (Sebald 2002: 193) This is a special moment of epiphany in the novel, a manifestation of the Freudian uncanny, when under the accumulated pressure the wall of discontinuity of the self seems to suddenly collapse, and Austerlitz senses, for the first time in his life, a distant scent, a mild taste of his own past. This moment of simultaneity, bringing the past and the present selves into reachable proximity, marks a new start in Austerlitz’s life. Austerlitz has often expressed his impression of “living the wrong life” (“falsche Welt”, “falsches Leben” in the original), experiencing a perplexing inauthenticity which, as J. J. Long states, “is produced by a specific historical or personal caesura which, once identified, can be overcome in a return to the status quo ante” (Long 2007: 158). What has been covered, concealed for Austerlitz, drifts his “own” story close to the Holocaust trauma of European history, more precisely, to a Central European scene, namely the Prague of World War II, from where Austerlitz is rescued by a train transporting Jewish children to Britain. However, the parents remain in the lethal environment; after finding out about his Central European roots, Austerlitz goes back to Prague along the track of the effaced traces of his lost childhood. His memories seem to be revived, among others, by the patterns of the floor tile of a dwelling-house from Prague; he finds Věra, his nursemaid, and the traces of his mother, Agáta lead towards the ghetto from Theresienstadt, where they are definitely lost, whereas he will lose trace of his father, Maximilian in Paris. At the end of the novel, when Austerlitz, brooding over the façade of the Gare d’Austerlitz from Paris, from where his father had probably left Paris in the direction one of the Jewish lagers, Austerlitz recalls his earlier memories when he felt as if he had been on the premises of an unretaliated crime. In this moment of simultaneous reflection and recollection the personal name (Austerlitz), also consonant with the sounding of the word Auschwitz, and the placename (Gare d’Austerlitz) become metaleptically interchangeable, Austerlitz’s private history will stand for Europe’s collective history. Thus, Gare d’Austerlitz, the 130 JUDIT PIELDNER living wound on the body of Europe, will stand as a memento, as the place of memory, not in the sense of cultic, ceremonial recollection, but in that of profound personal involvement and awareness of the ethical responsibility of remembering. 5. Fiction Documented by Photographs: the Temporality of Images J. J. Long considers that Austerlitz is more conventional than Sebald’s earlier prose works, as it does not render problematic the relationship between memoir and fiction (cf. Long 2007: 149). However, in terms of the relationship between the text and the photos embedded into it, Austerlitz does become more problematic than Sebald’s earlier works, as it conforms to the non-existent, impossible genre of “fiction documented by photographs”. In accordance with the narratorial intention of the novel, the photographs that accompany the text – which is otherwise a textual procedure much favoured by Sebald – have been taken by Austerlitz himself. However, while the photos have extratextual referents, indexically pointing at elements of reality, Austerlitz, the protagonist does not have any referent outside the text; he is an utterly fictitious character. In order that the images might really “fit” into the text, without any ontological break, the reader should either regard the novel as a document of events that took place in reality indeed, or s/he should ignore the indexical function of photographs. Obviously, neither of the two versions is possible as a reading strategy. The only viable possibility is for us to maintain the impossible connection between the verbal and the visual, to accept the Moebius strip of the reading experience offered by Sebald. The photos do not serve as mere illustrations. They do not serve to reveal the ultimate signified – the face of the mother, for instance. On the contrary, the idea of deferment is even reinforced by the photographs, which contribute to further obscuring the final referent(s) of Austerlitz’s quest. Even when Austerlitz seems to have found his mother’s photo, which should mean the ultimate goal of his quest, even when the photo brings an evidence of the mother’s having been there – in the Barthesian sense of “That-has-been”1 –, Austerlitz cannot experience the euphoria of his full access to the past. An enigmatic pair of eyes, a mysterious look, a deadly silence retains all the answers. Thus, the photographs inserted into the text result in an epistemological uncertainty; their past reference is overwritten by the non-referenciality of 1 In Camera Lucida. Reflections on Photography (1980) Roland Barthes expounds his views on the simultaneous presence, the superimposition of reality and past on the photograph. The photograph reveals the trace of reality, the photograph serves as a present evidence of a past moment, as what stands in front of the camera lens is never metaphorical, but necessarily real, the photograph attains the quality of testifying the past existence of the represented reality. Photographs carry an indexical relationship to their referents, stating that the thing has been there (Barthes 1981). TIME, MEMORY AND NARRATION IN W. G. SEBALD’S AUSTERLITZ 131 fiction. Photos, such as memories, stand for an act of mediation, in this way representation necessarily turns into covering, overlaying, blocking the access to the past instead of rendering it possible. 6. Archive and Narration: the Sebaldian Enigma In drawing a map of the stylistic routes that Sebald’s prose perambulates, Mark Richard McCulloh’s epitomization can be of our help: “Sebald may be described as a writer who draws on his knowledge of several literatures and literary periods to create a new kind of documentary fiction that owes much to the expansive unconventionality of Borges, the diction and mood of Kafka, the deliberate narrative density of Bernhard, and the autobiographical sweep of Nabokov and Stendhal” (McCulloh 2003: 25). It should be added however that Sebaldian prose is, still, unprecedented in exploring the caves and mines of the imagery of private and collective consciousness, in providing whirls and enigmas that absorb the reader without ever letting him/her away. The Sebaldian enigma pertains to narration, to the so-called “authoritative unreliability” that manifests itself in a systematic network of coincidences, analogies and interrelated events without being accompanied by any authorial explanation (cf. McCulloh 2003: 22). In this way, not only time, but language, or else, the text itself becomes a spatial construction built in line with an elaborated architectural plan. As Megan Jane Cawood states: Sebald’s text itself is a form of landscape: his narrative technique, with its emphasis on the visual in conjunction with the verbal, presents its readers with a textual landscape (or text-scape) to be perceived. Where architecture works as the mnemonic space in which Austerlitz discovers many of his own memories, the photographs in Austerlitz, and the text which surrounds them, become the space in which these memories are preserved (Cawood 2011) Austerlitz’s archiving efforts are reflected by the archiving character of the Sebaldian narration itself. Austerlitz obsessively collects a vast amount of knowledge in his ambivalent endeavour of erasure/recollection; similarly, Sebald’s book itself becomes an archive of a vast knowledge, with endless details of episodes related by Austelitz, with flashes of past images, butterflies, layers of urban architecture, illustrations, enigmatic snapshots, analogous connections among patterns of childhood scenes and those of adult impressions, while certainty, the chance of gaining access to ultimate answers is continuously deferred for the reader to the same extent as for Sebald’s narrator, who listens to and conveys Austerlitz’s confessions. J. J. Long remarks about the ending of the novel: “At the end of the text, Austerlitz sets off in search of his father, following traces that he finds in a JUDIT PIELDNER 132 Parisian archive. The epistemological promise of the archive is never fulfilled, which is why it leaves the end of this particular text open and the subjectivity of Austerlitz in a permanent state of incompletion” (Long 2007: 20). However, the open ending invites the reader to experience simultaneity, not in terms of temporality but at a distinct, narrative level: deferment and completion – of ultimate meanings in the text – become mutually dependent and complementary. As in the case of every open text – opera aperta –, the promise of completion will unavoidably take place in the reader’s involvement and self-understanding. What is more, the chance of completion always remains floating in front of the reader’s eyes, as a desire which transforms us into passionate readers of a passionate text, and which makes possible for us to experience the loss of individual and collective identity, the unprocessable trauma of discontinuity in form of the pleasure of the text, in the Barthesian sense of the term. BIBLIOGRAPHY Barthes, Roland (1981), Camera Lucida. Reflections on Photography, trans. Richard Howard. Hill and Wang, New York. Cawood, Megan Jane (2011), Sites of Pain: Trauma, Landscape and Architecture in W. G. Sebald’s Austerlitz, http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/mcawoodepaper.pdf Derrida, Jacques (1995), Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression, trans. Eric Prenowitz. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL. Long, J. J. (2007), W. G. Sebald – Image, Archive, Modernity. Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh. McCulloh, Mark Richard (2003), Understanding W. G. Sebald, University of South Carolina Press, Columbia, South Carolina. Sebald, Winfried Georg (2002), Austerlitz, trans. Anthea Bell. Penguin Books, London. Straus, Nina Pelikan (2009), “Sebald, Wittgenstein and the Ethics of Memory”, in Comparative Literature, vol. 61, no. 1, pp. 43-53. LE TEMPS MIS SOUS RATURE DANS LA METAFICTION MIHAELA CHAPELAN∗ THE TIME PUT UNDER ERASURE IN METAFICTION The article aims to analyse the triple temporality configuration met in a large category of modern literary texts, the metafictions: the temporality of telling, of writing and of reading, and the way they contradict the premises of French narratology. To achieve this goal, we chose Diderot’s novel Jacques le Fataliste et son maître, which is a real anthology of metafictional techniques. Space-time indeterminacy is a characteristic feature of Diderot’s writing, but it is not enough to acknowledge it. Our article demonstrates the important role of this type of temporality within the anticonformism reading pact proposed by Diderot. Keywords: narratology, metafiction, temporality configuration, Diderot, time indeterminacy, reading pact. 1. Un postulat narratologique problématique Presque tous les théoriciens et les critiques littéraires sont d’accord sur l’importance de la temporalité dans une œuvre littéraire, le jeu de l’écrivain avec le temps constituant l’une des ressources majeures du renouvellement de la technique romanesque. Si la critique traditionnelle s’intéressait surtout à la temporalité de l’histoire, la critique moderne et notamment la narratologie, à laquelle nous devons la plupart des études sur la temporalité de l’oeuvre de fiction, découvre que celle-ci tire sa substance surtout du rapport qui s’établit entre le temps de la diégèse et le temps de la narration. Déjà en 1968, Christian Metz affirmait dans un article sur les distinctions entre la temporalité du récit cinématographique et celle du récit littéraire que le récit est une séquence deux fois temporelle : il y a le temps de la chose racontée et le temps du récit (temps du signifié et temps du signifiant). Cette dualité n’est pas seulement ce qui rend possibles toutes les distorsions temporelles mais, plus fondamentalement, elle nous invite à constater que l’une des fonctions du récit est de monnayer un temps dans un autre temps. ∗ Maître de conférences, Université Spiru Haret, Bucarest, Roumanie, [email protected] 134 MIHAELA CHAPELAN Une année plus tard, Gérard Genette signalait lui-aussi cette double temporalité et procédait à toute une série d’études d’approfondissement: Par une dissymétrie [...] qui est inscrite dans les structures mêmes de la langue – nous pouvons fort bien raconter une histoire sans préciser le lieu où elle se passe et si ce lieu est plus ou moins éloigné du lieu d’où nous la racontons, tandis qu’il nous est presque impossible de ne pas la situer dans le temps par rapport à notre acte narratif, puisque nous devons nécessairement la raconter à un temps du présent, du passé ou du futur. Genette (1969 : 228) Si l’on veut analyser de nos jours la temporalité d’une œuvre littéraire on ne peut plus se passer de la terminologie et de la perspective narratologiques, mais nous considérons qu’une approche purement narratologique ne saurait rendre compte de toute la complexité des aspects qu’elle peut revêtir. Malgré l’intérêt indéniable de ses études, la narratologie semble n’avoir abordé le problème de la configuration temporelle dans le récit de fiction qu’à partir d’un postulat inébranlable: la présupposition d’une histoire préalable au discours qui la rapporte. Dans la préface de la traduction française de la Logique des genres littéraires de Käte Hamburger, Gérard Genette posait fermement ce postulat de l’attitude narratologique qui implique que le lecteur, comme d’ailleurs le critique littéraire, accepte ou feint d’accepter l’existence d’une histoire à raconter en amont du récit: « Le travail de la narratologie fictionnelle… suppose que l’on prenne au sérieux, provisoirement et par décision de méthode, la prétention non sérieuse de la fiction à raconter une histoire qui aurait effectivement eu lieu ». Hamburger (1986 : 13) C’est pour cela que l’attention du narratologue se dirige surtout vers les discordances entre les traits temporels des événements de la diégèse et les traits correspondants du récit, les trois déterminations essentielles étant: l’ordre (présences des anachronies temporelles: analepses ou prolepses); la durée (distorsions de la durée: ampleur ou lenteur du texte, les pauses descriptives, les ellipses); la fréquence (récit itératif / récit singulatif). On se rend bien compte que ce postulat condamne la narratologie à occulter un grand nombre de récits qui font barrage à la représentation d’une histoire préalable à l’acte de sa narration. C’est bien le cas de ce qui a été nommé, métafiction. Le terme de métafiction, construit sur le modèle de celui de métalangage, a été inventé par le critique américain William H. Gass, qui l’utilise dans son essai de 1970, Philosophie et forme de fiction, pour désigner la nouvelle vague de romanciers américains qui s’étaient illustrés dans les années soixante, tels Kurt Vonnegut, Robert Coover, Donald Barthelme, John Barth etc. Un autre critique américain, Linda Hutcheon l’associe elle aussi au courant du post-modernisme et met en évidence, comme trait caractéristique de ce type de textes, l’auto-réflexivité ou l’auto-référentialité. Depuis, toute une série d’études critiques affinent cette catégorie littéraire ou les écrivains eux-mêmes inventent d’autres termes avoisinés, comme par exemple Raymond Federman, qui lance dans les débats le terme de surfiction, qui n’est pas très loin d’une autre catégorie, la métafiction vide. Les termes sont nouveaux, mais la réalité littéraire qu’ils couvrent est ancienne, à commencer par les Mille et une nuits, en passant par Shakespeare, Cervantès, Diderot, Sterne et beaucoup d’autres. LE TEMPS MIS SOUS RATURE DANS LA METAFICTION 135 Nous ne nous proposons pas d’entrer dans une analyse des différences entre les conceptions de la métafiction selon les époques ou les diverses approches des critiques. On retient de toutes les définitions qui lui ont été données ce qui nous intéresse plus particulièrement, à savoir son autoréférentialité déclarée et la façon dont cette caractéristique généralement reconnue complique à l’extrême les rapports temporels de l’œuvre, qui se nouent dans un véritable écheveau, le plus souvent impossible à démêler. Dans tous ces récits métafictionels, le narrateur s’exhibe délibérément en tant qu’auteur, ce qui a comme conséquence directe le fait qu’il arrache son récit à la chronologie extra textuelle, décrédibilisant toute esthétique mimétique. Dans son ouvrage « Une poétique du post-modernisme », Linda Hutcheon se demandait à juste titre si un tel pari est-il possible et si le langage et la littérature peuvent devenir totalement anti-mimétiques et non-référentiels et rester, cependant, compréhensibles et lisibles. En fait, en littérature, la réponse était déjà donnée, car la plupart des écrivains métafictionnels faisaient preuve d’une double postulation : d’un côté ils produisaient un discours littéraire qui brisait l’illusion romanesque, et de l’autre, ils tentaient de ménager quelques effets de réels qui réussissaient par endroits à rétablir l’illusion mimétique. Normalement, si les écrivains étaient conséquents avec leur propre démarche, toute métafiction devrait être une narration simultanée et se situer uniquement dans le présent de l’écriture. Pourtant, en usant de divers artifices qu’ils ne craignent pas de dénoncer comme tels, ces écrivains réussissent à instaurer des temporalités hétérogènes, polyrythmiques, divergentes, même si elles restent plutôt « spectrales », dans le sens donné par Derrida à cette épithète dans l’étude intitulée Spectres de Marx, c’est-à-dire quelque chose qui ne peut se donner comme présence pleine, ce qui est pénétré par le vide et l’absence. Effectivement, lorsqu’après avoir raconté sur des dizaines de pages une histoire qui, par suspension d’incrédulité, le lecteur aurait pu prendre comme vraie, l’écrivain fait irruption et rappelle au lecteur que rien de tel ne s’est réellement passé comment pourrait-on encore parler de repères spatiaux ou temporels ? Même si le langage lui-même avait instauré une forme de passé, il s’agit d’un passé qui, tôt ou tard, sera mis sous rature1, annulé. Pour illustré d’une manière plus précise comment se compose et se décompose cet incroyable enchevêtrement temporel auquel nous nous confrontons dans les métafictions, nous avons choisi le roman de Diderot, Jacques le Fataliste et son maître, car il représente à lui seul une véritable anthologie de formules romanesques métafictionnelles. 2. La triple série temporelle : de l’histoire, de l’écriture et de la lecture Jacques le Fataliste... est construit à plusieurs niveaux de fictionalité: un dialogue entre l’auteur et le lecteur; ce dialogue sert de cadre au récit du voyage de Jacques 1 Nous utilisons ce terme dans le sens qui lui est donné par la critique génétique. 136 MIHAELA CHAPELAN et de son maître dans lequel sont emboîtées les histoires d’amour de Jacques et de son maître ou d’autres histoires racontées par des personnages rencontrés en route. A ces niveaux secondaires, le postulat narratologique fonctionne et la temporalité peut être envisagée en fonction des trois déterminations essentielles dont parle la narratologie. Ainsi, en ce qui concerne l’ordre de succession des événements dans la diégèse et l’ordre de leur disposition dans le récit, il présente des anachronies assez marquées, presque tous les récits assumés par Jacques étant des analepses2 (ex.: l’histoire de ses amours, celle de son capitaine et de son ami, l’évocation des années passées dans la maison de son grand-père qui lui faisait porter le bâillon etc.). Il en va de même du récit de la vengeance de Mme de La Pommeraye, assumé par l’hôtesse de l’auberge du Grand Cerf, de celui des amours du maître pour Agathe, ou des aventures de Richard, le secrétaire du marquis des Arcis. Quel que soit le narrataire qui assume ces narrations ultérieures, elles sont désignées en tant que telles non seulement d’une manière implicite, par les temps verbaux utilisés par l’instance narrative (passé simple et imparfait ou présent narratif), mais aussi d’une manière explicite, par la conscience qu’ont narrateurs et narrataires d’évoquer des événements passés, situés dans un temps distinct de celui, supposé présent, dans lequel ils vivent et racontent. Jusqu’ici il n’y a rien d’inhabituel, la majeure partie des romans présente cette double configuration temporelle. Ce qu’il y a de différent dans le roman de Diderot sont les rapports entre ces deux temps distincts. Dans le roman psychologique, par exemple, le présent plonge ses racines dans le passé et ne peut qu’en résulter. Le temps dans Manon Lescaut, affirmait Jacques Schérer, « est émouvant parce que Des Grieux pleure aujourd’hui en évoquant ses malheurs ou ses bonheurs passés. » Schérer (1972 : 181) Mais dans Jacques le Fataliste... il y a extériorité absolue entre les deux temps. Celui où Jacques et son maître cheminent n’est en rien influencé par les événements passés, qui alimentent leur bavardage. Le capitaine de Jacques ne ressuscitera pas, ils ne rencontreront ni l’abbé Hudson, ni Agathe ou Denise, ni aucun des personnages dont ils parlent. A défaut de rencontre physique, il aurait pu y avoir un contact sentimental avec le passé, mais celui-ci ne se produit pas non plus. Cette distinction radicale des deux temps est facteur d’irréalisation, pour le passé aussi bien que pour le présent. Un monde où aujourd’hui ne dépend pas d’hier, où passé et présent ne parviennent pas à se joindre n’est pas un monde réel. Vers le même sens converge une autre particularité de l’écriture diderotienne, à savoir le refus de l’épaisseur et de la longueur du temps. « Il n’y a pas chez lui, remarquait R. Kempf, de ces obstacles habités par la durée, de ces intermédiaires temporels », Kempf (1976 :137). Les exemples suivants le prouvent suffisamment : « Voilà l’hôtesse descendue, remontée et reprenant son récit », ou lorsque madame de La Pommeraye propose au marquis des Arcis une promenade, tout le voyage tient en une phrase: « Les voilà partis, les voilà arrivés... » 2 Cf. à Genette, l’analepse est définie comme toute évocation après coup d’un événement antérieur au point de l’histoire où l’on se trouve. LE TEMPS MIS SOUS RATURE DANS LA METAFICTION 137 Diderot abrège ou exorcise la durée. Il l’abolit dans les choses de l’amour aussi, où les instances de temporisation : pudeur, retenue, bienséance, apparaissent non seulement comme pénibles, mais aussi incongrues. Ce qui se découvre à travers tant de raccourcis est un monde en proie au mouvement, une poésie de l’agitation des corps. Mais aussi, et cela a autrement plus d’importance, cette terrible accélération du récit imposée par Diderot (comme Flaubert plus tard dans le célèbre final de l’Education sentimentale), cette excessive disproportion entre une durée certaine de l’action et une durée textuelle abolie, même pas signalée par les habituelles formules narratives: après ...ans, heures etc., tend à faire apparaître l’écriture elle-même. Avec cette rupture radicale du parallélisme des deux axes temporels, si lâche et embrouillé fût-il, l’alibi de l’anecdote se trouve abandonné, l’axe de la narration étant valorisé aux dépens de celui de l’histoire et de la sorte le roman indique qu’il « cesse d’être l’écriture d’une histoire pour devenir l’histoire d’une écriture ». Ricardou (1967 :166) Cette modalité subtile de saper ce qui pouvait être pris, l’illusion aidant, pour un présent réel et qui s’avère n’être qu’un présent de papier où vivent et parlent des êtres de papier, est renforcée par une autre, plus explicite. Pour le récit du voyage de Jacques et de son maître, Diderot adopte les procédés narratifs traditionnels: récit impersonnel, troisième personne, temps du passé spécifiques au récit. Un texte ainsi rédigé forme un système bloqué qui ne tolère la première personne et le présent que dans le dialogue des personnages ou dans des confessions intercalées. Il est vrai que dans le roman de Diderot, le passé simple et l’imparfait, temps du récit, alternent avec le présent lorsque la situation devient d’un plus grand intérêt dramatique et le rythme narratif s’accélère, comme dans le passage suivant : Cette espèce de rapt ne se fit pas sans donner des soupçons aux parents et à l’époux. Ils lui rendirent visite. Hudson les reçut avec un air consterné. Comme ses bons gens étaient en train de lui exposer leur chagrin, la cloche sonne; c’était à six heures du soir; Hudson leur impose silence, ôte son chapeau, se lève, fait un grand signe de croix et dit d’un ton affectueux et pénétré: Angelus Domini nuntiavit Mariae… Et voilà le père de la confiseuse et ses frères honteux de leur soupçon qui disaient en descendant l’escalier à l’époux: Mon fils, vous êtes un sot. Diderot (1981: 205) Mais dans tous ces cas, il s’agit d’un pseudo-présent, le présent narratif, et aucun lecteur, aussi peu avisé soit-il, ne risque de s’y méprendre et de se sentir désorienté lorsqu’il doit le placer sur un axe temporel. Ce qui plonge par contre le lecteur dans un vrai labyrinthe temporel se sont les intrusions du narrateur extradiégétique situé au premier niveau. Et cela se passe fréquemment, car chez Diderot le discours menace continuellement la pureté du récit. Ainsi, il suffira que le narrateur extradiégétique (qui est une figure d’auteur et se déclare tel quel) prenne la parole en nom propre pour qu’un nouveau présent, celui de l’écriture, s’insère dans le récit et le sape. Ce passage brusque du récit au discours, de l’impersonnel au personnel, est aussi le passage d’une esthétique de l’illusion, qui supprimait l’auteur, à une esthétique où l’auteur, intervenant, supprime l’illusion. MIHAELA CHAPELAN 138 Comme dans un jeu de miroirs, ce présent de l’écriture renvoie à une autre série temporelle, celle de la lecture, qui, logiquement, devrait être spécifiée comme postérieure et étrangère et au temps de l’histoire et à celui de l’écriture. 3. Les métalepses Mais dans Jacques le Fataliste et son maître les niveaux de fictionalité ne sont pas indépendants. Ils se chevauchent constamment et les métalepses (définies par Genette comme des interférences entre des niveaux qui ne devraient pas pouvoir communiquer) sont fréquentes. Il ne s’agit pas d’une simple interruption par le passage d’un niveau de fictionalité à un autre, mais d’une coïncidence spatiale et temporelle qui s’établit parfois entre les niveaux et gomme les frontières logiques qui les séparent. A certains moments, il s’agit d’une simple interprétation, d’ailleurs fautive, qui rapproche Jacques et le lecteur: Ils entendirent à quelque distance derrière eux du bruit et des cris [...]. Vous allez croire que c’étaient les gens de l’auberge, leurs valets et les brigands dont nous avons parlé [...] Jacques le crut. Diderot (1981: 205) D’autres fois il s’agit de la présence inexplicable du narrateur extradiégétique dans l’univers de la diégèse, signalée par la transgression subite de la technique de la narration impersonnelle, à la troisième personne, à la narration personnelle, marquée linguistiquement par le pronom déictique je: Jacques et son maître avaient atteint le gîte où ils avaient à passer la nuit. Il était tard; la porte de la ville était fermée et ils avaient été obligés à s’arrêter dans le faubourg. Là, j’entends un vacarme...Ibid. (36) Le lecteur fictif proteste vivement contre cette intrusion et oblige le narrateur à se reprendre, du moins apparemment, et à se retrancher derrière un « on » impersonnel: « – Vous entendez! Vous n’y étiez pas; il ne s’agit pas de vous! – Il est vrai! Eh, bien,... on entend un bruit.» Ainsi Diderot renverse les plans narratifs et déconstruit la convention littéraire de l’utilisation du «on » impersonnel, en dévoilant qui se trouve en fait derrière ce pronom-caméléon qui peut recouvrir tant d’identités différentes : à savoir le couple auteur – lecteur. Après cela, il peut se permettre de le réutiliser, car l’utilisation d’une convention déjà dénoncée en tant que telle ne peut plus rétablir avec la même force l’illusion romanesque et ainsi, la percée hors de l’horizon d’attente du lecteur est opérée. Mais il existe dans Jacques le Fataliste... des interférences temporelles encore plus poussées. Ainsi, lorsque le narrateur dit plaisamment : « Tandis que LE TEMPS MIS SOUS RATURE DANS LA METAFICTION 139 je disserte, le maître de Jacques ronfle comme s’il m’avait écouté. » (Ibid :187). Certes, la cause du ronflement du maître est dénoncé ici de manière ironique, par l’introducteur hypothétique comme si, mais la coïncidence temporelle qu’établit tandis que n’est pas contestée. Dans d’autres exemples, la superposition s’établit d’une façon encore plus nette entre les trois séries temporelles: le temps de l’histoire, le temps de l’écriture et le temps de la lecture: Lecteur, tandis que ces bonnes gens dorment, j’aurais une petite question à vous proposer et à discuter avec vous: c’est ce qu’aurait été l’enfant né de l’abbé Hudson et de la dame de la Pommeraye [...] vous me direz cela demain matin [...]. Ce matin, le voilà venu, et nos voyageurs séparés… Ibid (219) Le roman de Diderot, comme toute métafiction, interrompt la représentation d’une temporalité extra-linguistique au sein de laquelle se produiraient les évolutions d’une histoire préexistante, pour créer une temporalité autotélique, propre au texte et à sa seule partition, à l’image du « Grand Rouleau » auquel Jacques ne cesse de se référer tout le long du roman. Sur ce « Grand Rouleau », les événements ne sont pas inscrits dans l’irréversibilité syntagmatique de la succession des séquences chronologiques, mais dans une étonnante simultanéité et enchevêtrement du temps de l’écriture, de l’histoire et de la lecture. « Tout a été écrit à la fois », dit à plusieurs reprises Jacques et, en reprenant l’heureuse expression de Paul Ricoeur, on pourrait dire que c’est cela même qui constitue l’enjeu du jeu de Diderot avec le temps. BIBLIOGRAPHIE Genette, Gérard (1969), Figures II, Seuil, Paris. Hamburger, Kate (1986), Logique des genres littéraires, Seuil, Paris. Hutcheon, Linda (1997), A Poetics of Postmodernisme. Kempf, Roger (1976), Diderot et le roman, Seuil, Paris. Metz, Christian (1968), Essai sur la signification du cinéma, Klincsieck, Paris. Scherer, Jacques (1972), Le Cardinal et l’orang-outan, SEDES, Paris. Ridarcou, Jean (1967 ), Problèmes du nouveau roman, Seuil, Paris. TEXTE DE RÉFÉRENCE Diderot, Denis (1981), Jacques le Fataliste et son maître, édition critique et annotée, présentée par Jacques Proust et Jack Undank, Hermann, Paris. THE READER’S PERCEPTION OF TIME IN VIRGINIA WOOLF’S NOVELS IRINA-ANA DROBOT∗ The aim of this paper is to offer a narratological perspective on Joanna Russ’ claim that “nothing happens” in Virginia Woolf’s novels. Pauses, slow-downs where focus is not on action but on descriptions or characters’ reflections or non-narrative comments may explain this feeling. What is more, Mieke Bal believes that the reader can arrange the events in chronological order even if they are not presented in such an order at the level of the fabula: “Ordering the events in chronological sequence, one forms an impression of the difference between fabula and story.” What is the effect of identifying the order of events in time? Does this influence the reader’s perception of time in these novels? Is chronological order always clear? If chronological order is not clear, we deal with achrony. Keywords: events, chronology, non-narrative comments, fabula, story. Motivation. Lyric vs Narrative Mode Joanna Russ defines the lyric mode by contrasting it with the narrative mode. According to her, lack of chronology is one of the lyric mode’s distinctive features. There is also no causation, as the lyric mode relies on associations as far as its “principle of connection” is concerned. To Russ, lyric mode means various elements (such as “images, events, scenes, passages, words”) organized “around an unspoken thematic or emotional center”. Russ also claims that Woolf is a lyric novelist. Lyricism leads to the feeling that ‘nothing happens’ in her novels. Readers have the feeling that ‘nothing happens’ in Woolf’s novels because of her way of writing. Whether her novels are written in an almost traditional way (such as The Voyage Out, Night and Day, Orlando, The Years, Flush) or whether she uses her stream of consciousness technique more (To the Lighthouse, Mrs Dalloway, The Waves, Jacob’s Room, Between the Acts), she makes use not only of action or events alone. It seems that Russ’ claim that ‘nothing happens’ in Woolf’s novels refers to events in her novels. However, events are not the only elements making up a narrative text. A narrative text also consists of opinions, descriptions, “or a disclosure on the part of the narrator which is not directly connected with the events […]” (Bal 1997:8), all situated outside the fabula. ∗ Junior teaching assistant (English), Technical University of Civil Engineering Bucharest, Department of Foreign Languages and Communication; e-mail: [email protected] IRINA-ANA DROBOT 142 The modern novel focuses on poetical aspects rather than on narrative aspects. However, one does not exclude the other. Woolf’s novels belong to this category. She even states her intention to use prose poetically in her diary entry from 1927. Bradbury (1973) is a critic who points out to the “new novel” which appeared with writers such as “Henry James, Joseph Conrad, Ford Madox Ford, D. H. Lawrence, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, and E. M. Forster”, a novel which was justified “by analogy with the poem, to stress fiction’s poem-like as opposed to its narrative character” (Bradbury 1973: 5). Freedman (1963: 185) sees Modern lyrical fiction as a blending of poetry and prose. The mixture of poetry and prose in the lyrical novel may be reflected in the combination of narrative and lyric mode. The “alternation between narration and non-narrative comments” (Bal 1997: 31) may also account for the mixture of poetry and prose in the Modernist novel. Such an alternation is common in any novel, yet the non-narrative comments are different when it comes to the lyrical novel. The focus is on the inner world of characters, meaning that characters’ perception of events, other characters, situations, or their reflections are given more attention than action, than events. Whereas in all novels there are, as Bal claims, passages focusing on reflections, descriptions, opinions, in Woolf’s novels such passages usually contain poetic language. Woolf’s focus on non-narrative aspects is underlined by means of rhythm, in particular by slow-downs and pauses. Action does not occur at a fast pace, as Woolf spends more time on characters’ thoughts and perception. Slow-downs and pauses are part of deviations in sequential ordering. The following narratological theories may be relevant for the study of the reader’s perception of time in Virginia Woolf: a) Theories of action or fabula, which “focus on the study of events, action sequences and schemes, functions, actants, characters, settings and the internal laws of narrated worlds” (Onega 27); b) Theories of story and narration, which “devise modes of analysis of the time structure of the story (order of events, temporal distortions such as flashbacks or flashforwards, duration and selection of scenes, narrative rhythm, etc.)” (Onega 1996: 29); c) Theories of reception, which focus on “a communicative speech act, a message transacted between a sender and a receiver” (Onega 1996: 29). Fabula, Story, Plot Joanna Russ presents only a kind of reading of Woolf’s novels. That “nothing happens” in her novels is only one way of perceiving her novels, only one level of interpretation. A novel, a narrative has several levels of analysis, three according to Onega: fabula, story and plot. THE READER’S PERCEPTION OF TIME IN VIRGINIA WOOLF’S NOVELS 143 Bal considers the fabula “a bare scheme of narrative events” (Onega 1996: 7). A description of the fabula (or action) would omit any temporal or perspectival distortions: there are no flashbacks or variations in point of view at this level of analysis.” (Onega 7) Plot means, in this case, according to Onega, “a scheme consisting of the structures of action and perception which shape the story” (1996: 7). According to Onega, “A story is a fabula which has been given a presentational shape: a specific point of view and temporal scheme have been introduced” (1996: 8). This is similar to what Onega states about the structure of a narrative, which may be analyzed as follows: according to the series of events that compose it (the level of events) and according to the structure of the representation (Onega 1996: 5-6). Culler makes a main distinction between plot and presentation, or story and discourse, his version of narrative levels (Onega) among other versions of such pairs. Presentation means the way the story is presented (or told). Presentation includes, according to him, variables having to do with identifying the narrator (and his point of view), the narratee, the time when the narrator tells his story, the way a narrator speaks (his language) or the narrator’s authority (reliability or unreliablity). The Reader’s Perception and Interpretation Leaving Bal’s levels of analysis aside, there are several levels of interpreting Woolf’s novels, by taking into account the way they were written and the way they can be interpreted. One of the levels of Woolf’s novels is represented by the way she writes her novels, another one by the way the reader perceives them at first sight, and another one by the way the readers rearrange the events, make connections between them, understand the characters’ personality and motivations. The readers judge her novels while reading them, by paying attention to her version of the story, but also by interpreting them in their own way, by trying to make sense of the story and by identifying her distinctive style as a writer. In their turn, readers may focus on certain aspects in her novels, to which she may or may not offer a long time. Critics themselves may focus and insist on certain aspects of her novels; in this respect, we may say that critics behave like readers, as they offer their own reading of Woolf’s novels. It is only at first sight that the reader has the feeling that there is not much action or no action at all in Woolf’s novels. The difference between story and fabula can help clarify what goes on in the process of the reader’s first impressions and his later reconstruction of what happens in Woolf’s novels. According to this view, it seems that what Joanna Russ said about nothing happening in Woolf’s novels could be related to fabula as an action-scheme. 144 IRINA-ANA DROBOT Even so, there may be little action in a novel, yet when the readers think of what happened and try to find connection between the events, there is in fact an action-scheme (a fabula). The reader recomposes the story after reading it as a fabula, as a scheme of events, leaving aside flashbacks and also the focus on characters’ perception. However, in his attempt to have a better understanding of the story, the reader not only orders the events (which are arranged in the fabula in an order which is not a chronological one) but also forms an image of the characters based on their inner world. What is more, as Culler claims, events are not enough to say that we have a story. “There must be an end relating back to the beginning-according to some theorists, an end that indicates what has happened to the desire that led to the events the story narrates.” (Culler) The reader must thus find all necessary connections between events and characters’ motivations. Slow-downs on various instances of perception may become summaries in the reader’s mind as he remembers the story he read. Narratological theory, however, claims that insignificant events (which do not influence the course of the fabula) are usually summarized (Bal 1997: 104). Sometimes, routine events may be presented extensively, not summarized in order to underline “boredom, the emptiness of a person’s existence” in a fabula (Bal 1997: 105). The reader’s summary, however, does not reflect the importance or unimportance of those passage, but only a simplification in order to have a full view on what goes on in Woolf’s novels. Otherwise, in Woolf’s novels, events which may not be significant are not usually insisted upon by means of her characters’ perception. Insignificant events may be seen as parts of moments of non-being, as Woolf called those routine events, which are not lived consciously. The events which are significant for characters are, usually, part of what she calls moments of being or moments of vision. Characters experience moments of insight, which are expressed poetically. Culler identified two ways of thinking about the plot: as events being shaped into a story by readers or writers or as being shaped by narrative into a story. In trying to understand what goes on in Woolf’s novels, the reader may be regarded as creating his vision of the plot by shaping the events into a story. The reader tries to understand the fabula, the scheme of events, yet this is not enough. In order to understand a novel, the reader forms in his mind another presentation of the fabula, a presentation which is different from the one made by the writer. It is not enough to say that Woolf in her novels presents events; what matters is also how she presents those events. According to Culler, both readers and writers will try to offer a presentation of the story in a novel, by shaping events into a plot. It is true that readers have their own contribution in putting events together to fill in the story in most of Woolf’s novels. The writer, of course, THE READER’S PERCEPTION OF TIME IN VIRGINIA WOOLF’S NOVELS 145 creates the story from various points of view, and there is also the narrator’s style that matters. Culler’s view of plot is similar to Onega’s view of plot as a story-scheme and thus supports her view. Action vs Static Aspects According to Onega, Tomashevski “opposes static to dynamic motifs. Descriptions, for instance, or unimportant actions, are static, while significant actions are dynamic” (Onega 1996: 27). In this sense, Woolf’s novels contain more static than dynamic motifs. These terms account for the apparent lack of action in Woolf’s novels. The events (regarded as what happens in the novel) are given less attention than descriptions. Woolf views characters’ perception as important. Because of the focus on her characters’ reflections, on descriptions, the action lacks dynamism. It is only after the reader finishes the novel that he can think back about the events that have occurred. Action “exists prior to any narrative presentation and could be presented in other ways” (Onega 1996: 94-95), in Culler’s view. Deviations in Sequential Ordering Deviations in sequential ordering are a common aspect of the majority of Woolf’s novels. Deviations in sequential ordering are defined by Bal as “the relations […] which hold between the order of events in the story and their chronological sequence in the fabula” (Bal 1997: 80). That is, the non-linear chronology presented by the authors which is rearranged in the reader’s mind to make sense of the story in the novels. The inner world of characters is underlined by means of rhythm, in particular by slow-downs and pauses. According to Bal, the slow-down may “work like a magnifying glass” (1997: 107), in order to lead to “the exciting discovery of what is hardly perceptible” (1997: 108). Important moments of reflection or perception belong to the category of slow-downs. Bal views description as “a privileged site of focalization” which “has great impact on the ideological and aesthetic effect of the text” (Bal 1997: 36). This is because it becomes an act of subjective perception, the reader having access to a character’s view. Pauses include “all narrative sections in which no movement of the fabula-time is implied. A great deal of attention is paid to one element, and in the meantime the fabula remains stationary. When it is again continued later on, no time has passed” (Bal 1997: 108). Bal mentions that the pause occurs in modernist narratives such as those of Virginia Woolf. According to Bal, many of her novels “alternate the presentation of IRINA-ANA DROBOT 146 slow, unimportant events with lengthy descriptive passage. The difference between the presentation of events and the description of objects is often hard to make out, so that the entire story moves on like a long descriptive flow” (Bal 1997: 109). Pauses may thus offer insight with respect to the apparent lack of action in Woolf’s novels. The action at the level of the fabula leaves its place to perception. It is no longer action that retains the focus of the reader, but an act of perception. Pauses and slow-downs are aspects of rhythm and are part of deviations in sequential ordering as far as Woolf’s novels are concerned. Another aspect of rhythm is summary, which is concerned with less important events or details in a novel. Frequency is also an aspect of rhythm. As far as repetition is concerned, Bal argues that two events can never be the same. This is because they are always told, viewed or interpreted in a different way. Such an example consists in the way other characters view Septimus and Rezia and how each of them perceives reality at the time in the park or in the streets. The event is not the same with all the characters; each of them thinks, feels and perceives reality in a different way. According to Bal, anachrony (chronological deviation) may occur even in “emphatically chronological” (Bal 1997: 83) novels. Bal states that the beginning in medias res is a convention which allows the reader to be guided from the middle of the fabula into the past, “and from then on the story carries on more or less chronologically through to the end” (1997: 83-84). Most of Woolf’s and Swift’s novels begin in medias res. With the exception of Flush and Orlando, which Woolf calls biographies, and which start with the beginning, her other novels begin in medias res. In Mrs Dalloway, the story does not go on according to a linear chronology. Characters go back in time in order to remember and so the reader will try to put the events in a chronological order in order to understand the story. According to Meir Sternberg, “[...] the temporal distortion of the chronological order of events is an indication of artistic purpose” (Onega 1996: 103). Sternberg’s claim about the artistic role of lack of chronological order may account for the purpose of lack of linear chronology in the lyrical novel. “Unreal” Anachrony Bal claims that sometimes anachronies involve those taking place in the consciousness of a character, when he/she remembers doing something, which is different from the actual doing – an altogether different event. She calls this type of anachrony “unreal” and then points out that it is used “almost exclusively” in the “so-called « stream-of-consciousness » literature” (1997: 87). Bal introduces the term “subjective anachrony” which, unlike “objective anachrony”, “is an anachrony which can be regarded as such if the « contents of consciousness » lie in the past or the future; not the past of being « conscious », the moment of thinking itself” (1997: 87). THE READER’S PERCEPTION OF TIME IN VIRGINIA WOOLF’S NOVELS 147 This is the case of the movement in time in Mrs Dalloway. The story is formed of associations which lead the characters to move backwards in time, to remember and reflect on their choices of the past. The reader will try to understand the whole story, to make it whole from what he is told about the characters in the present and from their memories from the past. What is more, the characters themselves go through a similar process. Another situation where there is no real anachrony is represented by retroversion of anticipation – particularly when it is in the form of direct discourse. “The moment of speech is simply part of the (chronological) story; only in the contents are past or future mentioned” (Bal 1997: 87). This is not found in Woolf. Direction From the point of view of direction, the anachrony may be situated in the past or in the future, judging by the moment of the beginning of the fabula and the appearance of the anachrony (Bal 1997: 84). In the case of Woolf’s novels, there is only anachrony that lies in the past. We are presented with action at the present time and with action in the past, as recalled by characters. In some cases there are predictions (such as Peter predicting Clarissa’s future as a perfect hostess or her marriage to Richard Dalloway). Achrony Sometimes, the direction, the distance and the span of a deviation in chronology cannot be determined, due to the absence of enough information. In this case, we deal with an achrony. The reader gets to understand, approximately, where events in the past fit in in order to make up the story whole in Mrs Dalloway. A precise time is not necessary, as the succession of events becomes clear. What led to the present situation is clearly understood. Time Ricoeur analyzes Genette’s theories of the time of narrating and narrated time and he adds to these two categories the time of life. The time of life is connected to tempo and rhythm, which brings forth opportunities to new views on aspects of chronology: “We move even further away from a strict comparison between lengths of time when, to flashbacks, are added the time of remembering, the time of dreaming, and the time of the reported dialogue, as in Virginia Woolf.” (Onega 1996: 132-133) Sternberg believes that there is a time-norm to be found in any narrative. If an element is given a large amount of time, it means it is truly aesthetically relevant (Onega 1996: 103). Thus, if certain thoughts, scenes, various descriptions IRINA-ANA DROBOT 148 in Woolf occupy quite some time then this may say something about their aesthetic relevance, and of course about their importance. The Narrator. Point of View. Focalization Bal sees the narrator as telling a story, while the focalizor represents an aspect of the story he tells, bringing about a certain perception of events. The focalizor may be the same as one of the characters. Stanzel noticed a difference between “who sees” and “who tells”, which was theorized later by Genette and Bal (focalizor) (Onega 1996: 161-162). Focalization, “[…] the relation between « who perceives » and what is perceived, « colours » the story with subjectivity” (Bal 1997: 8). According to Bal, events are always presented from a certain perspective. Bal underlines the difficulty of objectivity, considering that perception always depends on the one who perceives. Age, knowledge, familiarity with a certain object interfere with the perception. Bal claims that, in terms of focalization, a first-person narrative does not differ from a third person narrative. This is because “When we try to reflect someone else’s point of view, we can only do so in so far as we know and understand that point of view.” (Bal 1997: 158) According to Bal, perspective is a means of manipulation, in the sense that “The point of view from which the elements of the fabula are being presented is often of decisive importance for the meaning the reader will assign to the fabula” (1997: 79). The reader is influenced by certain ways of presenting events or characters in a narrative. The passage of time may be thus understood in a subjective way. Characters assign significance to events that may not be given much attention by others. However, in doing so, they focus their attention on certain things for a longer time and they take the reader with them, into sharing their perception. Events Events, as elements of the fabula, are defined by Bal (1997: 182) as processes (“changes that occur in, with, through, and among objects”). “The transition from one state to another state” is “caused or experienced by actors” (Bal 1997: 182). In this sense, the evolution of characters, their changes in time in Woolf’s novels may be regarded as events, even if they are not events in the sense of action. Humphrey wonders about the nature of the plot in novels where inner thoughts replace external action: “With motive and external action replaced by psychic being and functioning, what is to unify the fiction? What is to replace conventional plot?” (Humphrey 1954: 84). Humphrey points out to the possibility of viewing the character’s mind as a setting, the character’s memories and thoughts as the time range, places where a character’s mind goes THE READER’S PERCEPTION OF TIME IN VIRGINIA WOOLF’S NOVELS 149 as the place of action and what characters remember, perceive or imagine as action. However, this is just one level of interpretation. This can be seen as the reader’s first view of Woolf’s. This is how Woolf presents her story. The equivalent of action in traditional narratives is the characters’ mind wandering. However, a plot similar to the traditional one can be reconstructed by the reader. Plot in the Modernist Novels Brooks reflects on the plot of Modernist novels and on the plot itself as something different from a fixed structure. He thinks of plot as “a structuring operation peculiar to those messages that are developed through temporal succession, the instrumental logic of a specific mode of human understanding”. (Onega 1996: 253-254) Brooks’ view is similar to Humphrey’s view on the stream of consciousness novel’s plot. Bradbury sees the novel as not having a fixed form, a conventional structure. Novels may be of different kinds. In this sense, the lyrical novel is a type of novel that combines narrative and lyrical features. According to Ronald Walker, modernist novels show a different representation of time, character, causation. He gives the example of Clarissa’s walk which “did not readily conform […] to the conventions of the « represented action » schematized by the Neo-Aristotelian critics”. Modernism usually means a different view on reality. It means self-consciousness and non-representationalism. It is also associated with sophistication, introversion, self-scepticism (Bradbury and McFarlane 1991: 26). Stevenson underlines Woolf’s different view of the novel as compared to the Edwardian novelists: her focus on subjective perception (Stevenson 1986: 12) With Modernism, the novels move away from linear chronology, from a unitary plot, towards a new vision on reality as fragmentary (Bradbury and McFarlane 1991: 393). The focus is on the inner workings of the mind. The traditional novel was focused on story, setting and character, while the modernist novel is concerned with writing and composition. Bradbury underlines the focus on “[…] the demotion of the traditional poetics of « plot », « character », and « moral sentiment », and decided unease in the presence of the moral issues that fiction, by its lifelikeness, raises” (Bradbury 1973: 8) in modernist novels. Modern texts move away from story, narrative and require an active reader, according to Graff (McHale 2001: 221). Henry James proposes a different view on the novel. He believes that psychology is significant in a novel, in order to better understand characters. Unity of plot is ensured by a perceiving character (a reflector, or a focalizer). With the lyrical novel, as Woolf suggested, fiction should concentrate on poetic features, leaving plot and character into the background, and bringing inner life into the foreground. With modernism, traditional novels did not totally disappear (Stevenson 1986: 26). In fact, Woolf’s novels are close to traditional ones, leaving the focus on non-narrative and their lyrical quality aside. With respect to the novel in the 1920s, Bradbury IRINA-ANA DROBOT 150 states that not all novels and novelists were touched by Modernism. However, many traditional aspects of the novel were generally questioned with the beginning of Modernism. According to Brooker (1992), Woolf did not actually contribute to a general Modernist trend with her theories and her novels. This, however, supports the idea that Modernism may be different with every author. There are no fixed features to be respected by all novelists. Traditional chronological time, the logic of the story, the coherence of the plot which are disregarded in the Modernist novel move the novel towards lyricism. As Joanna Russ defined the lyric mode, as having no chronology or causation, Woolf’s manner of presenting her stories is close to the lyric not to the narrative mode. Subjectivity is also a feature of the lyric mode. Stream of Consciousness Stream of consciousness is used to describe the inner experience. However, there had been introspective novels before the stream of consciousness. Novels focusing on inner experience bring about the reader’s sympathy for characters due to the amount of information the reader is given about the characters and due to the way this information is presented. (Lodge 1992) Thus, the stream of consciousness contributes to the reader’s sympathizing with the characters, with the reader’s manipulation of vision on the characters. The reader himself can’t be objective. He is drawn into sharing the characters’ perception on time and into giving more time to understand characters’ perception on various situations, on other characters, to their inner world. With respect to consciousness, time is not linear. There is movement back and forth in time. According to Daiches, consciousness may move in time while the subject does not move or spatial elements change while time is fixed. Presence of the author is characteristic of Woolf’s stream of consciousness. The novel of consciousness is mainly placed within categories of internal focalization (Genette) or figural narrative (reflector-mode) (Stanzel) (Fludernik 2009: 79). Conclusions Lyricism lies at the level of the presentation of the story. At the level of the fabula, which readers may understand and compose later, there are no such details. The readers perceive lyricism but they can also think of another presentation of the story after they read the novel, reconstructing all the logical links and coherence of the story in a close to traditional way. THE READER’S PERCEPTION OF TIME IN VIRGINIA WOOLF’S NOVELS 151 Woolf’s novels contain certain aspects of traditional narrative, but mostly their novels belong to the lyric mode. With the disregard of linear narrative, logical causation, coherence of plot in Modernism, the reader is offered a subjective view on events and characters and he is also manipulated into judging characters in a subjective way, into sympathizing with them. Subjectivity is part of the lyrical experience. Non-linear chronology is part of the inner wanderings of the mind. The authors don’t focus on action, dynamism lacks in their novels. The rhythm of the story is slow, as descriptions, comments or reflections are given more time than the action itself. Non-narrative aspects are given more importance than narrative aspects. The reader has the feeling that nothing or not much is happening in Woolf’s novels while he reads them due to the slow, detailed presentation of perception. Descriptions of the way characters perceive what is around them, other characters, various situations are given lots of attention by Woolf. The focus is on the inner world of characters, due to which the story progresses usually in a very slow rhythm. Only after the novel is finished can the reader rethink of the whole story and put the events in the right order (Mrs Dalloway) and view the story as a succession of events, while also understanding the characters’ view of life and inner world by means of their perception. BIBLIOGRAPHY Bal, Mieke (1997), Narratology. Introduction to the Theory of Narrative, University of Toronto Press. Bertens, Hans (1996), The Idea of the Postmodern. A History, Routledge, London and New York. Bradbury, Malcolm (1973), Possibilities. Essays on the State of the Novel, Oxford University Press, London, Oxford, New York. Bradbury, Malcolm, James McFarlane ed. (1991), Modernism. A Guide to European Literature 1890-1930, Penguin Books, England. Brooker, Peter ed. (199), Modernism/ Postmodernism, Longman, London and New York. Culler, Jonathan (2000), Literary Theory. A very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press, Oxford. Currie, Mark (1998), Postmodern Narrative Theory, Palgrave, New York. Fludernik, Monika (2009), An Introduction to Narratology, Routledge, New York. Freedman, Ralph (1963), The Lyrical Novel: Studies in Hermann Hesse, Andre Gide, and Virginia Woolf, Princeton University Press, New Jersey. Friedman, Melvin (1955), Stream of Consciousness: A Study in Literary Method, Yale University Press, New Haven. Genette, Gérard (1980), Narrative Discourse. An Essay in Method, Ithaca, Cornell University Press, New York. Humphrey, Robert (1954), Stream of Consciousness in the Modern Novel. A Study of James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Dorothy Richardson, William Faulkner and Others, University of California Press, London. Jahn, Manfred (2005), Narratology: A Guide to the Theory of Narrative, English Department, University of Cologne, http://www.uni-koeln.de/~ame02/pppn.htm Lodge, David (1992), The Art of Fiction, Viking Penguin, USA. 152 IRINA-ANA DROBOT Lodge, David (2002) Consciousness and the Novel, London: Penguin Books. Martin, Wallace (1986), Recent Theories of Narrative, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, New York. McHale, Brian (2001), Postmodernist Fiction, Routledge London and New York. Onega, Susana, García J. A. Landa ed. (1996), Narratology: An Introduction, Longman, London and New York. Prince, Gerald (2003), Dictionary of Narratology. University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln. Ricoeur, Paul, Time and Narrative, translated by Kathleen Blamey and David Pellauer (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988), vol. 3. Russ, Joanna (1995), To Write Like a Woman, Indiana: Indiana University Press. Stevenson, Randall (1986), The British Novel since the Thirties. An Introduction, Billings, Worcester, London. Walker, Roland, The Problem of Plot in the Modernist Text, Publication of the Illinois Philological Association, http://castle.eiu.edu/~ipaweb/pipa/volume/walker.htm Woolf, Virginia (1956), Orlando. A Harvest/ HBJ Book, US. Woolf, Virginia (1968), The Years, Penguin Books, London. Woolf, Virginia (1977), To the Lighthouse, Grafton Books, London. Woolf, Virginia (1981), Mrs Dalloway, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, New York. Woolf, Virginia (1992), Between the Acts, Penguin Books, London. Woolf, Virginia (1994), The Waves, Flamingo Modern Classics, London. Woolf, Virginia (1998), Jacob’s Room, Signet Classic, New York. Woolf, Virginia (2002), Flush: A Biography, Vintage Classics. Woolf, Virginia (2003), Mrs Dalloway, Wordsworth Editions Limited, Chatham, Kent, Great Britain. Woolf, Virginia (2003), Night and Day, Mariner Books, New York. Woolf, Virginia (2006), The Voyage Out, Project Gutenberg eBook. ELEMENTS OF CULTURE SHOCK IN THEIR DYNAMICS IN NEIL BISSOONDATH’S THE INNOCENCE OF AGE AND THE SHORT STORIES MONICA COLŢ∗ It is common knowledge that the phenomenon of migration in the contemporary world brings along the effect of culture shock due to the incongruence of the forms of expression of cultural values. Bissoondath’s fiction raises problems concerning identity and belonging especially for the visible minorities, whose adjustment to a new culture is a process of negotiation with the host culture, based on the idea that culture is about “shared meanings” (Hall 1). Bissoondath approaches belonging in relation to the characters’ cultural memories, feelings and attitudes challenged by the diasporic circumstances of Canadian multicultural society. The process of negotiation is imbalanced and both in the short stories and the novel The Innocence of Age there are characters of mixed cultural Indo-Caribbean-Canadian experience who express feelings of marginalization and homelessness characteristic of the traumatic experience of displacement in the postmodern world. Bissoondath also deconstructs race and ethnicity as concepts of difference in the multicultural framework, perceived as encouraging isolation and stereotyping of the cultural groups, whereas focusing on superficial differences at the expense of human similarities. Keywords: representation, multiculturalism, family as cultural value, difference, ethnicity. 1. An Upsurge in Interest Concerning the Study of Values 1.1. Dimensionalist Theories of Values The main directions in the study of values have been established by Geert Hofstede who proposed the theory of the five dimensions of culture, Shalom Schwartz with an inventory of social values which provides national comparisons between cultures to assess the ways of thinking and acting in different countries and last but not least Ronald Inglehart and Christian Welzel with the revised theory of modernization and postmodernization based on a comparative sociological study on eighty societies. In the recent decades there have been extensive comparative studies of values as for instance European Values Survey and World Values Survey, relevant for the change of societies towards postmodernity. These thorough analyses explain the process of social change from modernity to postmodernity based on cultural arguments. The process of change should be understood in a ∗ Drd., University of Bucharest, “Literary and Cultural Studies”, e-mail: [email protected] 154 MONICA COLŢ larger frame of analysis which takes into consideration the phenomenon of globalisation and the intensification of migrations South-North, East-West. It is important to mention that it has been developed a new connection between the local and the global in relation to culture. The integration or assimilation of migrants require understanding and mutual acceptance of shared values. Values are explicit or implicit conceptions about what is desirable. They are not directly observable, involving cognitive, evaluative and affective elements; they are relatively stable over time and determine behaviour and attitudes; they determine and are determined by other values as they do not exist alone, but in systems of values, an aspect which characterizes both the society and the individual. Thus, values influence people’s behaviour and the characteristics of social environment. There are three major sets of theories of values in the contemporary study of values. The analysis is based on cross-cultural dimensions of values and identifies common values to enable the comparison of cultures regardless of the historical moment of comparison: Geert Hofstede’s Theory of the Five Dimensions of Culture; Shalom Schwartz’s Inventory of Social Values which provides national comparisons between cultures to assess the modes of thinking and acting in different countries; Ronald Inglehart and Christian Welzel's Theories of Modernization and Postmodernization, as a comparative explanation on eighty societies. The main question is why values are so important for both individuals and cultures. Values are ideas about what is important in life and they guide the rest of culture. Geert Hofstede defines values as “a broad tendency to prefer certain states of affairs over others” (2000: 4). Hofstede, Schwartz, and Inglehart & Welzel have established dimensionalist models of value interpretation based on cross-cultural studies. Thus, the study of values emphasize that they are situated at the core of these models as they are the landmark of a culture. The theorists’ research is based on large segments of population from different cultures and draw attention to certain overlaps between the value dimensions. Inglehart and Welzel (2005) identify two dimensions of cultural variation which cover 85% of the world’s population: the first dimension emphasizes the shift from traditional values to secular rational values in industrial societies and the second dimension focuses on the shift from survival values to self-expression values in post-industrial societies. These dimensions correspond to cultural zones which reflect a persistent historical heritage. The majority of the former postcolonial countries are now democratic societies or aspiring to democracy. The development of the social emancipative forces and self-expression values are the most important factors of pressure in democracy. However, in these countries slow economic development determines stagnation at the level of basic human needs, according to Abraham Maslaw’s pyramid of needs. Their aspirations for freedom are hindered or are not given top priority in the social hierarchy of values. Historical factors as for instance the colonial histories of some countries determine “cultural clusters” (38) of countries whose cultures ELEMENTS OF CULTURE SHOCK IN THEIR DYNAMICS IN NEIL BISSOONDATH’S THE INNOCENCE OF AGE AND THE SHORT STORIES 155 present certain common aspects. Any change of values takes time and the theorists bring as argument the theory of intergenerational value change based on two hypotheses. The scarcity hypothesis supports the idea that people’s priorities depend on their socio-economic conditions and in conditions of scarcity people give top priority to materialistic goals. The second hypothesis called the socialization hypothesis focuses on the time interval required for intergenerational replacement: “Moreover, the older generations in each society tend to transmit their values to their children; this cultural heritage is not easily dispelled, but if it is inconsistent with one’s first hand experience, it can gradually erode” (98). The theorists underline the necessity of interpreting scarcity hypothesis in connection with socialization hypothesis, as a person’s feeling of security depends on the social context and also on the social welfare institutions, which bring in discussion the fact that richer countries tend to feel more secure than poor countries. The aspect of value change also relates to the issue of tradition, how much is transmitted and if the content of this heritage remains unchanged. Tradition, as the wisdom of generations, which provides past beliefs, norms, and values for the present time, can be ambivalent. From the same perspective Inglehart and Welzel relate tradition to socialization, as the main instrument in transmitting cultural traditions. They argue that “this process does not necessarily reproduce a given value system unchanged. Fundamental value change takes place gradually; for the most part, it occurs as younger generation replaces an older one in adult population of society” (99). This theory also explains why modernization process and development in many former postcolonial countries require a few decades for consistent effects. 1.2. Geert Hofstede’s Onion Diagram Depicts the Visible Manifestations of Culture at Different Levels of Depth Based on these models of interpretation, it is relevant to start the approach of Canadian multiculturalism from the “onion diagram” (10) designed by Hofstede to depict the visible manifestations of culture at different levels of depth. The value model of a society consists of fundamental values, as the hard core element of culture, and then the level of practices (whose meaning lies in the interpretation of the cultural insiders): rituals, heroes, and symbols pictured as the layers of an onion. The core values are values validated uniquely by the community throughout a shared history, therefore not easily changeable. The stability of a national cultural model, according to Hofstede, is given by the societal norms as systems of values shared by the groups of a certain culture, which also lead to a structuring of institutions. Hofstede’s model implies that the cultural differences among countries cannot be understood outside the study of the historical context and that change takes place at the exterior layers of the onion diagram. 156 MONICA COLŢ Clifford Geerts proposes a reformulation of the concept of culture which does not emphasize the patterns of behaviour depending on place and time, but it focuses on the mechanisms that shape human behaviour: rules, instructions, or recipes. He proposes a “’control-mechanism’ view on culture” (45) in which the act of thinking is both individual and public as it uses significant symbols, words, gestures, even real objects to give meaning to the experience or the events lived in a community. Without these cultural patterns, which are organized systems of significant symbols, man’s behaviour would be virtually shapeless (48). “Our ideas, our values, our acts, even our emotions, are like our nervous systems cultural products” (50) they are manufactured culturally while there are of course tendencies, capacities, dispositions which we are born with. At this point it is necessary to relate the study of values to the definition of culture from Hofstede’s perspective: “Culture as mental programming is also the crystallization of history in the minds, hearts and hands of present generation. The origins of cultural differences, if explainable at all, presume a comparative study of history” (2000: 12). The paradigm of value change traces cultures along certain vectors or dimensions. G. Hofstede introduces the concept of “dimensions of culture” (15) based on an inquiry about the philosophical opposition between the specific, the general, the different and the similar in the framework of the comparative study of many societies. He analyzes societies along five dimensions: power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism, masculinity, and long-term orientation. Power distance is approached in relation to the problem of human inequality; uncertainty avoidance is correlated to the way societies deal with an unknown future; individualism relates to human rights, political democracy and market capitalism, while collectivism is concerned with group interests; masculinity refers to a society’s focus on economic growth and competition, versus femininity which relates to supporting the needy in the country (welfare state) and in the world (development cooperation) and also preservation of the global environment; long-term orientation of cultures expresses pragmatism in politics versus short-term orientation which deals with principles and rights. The relevance of his study to this paper is the aspect that the different cultural profile of different countries can lead for instance to a difficult integration of the newcomers in terms of migration. 2. Cultural Diversity: Intercultural, Multicultural or Transcultural 2.1. Mary Peepre-Bordessa – Canadian Literature: “a Major Cultural Transformation” (53) Not only Canadian society but also Canadian literature as a whole reflects an increasing awareness of cultural diversity, difference and adaptations. It is ELEMENTS OF CULTURE SHOCK IN THEIR DYNAMICS IN NEIL BISSOONDATH’S THE INNOCENCE OF AGE AND THE SHORT STORIES 157 what Peepre-Bordessa calls “a major cultural transformation” (53). The Canadian writer, as a sensitive voice who comes from a visible minority, can express both here and there simultaneously, in writings which try “to internalize and come to terms with the dual cultural worlds from which it derives” (52). In doing so the writer goes beyond the cultural barriers, he/she transcends limitations, either national, ethnic, or racial expressing a new kind of pluralistic world-view as well as a fragmented reality which characterizes the postmodern actuality of Canada today (52). For objective reasons Peepre-Bordessa classifies or identifies the so-called “narratives of interaction” (52) which depict the effects of the encounters between majority and minority cultures within Canada, and Bissoondath’s novel The Innocence of Age and the short stories belong to this type of writing. The characters’ various cultural interactions contribute to shaping their identities through the crossing of barriers which influence the original cultural heritage. In the novel, the characters’ identities are the result of “a constitutive process, but (that) this process itself must be seen as a permanent hybridization and nomadization” (Mouffe110). The characters’ identity is built in various interactions and its elements are interdependent, developing in a cultural space the borders of which are rather porous. Thus identity manifests openness towards the exterior. As any theory about identity relates to other, it is relevant to illustrate the aspect with Chantal Mouffe’s and Wolfgang Welsch’s arguments. Chantal Mouffe considers that identity is always a relation with the other based on conflict. On the other hand, Sarup Madan’s arguments on the crossing of borders involve conflict and mutual understanding, inclusion and exclusion at the same time. She defines the migrant as “a person who crosses the border” (Sarup 94) whose identity is somehow tied to the concept of home, too: “the story we tell of ourselves and which is also the story others tell of us” (95). 2.2. Wolfgang Welsch’s Conceptualization of Cultures Cultural encounters in today’s world are also approached by the philosopher Wolfgang Welsch. He discusses the concepts of interculturality and multiculturality in opposition to the traditional concept of “cultures as spheres” (3). Welsch ranks these concepts and he posits transculturality as a more appropriate term to describe the changes that different cultures undergo nowadays. According to Welsch, interculturality suffers of “a structural inability to communicate between cultures,” (3) while multiculturality is surprisingly similar to it, except that it addresses to cultures “living together within one society” (3). To depict the complex dynamics of today’s cultures, which are internally interconnected and emerge from one another, Welsch describes the phenomenon based on the concept of transculturality which passes through the classical cultural boundaries of 158 MONICA COLŢ homogenizing cultures. Welsch’s conceptualization of cultures is also related to the aspect of hybridization of cultures which are seen as a network of cultures, or cultures with an “altered cultural constitution” (4). Transculturality is a different way of understanding cultural diversity, which applies both to the macro and micro level. The individual’s cultural identity (understood as detached from the civic identity) has become hybrid in the process of cultural formation, enriched by various influences in a process of unification and differentiation, thus transcultural. This way of interpreting the relations between or among cultures regards identity not as a fixed entity, but as a process leading to the integration of components of different cultural origin. 3. Culture Shock and the Dynamics of Hybrid Canadian Immigrant Identity 3.1. Geert Hofstede’s Acculturation Curve: Stages of Adjustment to a New Culture in Terms of Migration The acculturation curve proposed by Geert Hofstede explores the stages of adjustment to a new culture in terms of migration. The first phase of the process of adjustment to a different culture is characterized by the immigrant’s feeling of euphoria of seeing new places. Then the second phase is actually the culture shock. In the third phase which is the acculturation phase, the immigrant has adjusted to a new environment and integrated in a new social network. The fourth phase corresponds to the stable state of mind, which may remain negative compared to that in the home country, for example if the immigrant continues feeling a foreigner and discriminated against. It may be as good as before, in which case the immigrant can be considered to be biculturally adapted, or it may be better. In the last case the immigrant has gone native – he or she has become “more Roman than the Romans” (426). It is common knowledge that the phenomenon of migration in the contemporary world brings along the effect of culture shock, as “a newcomer will judge the new culture by the old values and find it lacking” (424). Bissoondath’s fiction raises problems concerning identity and belonging especially for the immigrants who belong to the so-called visible minorities, whose adjustment to a new culture is a process of negotiation which should take into consideration the reaction of the host culture, based on the idea that culture is about “shared meanings” (Hall 1). Bissoondath is interested not so much of “where does one belong but how does one belong” (Jain 10) and the aspect is also approached in relation to the cultural memories, feelings and attitudes challenged by the diasporic circumstances of a multicultural society. Such a process of negotiation is imbalanced and both in the short stories and the novel The Innocence of Age there are a few characters of mixed Indo-Caribbean-Canadian cultural experience who express feelings of marginalization ELEMENTS OF CULTURE SHOCK IN THEIR DYNAMICS IN NEIL BISSOONDATH’S THE INNOCENCE OF AGE AND THE SHORT STORIES 159 and homelessness characteristic of “the trauma of displacement” (Mishra 58) in the postmodern world. The Innocence of Age can also be read as an allegory of multiculturalism, in which the metaphor of house is depicted in a dynamic from home to homelessness. In the novel Bissoondath deconstructs race and ethnicity as concepts of difference in a multicultural framework, perceived as encouraging isolation and stereotyping of the cultural groups, whereas focusing on superficial differences at the expense of human similarities. 3.2. Migration, Cultural Change from the Value Perspective and the Effect of Culture Shock in Neil Bissoondath’s The Innocence of Age The Innocence of Age is a title which reflects a paradox: the age of innocence is actually the age of maturity which characterizes protagonists like Pasco, the middle aged Canadian whose real name is Gilbert Taggart, or his friend Montgomery Bird, a man in his fifties who left Grenada, his home country to emigrate to Canada sixteen years before. In opposition to this aspect, the second generation, Charlene Bird or Daniel Taggart, who are in their youth, seem to have lost their innocence early in life, for different reasons. Such positioning among the members of a family can easily lead to strained relations between generations. Thus family conflict increases in complexity and intensity throughout the narration as emphasized by Pasco, a character-bound narrator, who belongs to the Canadian mainstream. The story is set in Toronto in the 1970s and 1980s, with flashbacks both in time and space, which offer an insight upon the characters’ contrasting feelings and identity construction. The fact that not all characters are Canadian born stands for Bissoondath’s upsurge in interest in the Indo-Caribbean culture, despite his frequent claim that his fiction is Canadian. Throughout the novel, the evolution of the secondary characters like Sita, an Indo-Caribbean economic migrant , whose country of origin is not directly mentioned by the author, Montgomery Bird and his family coming from Grenada, or Viv and Deanna, a West Indian immigrant couple reflect certain feelings which are expressed in their behaviour as evidence of cultural shock: “classic features of IndoCaribbean experience such as feelings of exile, marginalization, homelessness, impermanence and transience” (Jain 2005: 28). Montgomery Bird comes to Canada attracted not by the land in itself, but by the perspective of a good job “the work and the money, not the place” (9). At the beginning of his life in Toronto, Montgomery sees his mailman life as “a kind of success” (Bissoondath 1992: 15), as he confesses to Pasco during one of their friendly talks at the “Greasy Spoon,” the restaurant Pasco owns. Montgomery talks about his way of understanding of family as a cultural value with a close friend, also a member of Canadian mainstream. It is an emotional scene in which Pasco explains success in terms of family responsibility as a thorough 160 MONICA COLŢ value in life: “You provide for your family. I’d say that’s success” (16). Montgomery understands not only his family life but also his work and social relations based on his culture of origin, referring to the inhabitants of Grenada as “my people” (8). At the same time he hopes that his children will not be narrowly circumscribed by race and class barriers, and an instance concerning this aspect is Montgomery’s intention to name his first child Doctor: ’I ever tell you I wanted to name him Doctor?’ ‘Name him what?’ ‘You hearin me right. I figure that way he was goin’ to be Doctor Bird all his life, and there ain’t nothin’ like a title to bring respect.’ (14) In other words Montgomery hopes that by copying or applying a successful matrix or shortcut to a respectful status, the fundamental value will be automatically incorporated. His children and family relations outline are seen by Montgomery in the original family paradigm. He often refers to his family as “the Paradise”: “Where I come from, Pasco, it ain’t hard to know what a man is – He patted the bulge of his wallet in his back pocket. ‘A man is food and a house. And a man’…is children” (212). Montgomery is defined by his role of a loving father and devoted husband and he bears no emotional attachment to Canadian land. It is a principle that guides his life according to a familiar, patriarchal pattern of understanding family as a cultural value: discipline, and good education are the ingredients of success, they can help Montgomery’s children make a good life in the world, and be respected by the others. Family as a cultural value is certainly positive as “values (being ‘cultural ideals’) are always positive“ (Ester 8), but the practical outcomes in Montgomery’s case involve mainly negative effects. Difference in terms of values understanding begins at home and one of Montgomery’s children does not share her father’s view on life. His younger child, Charlene, her father’s Nutmeg, “Just like the nutmeg spice back home” (15) deeply disappoints Montgomery who cannot influence or really communicate to her anymore. The sixteen-year-old Canadian-born girl is nicknamed by her brother ”Liberty Bell” as she keeps talking of freedom to do whatever she chooses to, despite her parents’ advice. Charlene is exposed to different cultural influences in her private and public life, but her system of values is shaped mainly by Canadian culture where she develops in the pre-adult years. The teenager’s behaviour also reflects the cultural shift of Canadian society towards postmodernity. A number of observers of contemporary cultural change point to the fact that this shift has oriented towards individualization. This orientation means “personal growth, self-expression, creativity, equality, democracy, personal freedom, gender concerns” (Ester 9). For Charlene culture shock takes place in the family life due to the pressure between two conflicting values systems which regard the same reality. Her reaction is to adhere to different values and lifestyles than her parents’ or she has a different understanding of the same cultural value. Consequently the family bonds do not act as adaptive tools ELEMENTS OF CULTURE SHOCK IN THEIR DYNAMICS IN NEIL BISSOONDATH’S THE INNOCENCE OF AGE AND THE SHORT STORIES 161 anymore, as they are not subject to change and negotiation in the cultural process but remain inflexible. In contrast to his sister Charlene, who is exposed mainly to Canadian culture and feels different from the other members of her family, Montgomery’s son has a different trajectory in Canada, mainly due to the fact that he has known the initial cultural system, before the family’s emigration. Nutmeg Charlene places herself at a certain distance from the source culture, and in an attempt to confirm her value she denies her roots, ending up a promiscuous woman, rejected by both worlds. Compared to the other rootless characters of the novel, she does not feel the “phantom ache in an amputated limb” (Sarup 96), although she experiences its social effects. Under these circumstances the characters alienate from one another and the cultural clash of the values leads to tense family relations which weaken the family cohesion and prevents a successful social integration in Canadian multicultural society. Montgomery does not have the adequate instruments to solve the conflicting situations he is faced with: despite the fact that he directly experiences Canadian culture that encompasses a multitude of life styles, he fails to internalize the meaning system of the host culture. Actually Montgomery applies the old cultural codes of understanding the world to Canadian context, which basically remains puzzling to him, both as the laws and social code of conduct. In one of his dialogues with Pasco he admits that his parental skills are limited and cannot hope for success in his children’s education: “Sometimes I does think that the trick to being a parent is jus’ learning how to survive” (Bissoondath 1992:16). The character appears enriched by his diverse life experience in Canada, which is characterized by different cultural determinants, but paradoxically he is unable to perform “the integration of components of differing cultural origin” (Welsch 198). In the process of adjustment to Canadian culture Montgomery performs a mental repositioning accompanied by a feeling of inadequacy as culture shock is a result of the lived or direct experience, actually of the way he perceives the changes in the social conditions. The fact that Montgomery does not easily accommodate to the new culture affects all the aspects of his life and he gets to be charged with assault by his union representative, after drinking a couple of beers at lunchtime at work. Montgomery’s failure to adjust to authority in its different forms and such resistance in a new context, due to the patriarchal way of thinking is reflected by other aspects of life as for example Montgomery’s work environment. An instance which illustrates this inability can be found at the beginning of Montgomery’s Canadian journey, when he also fails to identify and interpret well-known Canadian symbols like the CN Tower which he calls “The Seein’ Tower” (Bissoondath 1992: 124). Gradually, he becomes aware of his inability of connecting properly to the realities of a different society and culture and usually shares his frustration with close friends: 162 MONICA COLŢ Oh, I see the letters awright, but the idea was a’ready in my head. The Seein’ Tower. Everythin’ was so new, man, I jus’ didn’t connec the two. When you adjustin’ to a new country, it have a lot of things you doesn’t connect. (124) Once in Canada, Montgomery lives by a model he has designed back home which is the projection of his desires and hopes for a better life for his family. Actually this aspect overlaps with the main characteristic of culture shock: these projections are based on the original culture and cannot match Canadian reality. During the initial steps of the intercultural encounters Montgomery operates at the level of “the superficial manifestations of culture: symbols, heroes and rituals” (Hofstede 424). The fact that he does not recognize the CN Tower proves that he lacks basic knowledge and understanding of Canadian culture, but also that mere accumulation of knowledge, without a change of attitude and adjustment of the value system does not contribute to a successful integration in Canadian society. Another symptom of culture shock is also the perception of current events based on stereotypes, which applies both to the immigrant individuals or groups and the host society. For instance Pasco associates Montgomery with Harry Belafonte, simply based on the colour of his skin, but he gradually becomes aware of certain differences: “But Montgomerry also had knobbier features, a less glaring grin, a stockier build” (Bissoondath 1992: 13). Pasco, as a Canadian born person, has forced his perception into a stereotypical image of the people pf colour, but a positive image connected to a hero of colour he has acquired in time. As Pasco seeks constructive interaction, the stereotype does not prevent communication, and it works as its starting point. Pasco becomes aware that he “hadn’t been able to look past the forest to see the individuality of the tree” (13). Paradoxically, not only Montgomery misinterprets the local gestures, but it appears that in turn his gestures are mistakenly interpreted by the representatives of the host society who blame him of mental disorder manifested both at work and at home. Montgomery dies tragically and unexpectedly, along the corridor of his building, shot by Kurt, a young policeman prone to violence, who claims self-defence. The incident escalates in a media event which involves the city officials and anti-racist political activists. Consequently, Montgomery’s individuality is dissipated, marked as “a cause by the agendas of others” (285). Thus Montgomery stands for universal values and Bissoondath depicts him as a character that does not see the world based on the colour of his skin, as his son highlights by the end of the novel: These people, they won’t leave us alone. They see a racist under every bed. One of’em even told my sister that having white skin automatically means you’re a racist. Guilty until proven innocent. (306) ELEMENTS OF CULTURE SHOCK IN THEIR DYNAMICS IN NEIL BISSOONDATH’S THE INNOCENCE OF AGE AND THE SHORT STORIES 163 Ironically enough, Toronto, the city of tolerance and multiculturalism spreads racism and pain, which can be interpreted not only as Montgomery’s failure to connect to Canadian culture but the reverse also applies, as “the act of belonging…is also a social act. It entails acceptance by the other” (Jain 10). Montgomery’s dream of successful immigration ends tragically and the message of the novel goes beyond the individual’s destiny to a critique of the Canadian society which treats its newcomers as the Other: There had been a time when no strangers wandered the streets, for newcomers were quickly absorbed, became familiar. Now people came and went with casual regularity, identities tightly guarded. (Bissoondath 1992: 120) Montgomery is perceived by Canadian people as a stranger, a process which is accompanied by the cultural exclusion or construction of the unfamiliar as a permanent Other. Thus, Taylor has emphasized that recognition influences self-perception whereas misrecognition can lead to a complex of inferiority and a distorted image of the self, the feelings of inadequacy, discrimination, oppression or inauthenticity which apply to groups and individuals equally (1994: 38 ). The deep meanings of the process are depicted by Sarup Madan who refers to this state of being physically close while remaining culturally remote in an attempt of blurring cultural lines (101-102). This is an aspect of multiculturalism, subtly criticized by Bissoondath, and illustrated by the evolution of the immigrant characters both in the novel and the short stories. The deep problems of multiculturalism as “the political accommodation of minorities” (Modood 2008: 110) are symbolically expressed by the metaphor of the house, which reveals various forms of the disintegration of the social ties. Sita, an economic migrant from the Caribbean lives illegally in a house situated in a poor area of Toronto, in which marginalized people can afford paying rent for a temporary shelter, maybe the last before their death. Bissoondath depicts this aspect, instrumented by the metaphor of the house as shelter, to give voice to the problems people encounter in a multicultural society: isolation, lack of communication and understanding, as here, human interaction is built in a mechanical way and does not lead to cohesion. Once inside the house the characters experience the darkness of a claustrophobic space which has bare cell rooms and narrow corridors. Similar to the public places the corridor is destined to illicit or anonymous communication, where tenants finally dare to express their anger and lack of hope in vulgar ways. However there is one room whose walls are scribbled with existential issues, a room in which the tenant, a thinker so-called Mr. Bell, always dressed up in a suit, as Sita explains to Daniel Taggart, expresses his frustrations in a different register. It is a silent voice which pierces the sterility of a house characterized by “profound absence of life: he’d felt it – for it was felt, not seen – only from his 164 MONICA COLŢ mother’s corpse” (Bissoondath 1992: 132). Coincidentally, Mr. Bell is one of the street people that Pasco Taggart happens to offer meals in his greasy spoon, an interesting character that can pay one dollar for a meal and also leave one dollar tip, without saying a word. These characters’ maladjustment to Canadian society is also an effect of culture shock at its extreme forms, such as violence. Mr. Bell’s dignified and humane behaviour turns into a determined reaction against violence through violence, emphasized by an incident in which Pasco is threatened by Emile, a member of a local gang. Mr. Bell or Sklewy, as Pasco calls him, becomes a symbol of humanity and loyalty which people who belong together show to one another. It is part of Bissoondath’s message that humanity is a universal value which brings people together, transcending fixed categories of race, class or gender. This is the place where Daniel Taggart, asked to rebuild the house, overhears a scene in which Sita is physically abused by Mr. Simmons, the owner who keeps her in the house against her will, refusing to return the passport and other travelling documents. Thus Sita is subject to commodity trafficking, and this is indicative of multiculturalism weaknesses. Bissondath’s message is that multiculturalism, identified with the structure of the house, needs reconstruction so that to ensure equal treatment to all citizens, irrespective of class, gender, or race. Sita’s discreet presence in Mr. Simmons’ house is the presence of a marginalized individual in search of a voice of her own, timidly asking for her rights, basically in an attempt of recovering her civic and cultural identity. Not only Simmons but for a while even Danny locates Sita as the Other. Such a deformed perception of the other is explained by Hofstede as a tendency of members of host cultures receiving foreign visitors, sojourners, or migrants to show psychological reactions that mirror those of the foreigners: “They usually start with curiosity – the foreigner as a rare zoo animal” (424). The recognition of her cultural difference is not beneficial to Sita, on the contrary, it prevents her from becoming an integral part of Canadian society. Sita belongs to the diasporic community of Caribbean immigrants and she experiences oppression in the country which promises the immigrants’ integration in terms of respect and equality. Meanwhile Sita writes home fantasizing about life in the Canadian haven (Mishra 23). Her behaviour is typical in terms of the expectations of the immigrants and their families: “Caribbean immigrants in Canada must keep up pretence of enjoying the fruits of the promised land in Canada, regardless of whatever poverty, exploitation, discrimination or alienation they might actually suffer” (Jain 2005: 88). Towards the end of the novel Sita seeks revenge against Simmons and through violence she sets herself free. 3.3. Elements of culture shock in Bissoondath’s short stories The same topic of culture shock regarding immigrants’ adjustment to a multicultural society can be traced in many of Bissoondath’s short stories. ELEMENTS OF CULTURE SHOCK IN THEIR DYNAMICS IN NEIL BISSOONDATH’S THE INNOCENCE OF AGE AND THE SHORT STORIES 165 Security and Insecurity are two short stories which deal with Caribbean immigrants in Canada, too. Actually Security which appears in the volume entitled On the Eve of Uncertain Tomorrows (1990) is a sequel to Insecurity from Bissoondath’s first volume Digging up the Mountains (1985) in which Alistair Ramgoolam makes plans for immigrating to Canada. Security is a story of cultural adjustment to different circumstances in which uncertainties, distrust, disappointment and loneliness reflect the individual struggle for a place in Canadian society, in which, paradoxically, material security leads to the imbalance of the value system which induces a feeling of insecurity: The more insecure he saw his island becoming, the more secure he himself felt. From this secure insecurity a new attitude, one of which he had never before been aware, arose in him. The island of his birth, on which he had grown up and he had made his fortune, was transformed by a process of mind into a kind of temporary home. (Bissoondath 1985: 72) Alistair Ramgoolam experiences disorientation due to culture shock from the moment he sets foot in Toronto. For him Canada is a foreign land which estranged him from his sons, and later on his wife and even from his deep self. All the intercultural encounters show Alistair repeatedly that Canada can not be perceived as his home, as home means for him “a point of reference from which they could reassure themselves of their place in the world” (93), but most of all home is familiarity and a certain way of doing things. As a solution to insecurity, Mr. Ramgoolam attempts at reinforcing tradition to give meaning to his life in Toronto or fill in the cultural gaps as he is not perceived as the bread winner and the head of the family anymore: He was single-handedly fighting a war of domestic skirmishes to uphold traditions which, he acknowledged, had meant little to him before but which suddenly, inexplicably, loomed in importance. Challenged by his sons, he could not explain their new value; could not when confronted by his wife’s weary hesitation, justify his renewed reliance on them; just knew that in this alien land, far from all that had created him, far from all that he had created, they were vital. (Bissoondath 1990: 107) Actually he perceives Canada through the prism of what it is not the same as on the Caribbean island or in other words Ramgoolam locates symbolically, not geographically, Toronto and Canada at the other pole of the Caribbean. His identity, as the conceptual framework within which he develops commitments and identifications (Taylor 1989: 40), emphasizes Ramgoolam’s ethnocentric position towards the Canadians who are the pagans, from his point of view, while the culture on the Caribbean island is superior as practices and perspective on life. For instance, Ramgoolam is not so much afraid of death, but that his soul will not be properly taken care of; he fears assimilation more than death and this can be also interpreted as a step further in his “diasporic consciousness” (Jain 67). 166 MONICA COLŢ It was from this loneliness, this sense of abandonment, that emerged Mr. Ramgoolam’s deepest worry: would his sons do for him after his death all that he had done for his parents after theirs? Would they – and, beyond this, could they, in this country – fulfil their cremation duties, feed his hungry and wandering soul, have themselves ritually shaved beside a river, dispatch his soul to wherever with the final farewell ceremony? (Bissoondath 1990: 108) His cultural lens prevents Alistair, and also Montgomery, from perceiving things as they are, of a different value which comes from this difference in itself. Alistair’s and Montgomery’s systems of values prove to be inflexible and they cannot build points of connection with the new culture. Therefore their identities are no longer negotiable or “domains of difference” (Bhabha 2) but essentialist categories. A story of adjustment to a different culture and coming to terms to the character’s own culture is depicted by Bissoondath in the short story The Cage from the same volume, Digging up the Mountains. Michi is a Japanese woman in search of her identity who comes to experience Canadian culture on her own choice but in an attempt to escape the family’s confinement: “Tradition designed my cage. My father built it. Keisuke locked it” (Bissoondath 1985: 68). The themes of displacement and dislocation explain her journey to the North-American continent, which is a place completely alien to Miki. She is portrayed in clear opposition to her mother who has completely surrendered to the cultural tradition and the rigors of a patriarchal society: “I am, in the end, tangible proof of my mother’s failure as a woman” (41). The relationship father-daughter is a power relation in favour of the former who makes efforts “to transplant the cultural values in her” (Prasad 281). She does not share affinities with any relative: “Accepting my father’s values would make life easier for me. But I cannot do this automatically. I am not a clock” (Bissoondath 1985: 68). As soon as she arrives in Toronto, Michi feels free from the restrictive bondage of the Japanese culture and attempts to find her place in the world. Her look on this different world bears the traces of the home culture as she feels foreign on a foreign land. Actually, her first contact with the wide world has been mediated by a children’s book, a gift from her father: My father in giving me the book had stressed the obvious: the ugliness of the foreigners, the beauty of the Samurai. But my mind was gripped by the roughness, the apparent unpredictability of the foreigners. The Samurai were of a cold beauty: you knew what to expect of them, and in this my father saw virtue. For me, the foreigners were creatures who could have exploded with a suddenness that was like charm. Looking at them I wondered about their houses, their food, their families. I wanted to know what they thought and how they felt. (42) In Canada Michi gradually becomes aware of the cultural differences and of the fact that she is perceived as a foreigner. While learning English with a ELEMENTS OF CULTURE SHOCK IN THEIR DYNAMICS IN NEIL BISSOONDATH’S THE INNOCENCE OF AGE AND THE SHORT STORIES 167 tutor she listens to his ideas which are a proof of the stereotypical way the western people perceive the Asians: “He insisted that I, being a Japanese person, never eat bread, only rice and vegetables and raw fish and nothing else. He would not believe that I had tasted my first mac in Tokyo” (94). Michi chooses to return to tradition and her identity is permanently reinvented, as much as tradition, to match her changing tendencies. Michi discovers that her grandmother from her father’s side, whose name she bears, used to be like her, not submissive to authority in any form, and this connection gives Michi a different understanding of the family value and she chooses to come back home. Thus she comes to terms with the initial the initial value system which is enriched with different meanings and completes and confirms her identity: I am a woman, I am a Japanese woman – I still look to the east when I take a medicine – and the ties of tradition still bind me the way they bind Miki. To understand oneself is insufficient. (67) No man is an island. (66) Conclusions The paper identifies elements of culture shock in their dynamics in a multicultural society under the influence of globalization in Bissoondath’s novel The Innocence of Age and short stories. As it is illustrated in the methodological part of the paper I have approached the concept of culture shock in relation to culture and values, as culture components which help the characters give meaning to their lived experiences. The discussion of the characters’ cultural identity and the process of adjustment to Canadian society are related to the concepts of interculturalism and transculturalism which reflect the dynamic of the world which changes. The immigrant characters in The Innocence of Age are economic migrants from the Caribbean, although Bissondath does not openly reveal the country of origin. The presence of Caribbean immigrants in Canadian social fabric has become significant beginning with the years 1960s when Canada gradually turned its attention toward non-traditional sources of immigration. By the beginning of the 21st century, the proportion of people with British, French, and/or Canadian ethnic origins (the term was first introduced in the 1996 census) had dropped to below one-half of the total population (46%). This increased diversity was evident in the 2001 census, in which more than 200 different ethnic origins were reported. This aspect of Canadian social reality emphasizes the relevance of my analysis of culture shock, because visible ethnic and racial minorities have become a significant part of Canadian reality. Bissoondath’s novel and the short stories reflect aspects of the years 1970s when Canada’s approach of multiculturalism has 168 MONICA COLŢ often been described using metaphors such as the cultural mosaic or the harmonious interaction between communities. The metaphor refers to the focus of Canadian multiculturalism on accommodating the changing needs of an increasingly diverse Canadian society. Practice or people’s direct perception of multiculturalism reflects serious problems. Most immigrants from developing countries have found in Canada a better life, economically speaking, but they have faced culture shock. One of the reasons is that they come with a different cultural heritage than that of Canadian mainstream. Adjustment takes time until every newcomer finds his/her own way in the “existing network of social relations” (Geerts 145). The characters’ main motivation to immigrate to Canada is not the country in itself but the job perspectives, the opportunities of material safety. The paradigm of Montgomery’s existence for example is not flexible as it is dominated by a patriarchal way of understanding not only his family life but also work. He bears a wrong perception of reality which prevents him from adjusting to Canadian society and culture. Such a perspective on life is not the only source of culture shock: a different understanding of the same cultural value can lead to frustration and a feeling of inadequacy. The aspect can be observed both at people from different and the same culture, which belong to different generations as it is the case of Montgomery Bird and his daughter Charlene. The dream of successful immigration or high expectations which often fail to be accomplished due to cultural exclusion or the treatment of a newcomer as other amplify culture shock, especially for the first generation of immigrants. This aspect is illustrated in Bissoondath’s works, reflecting the route from culture shock to the necessity of a modified behaviour. This puts pressure on the individual’s values system which gives meaning and coherence in the interpretation of reality. Members of Canadian society perceive the immigrants as strangers or foreigners and this treatment of difference leads to the latter’s isolation. The action of the novel and the short stories is set in the city. Living in metropolitan areas corresponds to a tendency of these minorities to join communities of people from the same culture. Canadian cities have gradually become more cosmopolitan but more important is the cosmopolitan attitude of culturally and ethnically diverse people who interact in Canadian multicultural society. Anthony Kwame Appiah supports a position of “partial cosmopolitanism” (Appiah xvii) which aims at “creating habits of coexistence” (Appiah xix) by developing a culture of conversation which does not seek total agreement or consensus but cultural exchange in a transcultural conversation. This crossing of borders unites the members of diverse cultures on the level of discursive exchange. Appiah stresses the role of universal values as patterns of interaction or basis of a common humanity (11). They guide people who engage in a constructive conversation which welcome differences and overcome culture shock. ELEMENTS OF CULTURE SHOCK IN THEIR DYNAMICS IN NEIL BISSOONDATH’S THE INNOCENCE OF AGE AND THE SHORT STORIES 169 BIBLIOGRAPHY Appiah, Kwame Anthony (2007), Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers, Norton, New York. Abramson, Paul R., Ronald Inglehart (1995), Value Change in Global Perspective, University of Michigan Press, Michigan. Bhabha, Homi (1994, 2007), The Location of Culture, Routledge, London and New York. Bissoondath, Neil (1985), Digging up the Mountains, MacMillan, Toronto. Bissoondath, Neil (1992), The Innocence of Age, Alfred A. Knopf Canada, Toronto. Geerts, Clifford (1973), The Interpretation of Cultures, Basic Books, New York. Ester, Peter, Michael Brown et al. (2006), Globalization, Value Change, and Generations A Cross-National Perspective European Values Studies, Brill, Leiden. Hall, Stuart (1997, 2003), “Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices”, in Stuart Hall (ed.), The Work of Representation, Sage Publications, London, pp. 1-75. Hofstede, Geert (2000), Culture’s Consequences: Comparing Values, Behaviour, Institutions and Organizations across Nations, Sage Publications, London. Inglehart, Ronald, Christian Welzel (2005), Modernization, Cultural Change, and Democracy: the Human Development Sequence, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Jain, Jasbir (2005), Indo-Caribbean-Canadian Diaspora, Rawat Publications, New Delhi. Modood, Tariq (2008), “Multiculturalism, Citizenship and National Identity”, in Bryan Turrner, Eugen Isin et al. (eds.), Investigating Citizenship: Between Past and Future, Routledge, 2008, pp.109-129. Mishra, Vijay (2007), The Literature of the Indian Diaspora: Theorizing the Diasporic Imaginary, Routledge, London. Peepre-Bordessa, Mari (1994), “Transcultural Travels: Essays in Canadian Literature and Society”, in Mari Peepre-Bordessa (ed.), Beyond Multiculture: Canadian Literature in Transition, The Nordic Association of Canadian Studies, Lund, pp. 47-59. Prasad, Amar Nath Amar (2002), Indian Writing in English: Critical Explorations, Sarup and Sons, New Delhi. Mouffe, Chantal (1994), “For a Politics of Nomadic Identity”, in George Robertson (ed.), Travellers’ Tales: Narratives of Home and Displacement, Routledge, London, pp. 105-114. Sarup, Madan (1994), “Home and Identity”, in George Robertson (ed.), Travellers’ Tales: Narratives of Home and Displacement, Routledge, London, pp. 93-105. Taylor, Charles (1989), Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Taylor, Charles (1994), “The Politics of Recognition”, in Multiculturalism: Examining the Politics of Recognition, Amy Gutmann (ed.), Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, pp. 25-73. CHRISTIAN TIME AS PERCEIVED BY MARGERY KEMPE MONICA OANCĂ∗ Margery Kempe is considered to be one of the late medieval mystic writers, although her work was very unconventional, as was her life, which was recorded in her work, making The Book of Margery Kempe the first autobiography in English. In the medieval period, time was closely related to the religious calendar and perceived both as circular, following the liturgy, and linear, as the time of an on-going history, but beyond these two dimensions, Christian time also had a teleological dimension, as Christians valued their spiritual salvation more than their material prosperity. I have shown that The Book of Margery Kempe can convey to us unknown insights regarding the way a medieval middle-class mystic woman perceived time and how a medieval illiterate female-author spatially organised her material to produce her own meanings. The lack of linearity in the text invites the reader to search through the book and to recreate time and his or her personal and spiritual understanding of it. Keywords: medieval, mystic writer, autobiography, pilgrimage, hagiography. Margery Kempe is often considered to be one of the late medieval mystic writers, although her Book was very unconventional, and did not conform to the established genre of mystical works, and therefore it resists characterisation. As Margery Kempe’s existence in King’s Lynn (at the time Bishop’s Lynn) is proven by the documents in the archives, and it seems that the Book partly records her life, it is considered an “autobiography”; on the other hand there are arguments that it can be interpreted as a “treatise”1 to help other people deal with their divine visions. Lynn Staley is somewhat radical in separating the author, “Kempe”, from the protagonist “Margery, the subject”, discussing The Book as a piece of fiction, an approach which I partially follow. In the medieval period, time was closely supervised by the Church, and was given a sacramental dimension, as everything else in nature. The linear time of an on-going history was centred on the Incarnation and Resurrection of Christ and, thus, human history was given an axis and a reference point. But this horizontal aspect was constantly doubled by a circular feature, which was related to the religious annual calendar and equally to the weekly (or daily) ∗ Assistant, Faculty of Orthodox Theology, e-mail: [email protected]. The term “treatyse” is used several times to characterise the Book: in the proem, in the preface, and in the eighty-ninth chapter of the first part of the Book and in the last (tenth chapter of the second part). 1 172 MONICA OANCĂ liturgy, which re-enacted Christ’s life, Passion and Resurrection. The third and perhaps the most spiritual dimension of Christian time is its soteriological significance. A Christian’s life was regarded as a temporary state in which he had to prepare himself for salvation, a purpose which offered believers a teleological component of time. All these interpretations of time, from a Christian perspective can be identified in The Book of Margery Kempe, and I intend to show that this work goes beyond this rigid categorisation, that belongs to Jacques Le Goff, and can be found in his study Time, Work and Culture in the Middle Ages, as well as in Dictionnaire raisonné de l’Occident Médiéval (Le Goff, Schmitt), which has been translated into Romanian (Dicţionarul tematic al Evului Mediu occidental). 1. Time in a Religious Community – Margery Kempe’s World One of the most clearly felt ways in which the Church was present in Christians’ lives was the call to the regular religious services in church. The daily services and the Sunday mass were the bases for communal life and being part of a community meant integrating in its life of worship. Jacques Le Goff mentions the importance of belfry bells, which chimed the hours for everyone to hear (1980: 35), thus urging believers to go to church or sometimes announcing the time so that people could guide their daily activities accordingly. Margery was a woman of her time, assuming her identity as a housewife, and participating in the liturgy and other services in church, yet she was constantly negotiating her place in society, trying actively to elude her “predestined” static position and create a new situation for herself. She was aware of the mystical tradition, yet she did not contemplate in silence; on the other hand she did not live the equally silent life of a housewife. She was neither an active merchant nor a business woman, although she tried the latter and she failed. She went on pilgrimages and constantly spoke loudly about God and wept and cried loudly, while suffering the rebukes of those who disliked her as a penance. Hence, she had a liminal identity, “at the threshold of different social and religious positions” (Oancă, 2009: 121-123). She was a mystic, well known and sometimes infamous2, in her native Lynn, a constant participant at Mass (ch. 61, Kempe 190) and received Holy Communion frequently, sometimes weekly (ch. 57 Kempe 178). There was only one parish in Lynn, St. Margaret’s Church, and besides it there was a priory and Margery usually went to attend mass at the chapel of the 2 The priest who wrote her Book initially refused to have anything to do with her and her work, because of her bad reputation, yet through divine intervention he experienced a state of grace in which he cried excessively and he read in several treatises about similar manifestations of piety. These incidents made him change his mind and he agreed to write her Book (ch. 62-63 Kempe 192-193). CHRISTIAN TIME AS PERCEIVED BY MARGERY KEMPE 173 priory, but when she was denied the Holy Communion there, she went to the parish church where she was accepted (ch. 57 Kempe 178). She had a close relationship with her confessor (an anchorite, who constantly encouraged her, ch. 16 and ch. 19 Kempe 73, 82), and, when he died, she cried bitterly and repeatedly at his grave (ch. 60, Kempe 186). She chose another confessor (Master Robert Spryngolde), who also supported her when almost everyone rejected her (ch. 63 Kempe 194). Her close relationship with her confessor as well as her dialogue with several acknowledged holy people, like two anchoresses (Dame Julian, in Norwich and an anchoress in York, ch. 50 Kempe 157), show the fact that her revelations were considered authentic. Other priests, besides her confessor, gave credence to her words and supported her (the vicar of St. Stephen’s Church in Norwich, ch. 17 Kempe 76; the priest who read her many religious books for seven or eight years, ch. 58 Kempe 182; and a White Friar from Norwich, William Southfield, “a good man with a holy life”, ch. 18 Kempe 76-77). There are many instances in her narrative that show Margery’s attempt to conform to the precepts of the Church, and also her effort to integrate into the daily life and the religious feasts celebrated in her community. 3 When she records her participation into such important feasts, she also mentions her spiritual visions, which re-enact biblical episodes, emphasising the circular pattern of Christian feasts and time, a circularity which is not only dogmatically correct, but also central to Christian worship. Another orthodox behaviour was going on pilgrimage, which she did extensively, travelling to Jerusalem, Rome, and Santiago. During her trips inside the country she was accompanied by her husband, and thus she was not only physically protected by him (against robbers or other dangers of the journey), but her travels were in a way legitimized by the presence of her husband, since in a patriarchal society, as late medieval English society was, a woman needed her husband’s approval if she wanted to travel. As her husband was “always a good and easygoing man with her” (ch. 15 Kempe 68), she valued his company4, although sometimes, when she was rebuked by people for her unusual clothes and preaching, he abandoned her. Because of her constant wish to talk to and about God, a desire that sometimes set her apart from the other Christians, she did not want to live a life of lonely contemplation, but rather, she wanted to live together with other people and to share her experiences with them. Writing her “memories” was also an attempt to explain herself and establish a relationship with other believers.5 3 For many years she participated in the Palm Sunday processions with other parishioners (ch.78, Kempe 224), in the celebration of Purification Day (ch. 82 Kempe 239), etc. 4 When her children are mentioned, which is very rarely, they appear only as a hindrance, and although her prayers prove that she prayed for them daily, they do not emerge as characters in her memories, with the exception of her eldest son, who might have been her first scribe. 5 When the Bishop of Lincoln advised her to write down her feelings, she was very determined in saying that they should not be written “so soon”, but immediately pointed out that they would be written some twenty years later. MONICA OANCĂ 174 This wish to be part of the living Church in this life is further supported by the way she repeatedly defended herself against accusations of being a Lollard.6 She was accepted by many bishops; one of the first to approve of her behaviour was the bishop of Lincoln. On the other hand, he was reluctant to let her wear white clothes or the mantle and the ring as signs of chastity, although her husband was there and professed his agreement to her wish. It was the Archbishop of Canterbury who gave her a letter to recommend her and to testify to her orthodoxy, in spite of her unusual practices (ch. 16, ch. 55 and ch. 57 Kempe 71-71, 175, 178). Margery’s most extraordinary habit was weeping excessively and crying out loud, expressing thus her passionate and profound devotion to God. Yet such a manifestation was contrary to the approved and ordinary manner of conduct, and therefore it proclaimed her as an outcast. It was because of this apparently uncontrolled howling that she was often abandoned by her companions during her pilgrimages or by her fellow townsmen at home. Analysing Margery Kempe’s life as part of the Christian community she belonged to, the reader draws the conclusion that although she was sometimes rejected, she succeeded in creating a place for herself in her native town (ch. 61 Kempe190) and she was accepted as a holy woman by the religious people who got to know her. 2. Transcending the Linear Time of History Another interpretation of Christian time considers historic time, with a linear course that observes natural chronology, yet gives it a new centre, namely the birth of Christ. “The appearance of Christ, the fulfilment of the promise, the Incarnation give time a historic dimension or, better still, a centre” (Le Goff, 1980: 31). Margery’s life was centred on Christ and her frequent dialogues with Him, which are recorded in her Book. The first chapter records her first dialogue with our Saviour, following the birth of her first child, an experience which was traumatic and disruptive, in such a way that only Jesus’ presence and speech brought her back to her senses. 1.1. Margery as a Prophet Margery’s mystical visions create a reordering of reality in The Book, as she records her encounters with Jesus Christ and her revelations, during which 6 She also defended herself against accusations of Lollardy in front of the Bishop of Worcester (ch. 45 Kempe 146), the Abbot of Leicester, and the Dean of Leicester (ch. 48-49 Kempe 152-155), as well as the Bishop of York (ch. 52 Kempe 162-166). CHRISTIAN TIME AS PERCEIVED BY MARGERY KEMPE 175 she witnessed several feasts: the Birth of Virgin Mary, the Visitation, as well as the Nativity of our Lord (ch. 6 Kempe 52-54) and the Crucifixion and Resurrection (ch. 80-81 Kempe 231-238). Although many physical events are recorded such as her trips and her dialogues with real persons, the accent in her episodically told life is on the spiritual dialogues with Jesus Christ, His mother and other saints. These discussions with Him move her reality to a different level, at which time becomes transparent, since the future is visible. There are many instances when she knows whether a person (or persons) will be saved, but besides these soteriological questions, there are also moments when she is straightforwardly told by Jesus Christ whether it is better to sail on a different ship (ch. 28 Kempe 103), or if a sick person will get well (ch. 60 Kempe 185-186), etc. There are also hints, in her visions, about events that are about to happen in the future.7 The reader witnesses thus not only a chronological reordering of reality, but also a transgressing of historical reality, by having mystical encounters and dialogues interspersed with events taking place in the physical reality. Since Jesus Christ is an active character in her Book, in order to follow it, one needs not only patience or curiosity, but also faith. Time in the Book does not depend so much on the narrator’s memory of events, but rather on her wish to turn physical reality into mystical reality, transgressing, thus, ordinary, physical time. The Birth of Christ, which took place in history and thus created a horizontal temporal axis, does not create, in The Book of Margery Kempe, a certain direction or a point of reference. Although it is placed at the beginning of the Book (ch. 6 Kempe 53), it does not mark an opening or a point of reference, but rather a continuation of Margery’s visions in the same way as the Crucifixion. 1.2. Kempe – Chronological Fragmentation of Narrative I want to discuss the fragmentation of the text in the light of Lynn Staley’s perspective, that the author Kempe is a different agent from mystical Margery (Staley, 1994: 3). Thus we can comment on fictional time in the Book treating the work as a piece of creative writing and giving to the mystical visions a different understanding, that of supernatural occurrences that raise the expectations of the reader in the context of the narrative. This is possible because in The Book the phrase “this creature” is used to refer to Margery, who therefore does not straightforwardly assume the role of the author, or that of the narrator. Furthermore the recording of her disparate memories was probably influenced by other similar works, as there is plenty evidence that the writer was well aware of many religious books (mystical, hagiographical and collections of sermons). 7 Hints about her journey to Jerusalem appear long before it was actually organised. 176 MONICA OANCĂ Readers are told in the Proem that The Book was actually written by several scribes: an English person, who lived for a time in Germany (presumably her older son), whose handwriting was difficult to understand and also another priest who had read letters sent by her son, but still could only read the manuscript through a divine miracle. Therefore the work was written through the mediation of, at least, one other agent, an agent who had some sort of influence on her since he tested her and she felt compelled to answer his questions, in order to make sure she had his cooperation in writing the Book (ch. 24, Kempe 90-91). Consequently, the relationship between Kempe and her scribe was not simple, but rather complex. I will discuss the fragmentation of the narrative pattern, which definitely marks the continuity of the narrative. Most of her chapters start with the phrase “another time” “another day” or “and on one occasion” showing thus the lack of direct continuity with the previous chapter, and moreover suggesting the randomness of the way the events are recorded. Sometimes even in the same chapter there are separate events that are narrated successively, without any apparent connection between them. The chronological order is sometimes implied, but there is no certainty in it; not even the succession of the chapters is certain, as can be seen since at the ending of the sixteenth chapter the scribe writes: “Read first the twenty-first chapter and then this chapter after that” (ch. 16 Kempe 73). In the following chapters several events are recorded, some in the past and one talking about a prediction she made regarding the future (she predicted an earthquake, because she saw the sacrament moving during the celebration of mass, ch. 20 Kempe 81). Thus it can be said without any doubt that although chronology is implied in The Book, and there are several important events which are told in a certain order (her pilgrimages and her meetings with several bishops), there is no strict timeline and the order of separate events is sometimes reversed.8 The way the events from Margery’s life are recorded clearly points to a lack of insistence on chronological order, yet this does not seem to be an artificial artistic device, but rather it is due to the fact that Kempe’s perception of chronology is sometimes distorted by her emotional reaction to events from Christ’s life. When after crying in front of a pieta she is told: “Woman, Jesus is long since dead” she replies (when she can stop crying), “His death is as fresh to me as if he had died this same day” (ch. 60, Kempe 187). For Margery, Christ’s life and especially His Passion was not a thing of the past, a centre on an axis, but a continuous present, which intervenes unceasingly in her present life. 8 In ch. 39 Margery visits the chapel of St. Bridget in Rome, on the 7th of October, but a few chapters above in ch. 35 it was already 9th of November and her mystical marriage to the Godhead in the Apostles’ Church was recorded. This mystical marriage is a more important event and thus it was given priority in the text. CHRISTIAN TIME AS PERCEIVED BY MARGERY KEMPE 177 The Book of Margery Kempe transcends natural chronology in two ways, firstly because the sequence in which separate events are recorded does not follow their chronological order and secondly, because the narration of natural events is interrupted by her mystical visions and spiritual dialogues, and these interferences shift the centre of the narrative from ordinary time to transcendental experience. 3. The Soteriological Dimension of Christian Time – The Book of Margery Kempe as a Hagiographical Work The most important significance of time according to Christian teaching is its soteriological role. Christian life was perceived as a path towards redemption, and salvation was achieved through suffering and hardship, as penance for sins. Margery always regarded the heavy accusations she received and the slanderous words that hurt her as means of redeeming herself (ch. 13 Kempe 63, ch. 14 Kempe 65, ch. 52 Kempe 161, and ch.55 Kempe 175). Reading Margery’s story one can witness the contrasting events that show how on the one hand she is rebuked and despised and on the other hand she is asked for advice, about the way Christians should live their lives (ch. 23 Kempe 89), or she is asked questions about whether or not certain Christians will be saved after death (ch. 55 Kempe174-175). In other instances because of her prayers people are helped by God (especially those who travel with her during her pilgrimages, ch. 30, Kempe 111), and other times, because of talking to her, people become better Christians and change their wicked lives. Such an example is Thomas Marchale, who was “utterly moved” by her words and after repenting for his sins, “he blessed the time when he knew this creature” (ch. 45 Kempe143). All these instances give the impression that the author might have intended to present Margery as a saint. Margery was several times compared to Saint Bridget of Sweden9, whose cell in Rome she visited and whose servant she talked to (ch.39 Kempe 132). In some instances Jesus told her that her visions were more powerful than those of St. Bridget (ch. 20 Kempe 83). Saint Jerome is also mentioned as he asserts: “Blessed are you, daughter, in the weeping that you weep for people’s sins, for many shall be saved thereby” (ch. 41, Kempe 136).10 There arises, therefore, the 9 St. Bridget (1303-1373) had left Sweden and spent more than 20 years in Rome. She had been married, had eight children and one of her daughters, St. Cathetine of Sweden, joined her. She had visions, too, and she recorded them in her “Revelationes coelestes” (“Celestial revelations”). She was canonized in the year 1391 by Pope Boniface IX, which was confirmed by the Council of Constance in 1415, during the period when Margery was in Rome. Mary of Oignies, who had the gift of uncontrollable tears, is mentioned as supporting Margery’s weeping as a sign of authentic devotion. 10 Other saints also came and talked to her: “Sometimes St. Peter, or Saint Paul, sometimes Saint Mary Magdaleme, S. Katherine, St. Margaret, or whichever saint in heaven that she could 178 MONICA OANCĂ possibility of considering The Book of Margery Kempe as hagiographical writing. Towards the end of the first book, the author mentions the devotion and the faith people had in her, and the fact that her presence strengthened their faith in God (ch. 83 Kempe 241).11 Her association with Dame Julian of Norwich in those days could also be considered an argument for the validation of her visions and implicitly her position as a saintly figure. Her loud crying was related to her relationship with Jesus Christ, and images of His crucifixion drove her to desperate tears. Her close connection with Jesus Christ brings about her excessive and discordant weeping, even during the celebration of mass or during the sermon. “And she received communion there every Sunday with plentiful tears and violent sobbings, with loud crying and shrill shriekings” (ch. 44, Kempe 144). She also cried for her sins and for other believers’ sins, asking God for mercy. Her prayers on behalf of other Christians did not remain unanswered and there are many instances when she feels and hears Jesus’ reply (ch. 23 Kempe). A miracle was also connected with her (ch. 67 Kempe 203), when, because of her fervent prayers and tears, a fire was stopped by a snowstorm and the church did not burn down. There is sometimes an almost conceited confidence in her relationship with God,12 namely when she threatens people with damnation for preventing her from following her calling. 13 Going on pilgrimage was one of her most constant preoccupations, and she went to all the important places of pilgrimage.14 The desire to go on these pilgrimages appeared in her heart long before she could accomplish such difficult and expensive voyages, a sign that it was God’s will for her to go. Thus when someone opposes her, she answers with determination: “Sir, if you put me out of the ship, my Lord Jesus shall put you out of heaven” (ch. 45, Kempe 146). The concept of time is not enlarged upon throughout the Book, but she does mention it once in her prayers at the end of the Book. Time has, in her prayers, the meaning of present time, which clearly shows that her visions did not deprive Margery of a sense of reality. Yet her priorities in life could differ think of, through the will and sufferance of God, spoke to the understanding of her soul, and informed her how she should love God...” (ch. 87 Kempe 256). 11 “...especially to those who do not doubt or mistrust in their asking, her crying greatly profited to the increase of merit and of virtue…”, and “until she was, through the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, compelled to believe steadfastly, without any doubting, that it was God who spoke in her, and would be magnified in her for his own goodness and her profit, and the profit of many others” (ch. 83 Kempe 242). 12 ”... our Lord said to her, « Daughter, if he be a priest that despises you, well knowing why you weep and cry, then he is accursed »” (ch. 63 Kempe 194). Eternal damnation is thus the punishment for deriding or spurning her. 13 Margery’s entrance into Jerusalem, riding on a donkey, together with her fellow pilgrims, with whom she had just made peace, resembles Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem (ch. 28 Kempe 103). 14 In the second book she is chastised by her confessor for leaving on such a journey without asking for his consent or blessing. Such an instance shows her personal inclination for travelling. CHRISTIAN TIME AS PERCEIVED BY MARGERY KEMPE 179 from other persons’. She considered that salvation, hers and other people’s, was the ultimate aim in everybody’s life and thus every activity or action should be governed by God’s commandments. Her prayer is that God would “speed them in all that they go about to do to your [God’s] worship;” (ch. 10 Kempe 294). Conclusions The Book of Margery Kempe transcends time in more ways than one. Firstly there is a disregard for strict chronology, both because of the fragmentation of the narrative, which is often made up of separate events, and because of the order in which some events are recounted, an order which does not follow a linear rule. On the other hand the general plot of The Book does have a chronology that covers the last years of her life; roughly 20-25 years of memories. Secondly the interest of the author is focussed on her religious development and less on her daily existence and the ordinary details related to it. Her daily participation in the religious life of her parish and her constant struggle to talk and be told about God take precedence over her involvement with her family. Yet, her involvement in the daily religious services brings distress and anxiety among other parishioners and disrupts, because of her excessive weeping, the regular communal prayers. This is again another way in which her understanding of her existence rises above any categorisation, since she perceives her time as a gift from God, and as a consequence she spends the time given to her in her life looking for a confirmation and consolidation of her relationship with Him, so much so that she often overlooks others’ opinions. Thirdly the most important of her concerns and the purpose of her existence is achieving salvation and time loses its earthly meaning because she spends it talking to Jesus Christ and Saints. The whole Book can be read as an attempt to bring the eternal presence of God into her limited earthly existence. Because of her visions spiritual time intrudes into her physical time, which is, thus, given a vertical divine dimension. The author wants to show that Margery’s existence in time is a proof of God’s love for His people, and The Book accomplishes her expectations. After analysing the acknowledged significance of time in the Late Middle Ages, according to Le Goff’s categorization, the researcher can draw the conclusion that all these aspects of time are mentioned in The Book of Margery Kempe. Studying the structure and organization of The Book it becomes obvious that it does not remain within the bounds of the traditionally known connotations of time, but transcends any taxonomy and tries to create a unique reality at the threshold between eternal time and daily matters. MONICA OANCĂ 180 BIBLIOGRAPHY Arnold, John, Katherine J. Lewis (2004), A Companion to The Book of Margery Kempe, D. S. Brewer, Cambridge. Dickens, Andrea Janelle (2009), The Female Mystic. Great Women Thinkers of the Middle Ages, I. B. Tauris & Co, London. Goodman, Anthony (2002), Margery Kempe and Her World. Pearson Education Limited, London. Kempe, Margery (2004), The Book of, Penguin Books, London. Krugg, Rebecca (2009), “Margery Kempe”, in Larry Scanlon (ed.) Medieval English Literature 1100-1500, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 217-228. Le Goff, Jacques, Jean-Claude Schmitt (2002), Dicţionar tematic al Evului Mediu Occidental, Polirom, Bucureşti. Le Goff, Jacques (1980). Time, Work and Culture in the Middle Ages. University of Chicago Press. Chicago. Oancă, Monica (2009), “The Construction of the Mystic Self: the Book of Margery Kempe”, in Writing the Self, Modes of Self-Portrayal in the Cultural Text. University of Bucharest Review. A Journal of Literary and Cultural Studies, Vol. X, No.2/2008, Editura Universităţii din Bucureşti, p.117-124. Staley, Lynn (1994), Margery Kempe’s Dissenting Fictions, Pennsylvania State University Press, Pennsylvania. Windeatt, Barry (1994). English Mystics of the Middle Ages, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. THE END OF THE WORLD AS THEY KNEW IT? A VISION OF THE APOCALYPSE IN SHIRLEY JACKSON’S THE SUNDIAL RALUCA ANDREESCU∗ Some say the world would end in fire, Some say in ice. From what I’ve tasted of desire I hold with those who favor fire. But if it had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate To say that for destruction ice Is also great And would suffice. (ROBERT FROST, 1920) Take twelve people who cannot stand each other, but lead their lives together, in total isolation. Add an old, crooked and unwelcoming villa to accommodate them. Season with two mysterious murders, several unexplainable phenomena meant to shatter the small community’s illusions about domesticity and with an imminent end of the world announced by a ghost. This is the recipe of Shirley Jackson’s novel The Sundial (1958), which this paper approaches in terms of a fragmented and comical image of a post-apocalyptic world. I explore the 1950s paranoia of alien invasions, the fascination with outer space and the UFO craze, the visions of utopian futures and nuclear threats, particularly as they mix with the themes of domesticity and failed relationships. The small community which, on a ghost’s account, believes its members will be the sole survivors of the forthcoming cataclysm, represents a small-scale reproduction of the entire world, allowing the writer to sketch a critique of the American society in the Tranquilized Fifties. I will argue that Jackson resorts to the founding myths of the American people (the American Adam, the chosen people, the city / house on a hill) and to a presupposed imminent threat of world destruction to satirize the paranoia of Soviet intrusion, to question many Americans’ beliefs, to point to the dissolution of family and moral values, and ultimately to expose the absurdity of a society ruled by the media and television. Keywords: post-apocalyptic world, ghosts, the chosen people, UFO craze, America’s founding myths. 1. “The Only Thing to Fear Is Fear Itself – Nameless, Unreasoning…” The mid-twentieth-century United States was one of the wealthiest nations in the world, on the verge of taking position as leader of the new world ∗ University of Bucharest, e-mail : [email protected] 182 RALUCA ANDREESCU order. It was also confronted with a prevalent feeling of insecurity and paranoia due to the realization that what happened in remote corners of the world posed a serious threat to the American national borders. After two cataclysmic wars and a series of scientific discoveries that created conditions for unprecedented technological and societal change, American society was not only dominated by the terror of a Soviet nuclear attack, but was also eroded from the inside by the fear of a communist invasion. Together with the looming threat of the atomic bomb, the Red Scare led in the 1950s to mass hysteria, paranoia, and an unparalleled fear of foreignness at home which distorted severely the image of the Other. The threat coming from outside national borders and the scientific achievements which made the nuclear bomb possible and even promised to send man in space led to the development of scenarios which depicted invasions of the American land by different kinds of aliens: communists, immigrants or, in the more extreme versions, extraterrestrials, zombies, lab monsters, and mutated creatures.1 The dread of nuclear attacks and the lurking threats from the outer space contributed to the ignition of theories of the end of the world. Seemingly, after the Second World War the visions about the end of days became increasingly pessimistic, stressing the imminence of a cataclysmic disaster as much as previous millenarian visions capitalized on the pending arrival of a redemptive new era. In his study on apocalyptic imagery in the United States, Daniel Wojcik contends that “the romantic, millennial vision of America as a redemptive paradise or pristine wilderness has been challenged and altered during the latter half of the twentieth century, becoming more bleak and apocalyptic in nature.” (Wojcik 1997: 98) The public’s appetite for apocalyptic prophesies amplified in mid-twentieth century, not only because the nuclear threat made planetary destruction credible to a much wider audience, but also due to the fact that the apocalyptic messages of preachers were popularized via television, radio and movies (Neal 1998: 7). Church historian Ray C. Petty noted that “[T]he emergence of the atomic threat… has posed anew the problem of man’s future and his end. …[A] number of religious enthusiasts now find sudden and unprecedented support for their most frenzied contentions. More than one person not of their persuasion asks whether these wildest predictions may not shortly be translated from the realm of shadowy aberration into the blaze of stark actuality” (quoted in Neal 1998: 7). Although apocalyptic images have been traditionally associated with religious eschatologies, the American secular culture has similarly contributed to the stock of expectations about the end of the world. The main difference between the religious and the secular day of doom resides in the redemptive 1 The Hollywood industry profited greatly from the public’s fascination with outer space and fear of foreign intrusion, which led to a major boom of the science fiction genre with notable movies such as The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), The Thing from Another World (1951), Invaders from Mars (1953), It Came from Outer Space (1953), Them! (1954), Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), Earth versus the Flying Saucers (1956), The Forbidden Planet (1956), The Blob (1958), Monster (1959). THE END OF THE WORLD AS THEY KNEW IT? A VISION OF THE APOCALYPSE IN SHIRLEY JACKSON’S THE SUNDIAL 183 possibilities in the aftermath. As Wojcik claims, “[i]nstead of faith in a redemptive new realm to be established after the present world is annihilated, secular doomsday visions are usually characterized by a sense of pessimism, absurdity, and nihilism” (Wojcik 1997: 97) . Another possible explanation for the outburst of apocalyptic scenarios in the 1950s stems from the very definition of the apocalypse as a mythic narrative about power and authority, which mainly voices the affirmation of a supreme power over the “idolatrous claims of state authority”, with an emphasis on the question of why “the wicked are allowed to rule and how believers may resist their power” (Neal 1998: 56). Thus, political authority is depicted in demonic terms and it instigates to uprisings. The teenage horror movies of the period (The Blob, 1958 or The Giant Gila Monster, 1959, for example), which featured creatures of doom and alien invasions, are envisioned as responses to the political, social and familial authority directed toward the American youth in that age of containment and paranoia. Apocalyptic predictions and end-of-the-world set-ups could be used not only to subvert, but also to legitimate political authority. For instance, by constantly playing on the imminent threat of Soviet nuclear attack or Soviet infiltration in the American society, the government justified stricter measures of control in society. Nonetheless, the rhetoric of doom was accompanied by one of optimism and by an urge to lay the basis for a new beginning. Because of the internal crisis, the true American values had to be reinforced in order to preserve the American way of life. The Cold War brought about a new need for rediscovering and redefining the American character, and rekindled the discussion about the uniqueness of the American people and the nation’s exceptionalism (Mihăilă 1994: 81). In opposition to Russia and Eastern Europe, which in the rhetoric of the times were depicted as lands of darkness and of unknown threats, America ostracized and was ready to abandon the past, driven by a desire for rebirth which confirmed the American belief in newness as the essence of national identity. And end of the world scenarios were giving Americans just that: the possibility to confirm their exceptionalism through survival and the prospect of starting anew. 2. “What is This World?”: The End of Days in Shirley Jackson’s The Sundial Shirley Jackson was one of the most prominent writers of the 1950s. Some argue that she is a “quintessential writer of the 1950s whose work dramatizes the concerns and fears of that decade in ways that are not always immediately obvious” (Hague 2005: 74) and that “the 1950s became the decade of Jackson” (Murphy 2005: 3). Even though the female author is mostly famous for her disturbing story “The Lottery” (1948) and for her horror novel The Haunting of Hill House (1959), for her focus on the female characters’ isolation, 184 RALUCA ANDREESCU loneliness, fragmenting identities, mental illnesses and inability to relate adequately to the exterior world, Shirley Jackson’s scrutiny of the fifties is not limited to exposing the condition of women. Her “apocalyptic consciousness, sinister children and scathing portraits of nuclear families and their suburban environments, her depiction of a quotidian and predictable world that can suddenly metamorphose into the terrifying and the bizarre” (Hague 2005: 74) reflect a larger preoccupation with the culture of repression, paranoia and containment which dominated the era. Despite its arguable lack of popularity among Jackson’s critics, The Sundial (1958) explores the age of fear of Soviet intrusion and nuclear threat comically, denouncing the tensions inherent in the American postwar society and the erosion of moral, community values. Depicted as a “fantasy of the end of the world, which parodies the apocalyptic imagination while portraying it” (Parks 1978: 74-5) or regarded as an “absurdist, satiric, horrific treatment of the domestic” (Egan 1989: 18), the novel can be interpreted both as a parody of the American suburban culture’s most terrifying nightmare – that of foreign intrusion –, and as a comical representation of the bomb shelter culture of the 1950s (Hague 2005: 86). When Aunt Fanny, the member of a rather large household comprising three generations of the Halloran family, together with servants and friends, is announced by the ghost of her long time dead father that the world will be soon coming to an end, and that only the Halloran house will remain standing because “the father will guard the children” (TS2 35), the people in the house start gathering provisions and barricading the mansion. They are convinced that after the final cataclysm they will be the only ones to survive it and emerge into the new world as the sole inhabitants of the earth, responsible for repopulating and restoring it. Although highly reluctant at the beginning, the members of the Halloran estate eventually decide to join Aunt Fanny in her belief that “[f]rom the sky and from the ground and from the sea there is danger… There will be black fire and red water and the earth turning and screaming” (TS 34). They start concocting plans as to what to do and how to wait for the world to end, and how to make sure that their entrance into the new world is as triumphant as possible. Mrs. Halloran, for instance, decides she has to wear a crown on the eve of the apocalypse, so that everyone is sure of her position in the new, postcataclysmic world order. How the world is to end is never mentioned exactly, and the novel ends with the characters waiting for the final blasting event to occur. However, the people in the house have their own visions of the end and their own explanations for it. For instance, Aunt Fanny strongly believes that “there will be a night of horror, a night of terror… a night of murder and a night of 2 All references to The Sundial are marked as TS followed by the page number. THE END OF THE WORLD AS THEY KNEW IT? A VISION OF THE APOCALYPSE IN SHIRLEY JACKSON’S THE SUNDIAL 185 bloodshed” (TS 116-7) because “[h]umanity, as an experiment, has failed” and that “evil, and jealousy and fear, are all going to be removed from us” (TS 45). Maryjane joins in, claiming that “[i]t has been a bad and wicked and selfish place, and the beings who created it have decided that it will never get any better. So they are going to burn it, the way you might burn a toy full of disease germs… [T]his is what they are going to do with this diseased, filthy old world. Right in the incinerator” (TS 46). And even though the ten-year old Fancy insistently asks “Who is « they »?”, neither her mother, nor the others provide an answer, nor does the author mention that the Russians are coming (Hague 2005: 87). While discussing the imminent end of days, the people in the old mansion live with the conviction that as long as they remain indoors, no harm is to be cast on them, with the dead Mr. Halloran watching over his children. Moreover, they fantasize that they will be the sole survivors and that they had been entrusted with the future of humanity: Those few people gathered in Mrs. Halloran’s house… would be safe. The house would be guarded during the night of destruction and at its end they would emerge safe and pure. They were charged with the future of humanity; when they came forth from the house it would be into a world clean and silent, their inheritance. “And breed a new race of mankind”, Aunt Fanny said with sweetness. (TS 44) What the group fail to consider is that actually the Halloran family has deeper problems than an imminent destruction of the planet announced by a ghost through the voice of a disturbed Aunt Fanny craving for attention. As the narrator implies, it seems that Mrs. Halloran has in fact murdered her only son, by pushing him down the stairs, in order to take over the house. Moreover, her own death in the end of the novel seems to have been caused by young Fancy, the daughter of Mrs. Halloran’s son. Depicted as a child who “not a servant, or an animal, or any child in the village near the house, would willingly go near” (TS 42), and constantly wondering whether she should push her grandmother “like she pushed my daddy” (TS 5), Fancy is one of the uncanny children Jackson uses to undermine the traditional domestic outlook of the 1950s household (Hague 2005: 87). Tom Engelhardt considers that the parents of the 1950s were becoming aware that the household was threatened from the outside, but also from within, and that “the children of the suburban dream were coming to seem both threatened and threatening” (quoted in Hague 2005: 87). In a sense, this realization illustrated the convictions and propaganda of the time, namely claims that the Communists were infiltrated everywhere and that the most serious threat was coming from the inside, and not from without. According to Engelhardt, although most often identified as Communism, the enemy of post-war US was actually “everywhere and nowhere, inside and out”, serving to “mock all national boundaries and stories” (quoted in Hague 2005: 90). Even though sinister and allegedly capable 186 RALUCA ANDREESCU of murder, young Fancy is thus the only one mature enough to signal that if the new world was to be inhabited by the same unhappy, disappointed, selfish, superficial, failed people, the apocalypse would not bring rejuvenation and a purified earth, but a new old world, which, as she claims, would not even be more real than the present: …when I think about it this new world is going to have Aunt Fanny and my grandmother and you and Essex and the rest of these crazy people and my mother and what makes anyone think you’re going to be more happy or peaceful just because you’re the only ones left?… [Y]ou all want the whole world to be changed so that you will be different. But I don’t suppose people get changed any by just a new world. And anyway, that world isn’t any more real than this one. (TS 171) The question of real and reality is invoked several times throughout the novel, and it can also be approached in relation to the general climate of the epoch dominated by contradiction and confusion. Much like Baudrillard’s Disneyland, which is a “panegyric of American values” and an “idealized transposition of a contradictory reality” (Baudrillard 1994: 12) which masks the fact that it exists in order to hide that it is actually “the real country”, the micro-community in the Halloran house, a small-scale representation of the United States, is at times presented as imaginary, ridiculous and, towards the end of the novel, even aberrant and grotesque. Its unreality seems to serve in making postwar Americans believe that their controlled existences are, by contrast, real. Yet Jackson is out to complicate the question of reality. In quipping that “that world isn’t any more real than this one”, young Fancy, whose name mockingly entitles her to be an authority on the question of the real, evidently throws the reality of the present rather than the future world into doubt. The matter of what is and what is not real is raised on several other occasions inside the Halloran mansion, and the most comprehensive approach is arguably offered by seventeen-year old Gloria, herself an “alien” who infiltrated the house at some point and never left. Her musings are illustrative for the general climate of the age, exposing the fact that people did not know who to trust and considered that outside their homes the peril loomed large. She thus indirectly denounces both the intoxication of propaganda and the mixed messages Americans were getting from the government, and the culture of conformity which dominated the decade. Last but not least, she hints at the condition of teenagers, brought up in isolation and fully controlled both by their families and by the state: …that world out there, Fancy, that world which is all around on the other side of the wall, it isn’t real. It’s real inside here, we’re real, but what is outside is like it’s made of cardboard, or plastic, or something. Nothing out there is real. Everything is made out of something else, and everything is made to look like something else, and it all comes apart in your hands. The people aren’t real, they’re nothing but endless copies of each other, all THE END OF THE WORLD AS THEY KNEW IT? A VISION OF THE APOCALYPSE IN SHIRLEY JACKSON’S THE SUNDIAL 187 looking just alike, like paper dolls, and they live in houses full of artificial things and eat imitation food… [Y]ou talk about dances and parties – I can tell you there’s no heart to anything anymore; when you dance with a boy he’s only looking over your shoulder at some other boy, and the only real people left any more are the shadows on the television screens. (TS 191-2) It seems therefore that in her critique of the postwar society Shirley Jackson could not ignore the dreadful impact of media on the American way of life. Television, radio and movies were means of government propaganda, Hollywood brainwashing and meaningless entertainment for a generation that needed a reinforcement of American values. This is why the novel comically alludes to the effects of acute media proliferation, which, together with unusual natural phenomena – more common in apocalyptic scenarios –, is seen as a “sign of the times” announcing the end of the world: …freak snow storms, hurricanes, hail from a clear sky. …there were cases of death from heat and death from drowning and death from wind in each morning’s paper, along with statements that the earth’s surface was being lowered into the ocean at the rate of two inches a century; a volcano which had been dormant for five hundred years erupted, blasted its surrounding countryside, and fell asleep again forever. A woman in Chicago was arrested for leading a polar bear clipped like a French poodle into a large downtown department store. A man in Texas won a divorce from his wife because she tore out the last chapter of every mystery story he borrowed from the library. A television set in Florida refused to let itself be turned off; until its owners took an axe to it, it continued, on or off, presenting inferior music and stale movies and endless, maddening advertising, and even under the axe, with its last sigh, it died with the praise of a hair tonic on its lips. (TS 207-8) Given the huge impact of the media and the movies, the American society in the 1950s was also confronted with an UFO craze. The belief that aliens from outer space were trying to contact people on earth led to the rise of the so-called contactee movement and to the establishment of over 150 contactee clubs. The members of these clubs strongly believed that the world was coming to an end and that only aliens could save them.3 Keen on denouncing the absurdities of the postwar era, Shirley Jackson could not have missed the opportunity of mocking the UFO rage of the fifties and she included in the novel a comical episode in which the Hallorans are visited by a group of alien supporters. The True Believers, as they recommend themselves, are convinced that the world is coming to an end and that the only chance they have is to wait for and embark on a flying spaceship that is to come in due time to rescue them before the final blast. The members of the Society had been receiving messages for some time 3 One of the best known accounts of the relationship between people on earth and beings from other planets is George Adamski’s Inside the Spaceships (New York: Abelard-Schuman, 1955), in which the author-contactee claims that aliens’ most important mission is to prevent the atomic war, not only because the bomb threatens life on earth and could trigger the annihilation of mankind, but also because its effects permeate the atmosphere and cause damage to the aliens themselves. 188 RALUCA ANDREESCU and they knew all there was to know about their leaving the earth safely. They had been announced by alien voices that they needed to give up eating meat, drinking and wearing metal in order to be accepted on the spaceship which would be bound to take them to Saturn, where they would be “translated into a higher state of being” (TS 108). However, the Hallorans and the True Believers do not get along and the major clash between their beliefs concerning the end of days and who will survive the apocalypse finally leads to conflict. Determined to put up signs announcing that “NO LANDING OF INTERSTELLAR AIRCRAFT PERMITTED HERE UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES” (TS 110, capitals in the original) and that, if spaceships disregarded her warning, she would offer the aliens Aunt Fanny and Miss Ogilvie, Mrs. Halloran dismisses the Society and any other attempts of foreign intrusion on the estate. Ever since they were warned by Aunt Fanny that the world would end soon, the group in the Halloran mansion worked toward isolating themselves from the others and making sure that the new world finds them prepared and ready to start anew, exhibiting the fallout shelter frenzy which took over postwar America. It appears that they never considered making the rest of the people aware of the forthcoming cataclysm, nor housing as many as possible, since their mansion was according to the prophecy the only one to remain standing after the event. Wojcik notes that during the era individual initiative and personal survival in the event of nuclear attack were stressed rather than the survival of the larger community and moral debates arose concerning the “ethics of sharing one’s shelter with negligent neighbors who had not bothered to build one for themselves, and whether gunning them down if they attempted to break into the family shelter was okay.” (Wojcik 1997: 104-5) Therefore, in keeping with the rhetoric of the day, the Hallorans barricade the old house, for fear that the people’s crying outside might affect them: “We must cover the windows and doors lest the screams of the dying reach our ears and touch us with compassion; or the sight of the horror send us running mad into its midst. Wrong is wrong and right is right and Father knows best.” (TS 119) On the one hand, Aunt Fanny’s intervention mockingly makes reference to a TV series popular in the second half of the 1950s – Father Knows Best –, which celebrated patriarchy in a society that was arguably dominated by images of (fulfilling) motherhood. On the other hand, her statement reflects how cruel, egotistical and cold the people in the mansion are, not only to the world outside, but also to each other. In this way, the self-isolated group is nothing more than the Riesmanian “lonely crowd” of individuals that came to be emblematic for the mid-twentieth century United States. Nevertheless, the assembly are convinced that they were chosen to survive the catastrophe and emerge in the new world as the sole rulers. This enables Jackson to reconsider the American founding myths, reactivated in the Cold War era to reinforce patriotism and justify political decisions. Jackson THE END OF THE WORLD AS THEY KNEW IT? A VISION OF THE APOCALYPSE IN SHIRLEY JACKSON’S THE SUNDIAL 189 takes a group of people united by chance and kept together by a common, ambitious, but superficial and highly selfish goal and uses them to debunk and parody the Puritan myths of America as the new world, the chosen people, the city / house on a hill, and the American Adam.4 Firstly, not coincidentally, the Halloran mansion is located on a hill, overseeing the neighboring village, nowhere other than in Massachusetts, New England. Secondly, the family and friends believe that they will be extremely fortunate to survive the upcoming horrific event and be in charge with the future of humankind, while the rest of the world is going to perish. As Aunt Fanny suggests at one point, “[t]hose who survive the catastrophe… will be free of pain and hurt. They will be… a kind of chosen people, as it were”. To which Maryjane answers mockingly “The Jews? Weren’t they chosen the last time?” (TS 46-7), thus humorously sanctioning the biblical roots of the Puritan errand. The myths of America as a garden and that of the American Adam – that “individual emancipated from history, happily bereft of ancestry, untouched and undefiled by the usual inheritance of family and race, an individual standing alone, self-reliant and self-propelling, ready to confront whatever awaited him with the aid of his own unique and inherent resources” (Lewis 1955: 5) – are made obvious in the fragmentary images of the new world seen by young Gloria in a mirror. When one of the female members of the group decides to use a virgin to get glimpses of the new world in an oiled mirror, the rest join her absurd idea and Gloria starts offering them brief accounts of “the other side” (TS 77): I see a country. A nice country… Trees, and grass, and flowers. Blue sky. Nice birds. No people. No houses. No fences or roads or television aerials or wires or billboards. No people. There’s a hill, with trees on it, and… it’s like a meadow. Soft… Nothing like walls or fences, just soft green countryside going off in all directions. Perhaps that’s a river over there. (TS 132) Gloria’s vision of the new world is made complete by the fully embodied image of the American Adam taking his inheritance into possession. This hilarious episode both amplifies the parodying of the founding myths and suggests that the young girl sees in the mirror what the others urge her to see: “Wait… I can see someone coming, over the hill; Essex, it looks like you, only you aren’t dressed… you haven’t got any…” Gloria turned scarlet and put her hands against her cheeks, but she did not sit back. “Go ahead, dear”, Mrs. Willow said. “We’re not squeamish.” “You might try to get me into a lion skin or a pair of bathing trunks”, Essex said. “I probably don’t know there are peeping toms around.” 4 Richard Pascal (2000: 109) discusses the legitimacy of applying to The Sundial Sacvan Bercovitch’s notion of the “anti-jeremiad” (the oppositional sub-category of the American jeremiad). Starting from Bercovitch’s definition of the term, Pascal claims that the novel can be read as a discourse which implies “the denunciation of all ideals, sacred and secular, on the grounds that America is a lie”. 190 RALUCA ANDREESCU “You are… could you be hunting?” “Hunting for what, in God’s name?” said Mrs. Halloran. “Almost certainly for a pair of bathing trunks”, Essex said. “Couldn’t I, please, stand behind a bush?” (TS 132) Whether their expectations have been reached or not is difficult to tell, as the novel closes with the characters gathered around in the house, behind barricaded doors, expecting that “[i]t’s going to be a long wait” (TS 253). By this time, the twelve self-elected apostolic survivors are down to eleven, after matriarch Mrs. Halloran is killed and her body taken outside, in the storm, and placed on the large sundial on the estate. Her crown has already been passed to young Fancy, the sinister little girl the narrator implies has killed her grandmother. Waiting for the end of the world, some of them play bridge, others discuss movies, and others show signs of boredom or anxiety. By the end of the novel, it appears that what started with the musings of an obviously deranged woman, craving for attention and in open competition with her sister-in-law, finally transformed into a grotesque spectacle. It is arguably because of this dim, ludicrous vision of humanity that The Sundial has been highlighted for its misanthropy. There are critics who claim that although Shirley Jackson is “an intelligent and clever writer, there rises from her pages the cold fishy gleam of a calculated and carefully expressed contempt for the human race.” (Joshi 2001: 43) Undeniably, the novel features no admirable or even slightly likeable character, and indeed there are no redeeming circumstances for the Hallorans. Mrs. Orianna Halloran is a manipulative matriarch obsessed with controlling and organizing the lives of the others, who apparently killed her only son; her old, weak-willed husband is but a mere shadow of what he used to be; Maryjane, her daughter-in-law, is equally driven by a thirst for power; her grand-daughter is not as innocent a child as she is believed to be, because she seemingly murders her grandmother; Augusta Willow is the image of a matron only interested in marrying her two plain daughters; Essex is a servile, toady individual who constantly flatters Mrs. Halloran in the pursuit of his well-being; and, finally, Aunt Fanny appears as an unstable and confused, unpredictable character, who at times challenges Orianna’s authority. The incredible ease with which everyone in the mansion seems to believe Aunt Fanny’s speculations about the impending end of days testifies for the novel having been regarded as a “testament to human stupidity” (Joshi 2001: 44). In response to Jackson’s being accused of unjustified misanthropy, Joshi argues that “her work made it obvious that she had little patience for the stupid, the arrogant, the pompous, the complacently bourgeois, the narrow-minded, and the spiteful – in other words, she hated all those people whom there is every good reason to hate” (Joshi 2001: 43). The critic argues that for her derisive scrutiny and mistrust of humankind, Jackson should be seen as a twentieth century Ambrose Bierce, who was mostly known for his nihilistic misanthropy and his THE END OF THE WORLD AS THEY KNEW IT? A VISION OF THE APOCALYPSE IN SHIRLEY JACKSON’S THE SUNDIAL 191 bleak vision of the world. In this respect, it seems that a famous remark about Bierce can easily be used in relation to Jackson: “One is almost tempted to believe that one day he decided to instill fear into his contemporaries by hatred, to gain revenge on them” (Lévy 1988: 14, emphasis in the original). Joshi remarks that Shirley Jackson’s “pitiless and sardonic exposing of human weakness make her a horrific satirist who does not require the supernatural to arouse fear and horror. Her icy prose, clinical detachment, and uttering refreshing glee at the exhibition of human greed, misery and evil ought to give her a high rank in general literature.” (Joshi 2001: 49) 3. Conclusions Ostensibly threatened by extinction and promised salvation by a ghost, the community in The Sundial represents a small-scale replica of the postwar American society shaken by insecurity and fear of invisible, silent enemies and dominated by the dispersion of apocalyptic scenarios and prophets of doom. The group’s hopes and ardent desire for a new beginning and their yearning for purification stand in sharp contrast with their erosion of standards and ideals, and with the hatred they are about to take with them into the new world. In the absence of any other plans with their lives, these alienated and purposeless human beings consider themselves in charge with the future of mankind, although their values have been so corrupted that they are only driven by the idea that the rest of the world is bound to perish. The prophecy is not fulfilled by the end of the novel and yet a sense of doom lingers beyond the possibility that the end of days might actually occur for the Hallorans. Isolated in the mansion upon the hill, they already started killing each other for supremacy. In a critique of the American society during her era, Shirley Jackson demonstrates that, although arguably helpful in case of real nuclear attacks and other cataclysmic occurrences, a shelter does not offer protection against the corrosion working from the inside. BIBLIOGRAPHY Baudrillard, Jean (1994 [1981]), Simulacra and Simulation, University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor. Egan, James (1989), “Sanctuary: Shirley Jackson’s Domestic and Fantastic Parables”, in Studies in Weird Fiction, 1989, pp. 5-24. Hague, Angela (2005), “« A Faithful Anatomy of Our Times »: Reassessing Shirley Jackson”, in Frontiers – A Journal of Women’s Studies, 26, 2, pp. 73-96. Jackson, Shirley (1958), The Sundial, Popular Library, New York. 192 RALUCA ANDREESCU Joshi, S. T (2001), The Modern Weird Tale: A Critique of Horror Fiction, McFarland, Jefferson and London. Lévy, Maurice (1988), Lovecraft: A Study in the Fantastic, trans. by S. T. Joshi, Wayne State University Press, Michigan. Lewis, R. W. B (1955), The American Adam: Innocence, Tragedy and Tradition in the Nineteenth Century, University of Chicago Press, Chicago. Mihăilă, Rodica (1994), The American Challenge, Bucharest University Press, Bucharest. Murphy, Bernice M (2005), “Introduction: « Do You Know Who I Am? » Reconsidering Shirley Jackson”, in Bernice M. Murphy (ed.), Shirley Jackson: Essays on the Literary Legacy, McFarland, Jefferson, NC, pp. 1-21. Neal, Arthur G. (1998), National Trauma and Collective Memory: Major Events in the American Century, M. E. Sharpe, New York. Parks, John G. (1978), “Waiting for the End: Shirley Jackson’s The Sundial”, in Critique, 19, 3, pp. 74-88. Pascal, Richard (2000), “New World Miniatures: Shirley Jackson’s The Sundial and Postwar American Society”, in Journal of American Culture, 23, 3, pp. 99-111. Wojcik, Daniel (1997), The End of the World as We Know It: Faith, Fatalism and Apocalypse in America, New York University Press, New York and London. A POETOLOGY OF MODERNISM: APPROACHES TO WALLACE STEVENS’ THE IDEA OF ORDER AT KEY WEST THOMAS SCHARES1 In Wallace Stevens’ The Idea of Order at Key West the concept of poetic unity is touched, a poetic unity which, as will be described, renders this poem one of the foremost and thorough statements of Modernism. By examining contents, connections to literary traditions, and not least allusions of the intertwined art forms of music and painting – by visualizing and auralizing the poem, ways of reading this poem as an art program for Modernism and as an attempt to apotheosis of poetological poetry, the outstanding position of this poem in the register and canon of literary American Modernism will be highlighted. By outlining a synaestetical form of intertextuality, the originality produced by auto- and poly-referentiality in order to create a new artistic credo of Modernism in the fashion of Wallace Stevens will be stated. Epiphany as a central artistic – or poetic – concept is described and explored in this poem to an extreme point, the poem energizes several centers, around which the possible meanings and interpretations of it orbit. Moreover, the role of the poet in society is also at stake in this poem, one of numerous aspects usually neglected in its scholarly exploration. The paper’s as well as the poet’s turning point can be found in the concept of imagination as a driving force for the humane in human beings – which, transferred into poetry, gains a constitutive power, that can be found laid down poetologically in the poem discussed . Keywords: Wallace Stevens, ideas of order, poetological poetry, literary modernism, synaestesia, artistic imagination. 1. Introduction It is possible that Wallace Stevens’ poem The Idea of Order at Key West is one of the most heavily commented and most thoroughly analyzed American poems, its critical fame reaches near, if not close to T.S. Eliot’s Waste Land. It should be rather obvious to ask then, what more could be said about such a poem, since every thinkable aspect of it has been mentioned, commented upon and scrutinized. It is a central notion in the collected criticism about The Idea of Order at Key West, that critics and commentators tend to stress upon one possible reading of the poem, and pursue and emphasize one way of reading and understanding it, by this neutralizing each other and their diverse approaches. 1 Lector universitar (DAAD-Lector) dr., University of Bucharest, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures; [email protected] 194 THOMAS SCHARES Some see it as a synaesthesia of the arts, some see it as a poem about the solitariness of the artist, some see it as a poem about literary criticism, some see it as an intertextual struggle with romanticism, some others rather stress the poem as a poetological poem and others again point out its autobiographical aspects. This poem is a most powerful and outstanding specimen of its species; that is proved alone by the ongoing criticism about it, and the anthology-attractiveness of it. It is an undisputed and prominent part of the Great American Poetry Book. My argument shall be, that, apart from solitary readings and possible levels or instances of interpretation and analysis, Stevens’ poem is no more and no less than a program of literary Modernism, that it is, simultaneously, a theoretical account and a practical execution of Modernist aesthetics. In my paper, I will present a number of central aspects of analysis of the poem, which will sum up to an understanding of it as a constitutive approach to aesthetical theory of (American or Stevensian) Modernism. To take separate looks at form and contents of a poem may serve well to gain a first-glance understanding of the examined object, but it will not necessarily elucidate the position of the poem as a well-working or genuine piece of art. Good poetry endeavors to prop the matching form upon the chosen topic, or it endeavors to find the proper contents for a formal pattern which the poet attempts to master. But in ideal poetry, form and contents constitute a unity. Neither form nor contents will serve as a contribution to each other. No deficiency on either side will be perceivable. That Wallace Stevens' The Idea of Order at Key West is such an ideal poem, I shall attempt to demonstrate in the following pages, but I have no intention of thereby stating the obvious. I would rather contextualize this perfectness with its poetic function, in the case of the discussed poem its role as a poetological program. Therefore, in the following chapters, aspects of form or content will seldom be dealt with separately: The dense unity of form and contents of the poem to be discussed asks for an inclusive view upon these aspects of poetic analysis. Light will be thrown upon the poem from several points of view in order to underline the multi-faceted character of it. Although the poem consists of a more or less clearly detectable plot, and the used motifs mingle to form a poetic unity, there are also tensions to be discovered, e. g. the employed traditional motif of the sea: Stevens questions and removes the traditional implications to give this motif a new position in the modernist poetic universe. The tension between traditional and modernist points of view is felt throughout the whole poem. The Idea of Order at Key West is not only a poem of unity but also a poem of disunity. It is a complete and integrate poem written in a time of radical changes in literature, reflecting and preserving them, thus illustrating a reorganization of poetic values. Finally, the major importance of the poem is not embedded in its plot solely: It does not only illustrate a mere epiphany of the poet (which would be A POETOLOGY OF MODERNISM: APPROACHES TO WALLACE STEVENS’ THE IDEA OF ORDER AT KEY WEST 195 eclectic romanticism), but it also employs and displays a poetological program. This double dimension of the poem (as only one of numerous equally important aspects or readings of it) is the centre of learned discussion and analysis, but will not be the only hub of the following pages. The poem consists of several centers around which the meanings of it orbit. My perspective of reading and understanding the poem intents to open up a broader view by including aspects of literary heritage and newness, other arts, as music and painting, and discuss minor aspects usually neglected, as e.g. the role of the poet's companion in the poem, Ramon Fernandez. No coherent interpretation of the poem2 will be generated by this method, but the method employed here, not linear, disjunctive, sometimes even contradictory, but always focusing on the central theme, the poet in his mundo, hopefully suits the poem in its ambiguous but still uniform outline better.3 2. The Female Singer, Her Song, the Sea and a Strange Companion: What The Idea of Order at Key West Is About The idea, and the impetus to write The Idea of Order at Key West is rooted obviously in the biography of its author.4 Stevens’ affection to Key West as his holiday site, as a place of recreation (here in the meaning of the word: Stevens re-creates the world through his poem) presupposes a personal experience probably underlying the poem. But it will be difficult to detect direct connections to a concrete incident in the life of Stevens and the incident of the poem. We will not become acquainted with the speaking poet5 personally or the 2 C.f. Holmes (1990), 75: „‘Ideas of Order‘ [sic] ... comprises more than one point of view“. C.f. Tymieniecka (1985), “The theme: Poetics of the Elements in the Human Condition”, in: Tymieniecka (1985), xi-xiii, xi: “As a consequence of the extreme intellectual refinement of our analytic powers, which have come to dominate understanding and criticism, the authentic significance of literature and fine art has been diffused into innumerable interpretative methods and ultimately lost from sight. Its essential message of relevance for human life is either disintegrated into artificial distinctions or distorted by the intellect’s destructurizing and inadequately reshaping manipulations. It is an irreplaceable loss; man’s creative endeavor brings in the significant guideposts for the specifically human business with life: Man’s selfinterpretation in existence. ” [Author’s highlighting]. 4 The assertion of a „biographical fallacy“ (Crowder/Chappell [1987], 40) cannot be maintained, because Stevens does give a number of biographical hints, that may be sparse and obscure but are hard to be ignored. 5 By claiming that the speaker of the poem is a poet and not a mere role I disagree with Crowder/Chappell (1987); I do not adopt their idea that “… Stevens makes clear that the woman singer, not the speaker, takes on the role of the poet …” (40), since Stevens as the author of the poem claims the role of the poet at the first instance. The process of word-ordering through the song, the vista of the sea and the artist’s imagination (the core of the poem), obviously happens to occur in the speaker’s mind, who, therefore, cannot be located outside of his own poem. The first-person-narrator of the poem offers his reader a comparable effect, as the woman-singer 3 196 THOMAS SCHARES singing girl and Ramon, the two personae appearing in the poem along with the first-person-narrator (or, the Lyrisches Ich). We will witness no utterance of either of the two (except the woman’s song). We will only witness some strangers being at the seaside, and doing or experiencing something. In reading the poem, we do not get a report by Wallace Stevens about a deep moment in the life of Wallace Stevens. The autobiographical background – thin enough – serves as a mere surface to a universal experience reported by a poet. Autobiography has a paradox function in this text: Although it presumably has the important function of giving the basis of the poem to the poet, he reduces and obscures 6 the autobiographical element: We actually don't have to know anything about Stevens to understand the poem and its message. The poem has a simple plot which is divided into two sections, which can be subdivided into a scheme of six stanzas of varying length (7-7-6-23-8-5):7 In the first section (stanza 1-4), the poet and his companion watch a girl taking a walk by the sea and singing a song. In the second section (stanza 5-6), the poet and his companion, inspired by the girl's song, walk home in the evening and talk about their experience. They have a momentarily altered view of the world surrounding them, the sensation of sea and song has affected their thinking and their perception of the world. They experience a “... union of the imagination and external reality...” (Miller 1987: 473). But there is much more to the poem than the telling of this rather simple story. One central point is, how the poet and his companion acquire their changed view of the world. An important factor determining and initiating this process is the singing girl – the first word of the poem is she, and she is mentioned 21 times throughout the text – the word with the highest frequency in the text. She has a statistical prevalence which signifies the importance of its signifiée. But even though she is mentioned so many times, the reader scarcely gets to know something about her. The only attributes she has, are that she sings and that she is a maker. It is always in connection with one of these two attributes that she is mentioned. She is in fact not separable from the song she sang (15): The Combination she sang appears eight times (1, 10, 11, 15, 20, 38, 38, 43) and it is the phrase repeated most often throughout the poem. The combinations her voice (29, 34) and her song (40) also emphasize the relevancy of this junction. We hardly find more information about her, except that she sings and offered him and Ramon Fernandez. He is a poet as much as she is, because he does not only have a moment of great insight, but also composes a poem about it. And he indeed has also some resemblance to Wallace Stevens, since, at least, he uses techniques which W.S. himself proposes for poetry. 6 Also in his occasional remarks about the identity of Ramon Fernandez, c.f. below for the discussion of the role and identity of Ramon Fernandez. 7 An ordering principle underlying the poem suggested here will be based on the musical sonata-form, c.f. 3.b; other possibilities of textual division are given e.g. by Holmes (1990): 7-7-6-13-10-8-5; here, the poem is divided into seven stanzas, taking the caesura in vv. 33-34 as a stanzaic division, which I do not adopt into my reading of the poem. A POETOLOGY OF MODERNISM: APPROACHES TO WALLACE STEVENS’ THE IDEA OF ORDER AT KEY WEST 197 that she is the maker of her song. She was striding there alone (41) while singing, a vague solitary figure in the distance, barely recognizable. Not her qualities as an individual or a character attract the poet perceiving her, her role in the poem is a more general one: The poet is interested in her quality as a poet, he perceives her making a song that mingles with the rolling of the sea, the world that surrounds them, he perceives her perceiving their world; – for her as a poet there never was a world for her/Except the one she sang and, singing, made. (42-43) She is no distinguishable character, she is a prototype poet and her song an original poem. She personifies imagination 8 ; for Stevens, imagination is the central impetus of poetry. To the poet of The Idea of Order at Key West she is even more, since, through her song, she inspires him to write his poem. She becomes his muse. Her song is set against the ...meaningless plungings of water and wind,... (30). While she sings she is not anywhere else but by the sea, and the words of her song mingle with the ocean sounds. It is in this setting, where the poet and his companion first behold her. Her song makes such a strong impression on them, because it is embedded in the shore scene. The poet and his companion perceive two different sounds: The first is the song of the girl and the second the sound of the sea. And it is the difference between these two sounds that focuses their attention and their musings. The whole first section (1-43) of the poem is one large descriptive and meandering passage comparing the meaningful human voice with the empty one of the sea. The poet's literary treatment of the sea here is not traditional, to him the sea is a mere physical appearance, it never ...formed to mind or voice (2). Yet, the sea is another major element of the poem. The word sea appears nine times (1, 8, 14, 16, 21, 33, 38, 49), ocean once (7) and water five times (2, 9, 13, 24, 30) . The sea is no way personified, it is always depicted as a mere physical appearance. Nevertheless, the poet's depiction of the sea is ambiguous, if not paradox: In lines 3-4 he mock-personifies the sea, paraphrasing it as a mindless creature: Like a body wholly body, fluttering/ its empty sleeves. Although inhuman, the sea is capable of producing a cry (5). The poet also employs theatrical metaphors to characterize the sea. Neither the sea, nor the girl, are a mask (8) (as the masks used by the players in classical Greek theater), the sea is also tragic-gestured (16), although ...merely a place by which ... [the girl] walked... (17), only a setting here... The shore atmosphere is composed of theatrical distances (31). To the poet, the panorama of the ocean in itself has something of a mere background in a stage-play. The shore-scene is only comprehensible and meaningful for the poet and his companion via the conveying function of the girl's song. The importance of sea and song, again, can never be separated from each other. Meaning is not to be found in the sea alone, meaning is constituted by the interrelation and interaction between the girl's song and the surf of the sea: 8 C.f. Weber (1974: 302). THOMAS SCHARES 198 ... And when she sang, the sea, whatever self it had, became the self That was her song, for she was the maker. (38-40) Thus, the act of giving meaning to the world is subject to the girl and her song. The world alone is not meaning. Man, through imagination, gives meaning to the world he dwells in: It may be that in all her phrases stirred, The grinding water and the gasping wind; But is was she and not the sea we heard, (12-14) Even though the world of the people crowding the poem is somewhat in disorder9, the poet does not fail to implement a formal order already in the first stanza. The sound and movement of the sea are described in verses abounding with alliterations (bold) and internal rhymes (underscored), along with repetition. By alliteration, the lines are also connected in enjambment: “Like a body wholly body, fluttering Its empty sleeves; and yet its mimic motion Made constant cry, caused constantly a cry,” (3-5) By the key-words she and sea the first and the second stanza are woven together in a cross-structure pattern. The underlying structure would be: stanza 1 1 6 _ stanza 2 She ----------- sea. (we) ___________________________________________ 8 sea ----------- she, 14 she ----------sea (we) ____________________________________________ Fig. 1 Added the third word we, which also rhymes with sea and she, a triadic structure of references going back and forth is set up. The poet approaches his 9 The world the poet perceives is not orderly without imagination added to it – nature is not God’s orderly creation any more, it takes man to attach his own idea of order; c.f. Gelpi (1987: 54): “…without God or the Oversoul, how could mind and nature come into relation?” A POETOLOGY OF MODERNISM: APPROACHES TO WALLACE STEVENS’ THE IDEA OF ORDER AT KEY WEST 199 topics by what could be called musical variation (c.f. ch. 4): All major motifs are introduced in the first stanza she, sang (for her song), sea in verse one and we in verse six. The first stanza, however, is chiefly devoted to the sea-scene and its movements in the almost onomatopoeically sounding alliterative passage given above. In the second stanza, the girl and her song predominate. Her distinct voice is set against the blurred sound of the sea from the first stanza: Since what she sang was uttered word by word (11). The observations of the first and second stanzas – and the observers – are being elaborated in the third stanza. Girl's song and sea stand in clear opposition, in an unmistakable statement the girl is the maker of the song she sang (15) and the sea merely a place she walked to sing (17). In the second half of the third stanza the we-element predominates. Introduced as all chief elements of the poem in stanza 1, the we believe that the sound of the ocean (that is not theirs) has no human quality. Only mentioned once in the second stanza – they hear her song (14) – the we now have a more prominent role in having to ask for the spirit of what they perceive. The listeners – thus far not yet defined as the poet and his companion – have a faint moment of epiphany, they realize that what they experience is of the spirit we sought (19), but they cannot further explain it. They witness a superior moment in their life but they don't understand what it comprises of. They haven't yet discerned the order of what they perceive. The notion of in all her phrases stirred/The grinding water and the gasping wind (12-13) is not yet explicable. The first set of variations is complete after the third stanza: The first stanza is dominated by the sea, the second with the singing girl, both are brought together in the first half of the third stanza, and in the second half of it, a first résumé is given by the we: 1 = sea; 2 = she; 3 = she/sea – we In the fourth stanza, the second part (the first set of movements as exposition complete with stanzas one to three) of the poem begins. The fourth stanza mirrors the first stanza. The topos of the sea is taken up again. The poet doesn't seem to be content with the idea of the sea as a mere place to walk by. In conjunctive form (If...only [21, 23]) the poet paints an impressionist picture of a sea landscape with pure nature-sounds. Surprisingly the picture is – except the bronze shadows (31) – completely colorless.10 The waves that color the voice of the sea (21) are more accurately understood as the accompaniment to a melody than strokes of a brush. To adopt the poet's paradox rhetoric here: He paints the sea-sound. The poet, by imagining the sea without the girl's song, finds an endless (without end [27]) and meaningless (30) sound. Yet the picture of the 10 Compare T.S. Eliot’s The Love-Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, v.128: “When the wind blows the water white and black.” THOMAS SCHARES 200 sea painted here is very impressionist and the idea of an endless summer (27), an eternal element inherent in nature, underlines the grave presence the sea has in the mind of the poet. He struggles to grasp this challenging insight: In taking up the issue proposed in the question of the third stanza (Whose spirit is this? [18]), the poet understands that the girl delivers the necessary element through her song, and thereby creates more than sound alone (28): It was her voice that made The sky acutest at its vanishing. (34-35) It is the presence of her song which makes the break of dusk more intense. The/This world only becomes the world through her: She was the single artificer of the world/In which she sang. (37). This apotheosizing (or better: demiurgical) formula points directly towards Stevens’ poetology. The girl as a creator becomes a demiurge.11 The poem as an act of imagination is the one true idea of reality man is capable of putting forth. As stanza four reflects the first one, stanza five reflects the second one. The effect of the girl's song is further mapped: By the song, the sea is transformed into something orderly, which then only exists in the song itself: ...And when she sang, the sea, Whatever self it had, became the self That was her song, for she was the maker... (38-40) As the maker of the song, even the girl becomes an integrated part of this ordered world: ...there never was a world for her Except the one she sang and, singing made. (42-43)12 The parallel outline of stanzas 1, 2 and 4, 5 is also preserved in the connection between stanza 3 and six. The correspondency of the stanzas is illustrated in Fig. 2. 11 For the presence of Plato in the poem c.f. footnote 17. In these lines we also have a clear example of social criticism which helps to “correct [the] misapprehension … about Stevens … that [he] … was indifferent to social criticism…” (Vendler 1988: 78): The girl has to create an imaginary world by singing, because in the real world there is no place for her, she sings herself into her own world where no material goods are needed, c.f. also Weber (1974, footnote 22). 12 A POETOLOGY OF MODERNISM: APPROACHES TO WALLACE STEVENS’ THE IDEA OF ORDER AT KEY WEST 1: sea 2: she/song 3: (she/sea) we 201 4: sea 5: she/song 6: we Fig. 2 In the fifth stanza, the perspective has changed to the poet and his companion; – the third "movement" or the recapitulation of the poem begins. In solving the enigma of the we, it focuses on the poet and his companion, who were, thus far, in a hardly discernible background. The poet has watched the singing girl and the sea together with his companion named Ramon Fernandez. Granted that the poet speaking in The Idea of Order at Key West is Stevens himself, it seems too reasonable to take Ramon as a historical person, too. A person named Ramon Fernandez exists in fact, he is a French literary critic with a dubious political background (which of course only manifested long after the poem had been written)13 and Stevens certainly knew him. Nevertheless Stevens has denied any coincidence in slight and contradictory remarks that rather obscure the discussion: Ramon Fernandez was not intended to be anyone at all. I chose two everyday Spanish names. I knew of Ramon Fernandez, the critic, and had read some of his criticisms but I did not have him in mind.14 I used two everyday names. As I might have expected they turned out to be an actual name.15 Again, the question where autobiography starts and ends is raised. The given name is of no vital importance although for the poem's progression, this intention is supported by Stevens’ own remarks. In the poetic plot it functions as a mere addressee for the questions the poet poses. But he never grants an answer, and an answer cannot be expected because it cannot be given. The ordering of reality is not understandable, it is only imaginable. Nevertheless, the name, which Stevens calls an “everyday name”, standing there remains disturbing. Is it really that common? Did Stevens choose it for its sound 13 In spite of Stevens’ denial, Gelpi (1987: 64) adopts the version of Ramon Fernandez, the “aesthetician”; also Holmes (1990: 67): “in spite of Stevens’ stubborn denial, the reference is to formalist critic Ramon Fernandez”; for a further discussion on the topic Ramon Fernandez, the politically aberrant to-be fascist, and the possible implications (including the visionary tone read into Stevens’ poem) see Kaplan (2010). 14 Quoted from Ryan (1982: 31). 15 Quoted from Weber (1974: 295). 202 THOMAS SCHARES qualities?16 It may be a reason to choose it, but not an explanation. The name still has qualities beyond mere sound. The reader unaware of the literary critic may have the picture of an imaginary person of Spanish or Hispano-American origin (not unusual for the setting Key West close to the Caribbean). He might be imagined as a youthful companion to the poet, maybe his apprentice, who grows pale (52) while facing the demiurgical powers of poetry. Mute Ramon seems to be deeply impressed by the lesson his master teaches him.17 It is finally up to the reader to constitute his own version of Ramon Fernandez, who could belong to any world, no matter if imagined or real. – The world we live in and the world of the poem, at this point, are mixed up to a high degree. 18 Nevertheless, there has been an ongoing discussion in the criticism about this literary persona and his counterpart in real life. As has been stated in more recent criticism, R. Fernandez was involved in politics in Vichy-France and has, as many of his contemporaries made a “progression” from left-communist to right-pro-Nazi attitude. He was a supporter of the Germans in occupied France. Some have taken this to read a prophetic insight into the poem –Stevens asking his companion a politically revealing question (Kaplan 2010). But in the end, in the text Ramon is the one being asked a question that needs and will have no answers. The answers have to be felt in ghostlier demarcations, keener sounds (56), which hardly allows for any political interpretation. Stanzas six and seven are a résumé of the conversation of the two, following their experience. While turning toward the town, they repeat the question of the third stanza. They already had a talk while watching the girl and the sea (More even than her voice, and ours [29]) and now they approach their epiphany, which has been prepared in vv. 19-20. Catalyzed by the girl's song, they have an insight into the world ordered by imagination: in their eyes The lights in the fishing boats ... Mastered the night and portioned out the sea (47-49). Nature no longer is incomprehensive, chaotic reality to them. For a moment, through the poet's Blessed rage for order (52), the furor poeticus (Weber 1974: 302), the world as they see it is arranged, deepened, enchanted (c. f. v. 51). The girl's song has Mastered the night (49), order[ed] words of the sea (53). The mystery of the genius of the sea (1), usually incomprehensible to man, becomes clear while being an integrate part of the world of imagination, of poetry. The words of the poem/song recur to man and his place in the world, They give an archaic, deeper understanding of ourselves and of our origins (55). The world of man is enlarged through poetry In ghostlier demarcations, keener sounds (56). 16 As suggested by Ryan (1982: 31): “Stevens’s choice of the name for the pure sound an flavor of it…” 17 The idea of a Platonic friendship might not be too far-fetched, considering the otherwise evident presence of Plato in the text which promotes the idea of the demiurge “the artificer of the world”, see also footnote 11. 18 C.f. Weber (1974: 295): “… Fiktionalisierung und imaginative Erweiterung erlebter Wirklichkeit…” A POETOLOGY OF MODERNISM: APPROACHES TO WALLACE STEVENS’ THE IDEA OF ORDER AT KEY WEST 203 Stanzas four and six contain descriptive passages that powerfully describe the beauties of the sea and the harbor: In the fourth stanza the poet listens to the sounds of the sea and the wind, listens to the dark voice of the sea (21), to the heaving speech of air (26); the auditory channel dominates, whereas visual impressions are recorded in the sixth stanza: The lights of the boats in the harbor portion out the opaqueness of the darkness (46-51). The two pictures painted (one of them rather an auditory picture) illustrate the primeval power of the sea, i.e. reality. The seascape, the shore side contain a merely existing force, that can be detected through man's imagination only and be comprised in the words of a song/poem: Most of Stevens's poems are based upon images which somehow participate in this primal force of being, and it is the existence of the force in then that he is concerned to demonstrate. (Ellmann 1957: 103) Imagination in the poem is represented by the girl’s song. It is an immediate effusion of her poetic imagination, it is the center of Stevensian order-making. But how and why this imagination has an effect on reality, how it temporarily opens up an aperture to deeper understanding – that in the end is no question of concern. The last stanza makes clear that an answer to the questions raised cannot be given, it can merely be felt, can only be poetically described. We will never know what the contents of the girl’s song were, we only learn to know what the girl’s song was: The maker’s rage to order words of the sea, Words of the fragrant portals, dimly starred, And of ourselves and of our origins, In ghostlier demarcations, keener sounds. (53-56) The Idea of Order at Key West is a poetological poem in the stricter sense, since it basically is one long description of how poetic imagination works. The reader witnesses, how the two protagonists experience an epiphany by listening to a song-poem; and the reader, by reading the poem, again experiences a moment of epiphany.19 The poem produces this double effect, it is felt by the poetic personae as well as the reader, and it manifests itself on the poetic level as well as on the level of reader-reality, or, reception. An order in the realm of poesy has affected maker and reader, singer and listener – by art, „in „’The Idea of Order at Key West’ life has ceased to be a matter of chance.” (W. Stevens, Letters, Nov. 15, 1935) 19 Over-emphasizing the role of the writer of the poem – Stevens – and thereby neglecting the evident fact of the double creation of order happening in the poem might lead to the conclusion of Stevens maintaining a statement of masculinity: “Stevens places himself in a textual and hierarchical order above nature, above friend, and above the muse as artificer, inscribing himself as the author/authority of the world in which he sings. Here logo- and phallocentric assumptions of order coincide, forming a textual crux that glosses over the apparent exposure of the fictionality of the poetic word.” (Vaught Brogan 1993: 181) THOMAS SCHARES 204 3. Ideas of Poetry: The Idea of Order at Key West and Literary Tradition The Idea of Order at Key West does not stand isolated in the canon of American and English poetry. It has explicit literary predecessors. The central motifs of the poem, the singing girl and the sea are both frequently used. Critical accounts like Andrews Johnston (1991), Tymieniecka (1985) or Bourke (1954) suggest the shore as a common setting for poetry, and the essential function of the sea as an outstanding exponent of nature for literature in general. The genius loci of the shore serves poets as an aesthetic stimulus, which they attempt to preserve in poetry. Here Stevens' poem is a part of the tradition since his aim in The Idea of Order at Key West is to understand or feel, and to express the magic of the place he has highlighted in the title of his poem: the shore at Key West. Although, at first instance the sea as a place to Stevens meaningless (30), he tends to personalize it in the poem. In the first stanza he employs the scarecrow-image: Like a body wholly body, fluttering/Its empty sleeves" (3-4). Throughout the poem he employs theatrical attributes: At first rejecting the idea (The sea was not a mask [8]), Stevens nevertheless picks it up again (The ever-hooded, tragic-gestured sea [16]; Theatrical distances, bronze shadows heaped [31]). The theatrical images never dominate the poem, but under the surface they appear as a hint to the old theatrum-mundi-topos (Weber 1974: 301). Here, Stevens refers to literary tradition. Stevens’ sea is chaotic but not an archaic threat 20 like, e. g., in Walt Whitman's On the Beach at Night: “From the beach the child holding the hand of her father, Those burial-clouds that lower victorious soon to devour all, Watching, silently weeps.”21 To the poet of The Idea of Order at Key West the sea is not premonitory, he savors the meaningless plungings of water and the wind (30) like a stage-performance of nature. To him the sea is bare of any implication not recurring to itself. Here Stevens leaves the tracks of tradition. As a Modernist poet, he cannot regard phenomena of the world surrounding him as analogies of human life. The sea does not remind him of any incident in human life, it cannot serve as a symbol. The genius of the sea (1) is of a different quality. Foremost, the sea in the poem is the sea, and does not stand for anything else. The poem rather concentrates on the question, what makes the existence of the sea different from human life, why it is so difficult for the human mind to understand the sea. The poet's 20 C.f. Müller-Schwefe (1969: 33): “…wird das Faktum des bedrohlichen Meeres immer wieder zur begrifflichen Verdeutlichung der Lebenssituation, des Lebens der einzelnen Menschen… verwendet.” 21 Walt Whitman: Leaves of Grass. Ed. by Scully Bradley and Harold Blodgett, New York: Norton 1973, 259, vv.11-13. A POETOLOGY OF MODERNISM: APPROACHES TO WALLACE STEVENS’ THE IDEA OF ORDER AT KEY WEST 205 rationalist view of the sea first persuades to regard it as meaningless (30), but simultaneously he suspects that it is more than sound alone (28). There is more about the sea than its chaotic appearance. The element characterizing the sea here is the moment of (meaningless) eternity (27). The sound of the sea is like a sound repeated endlessly. And it is a positive sound, because it sounds like summer, – like an endless vacation (26-28). This static quality stands in opposition to the dynamic coming and going, beginning and ending, of the girl's song. By establishing this opposition, the sea can be defined. It is the contrast of the timelessness of the sea and the transitory quality of the song what makes its perception such a vivid one. It is probably the recognition of this contradiction which enables the poet to apply his idea of order to the scene he has witnessed.22 William Wordsworth's The Solitary Reaper is regarded as a direct literary predecessor to Wallace Stevens’ The Idea of Order at Key West. By comparing both poems, the distance between the Modernist poem and the Romantic poem becomes evident. The only thing both poems do have in common is the singing girl. No triangular relationship as in The Idea of Order at Key West is evident. The song the girl sings is at the center of The Solitary Reaper: The “melancholy strain” (6) triggers the empathy of the bypassing stranger. In the whole second and third stanza (half of the poem!) we find musings about the beauty, the nature and the contents of the song. The girl and her surroundings are marginalia. There is no specific relationship between the girl and her environment, she simply belongs to it, is an integrate part of an ordered world. For the poet this constellation is indisputable. The song he beholds simply moves him, appeals to his emotions, but it does not have a conveying or mediating function between poet and world. His world does not have to be unpuzzled, since the Romantic poet communicates more or less directly with the world he dwells in. The central focus of The Solitary Reaper is – as the title suggests – on the girl and, especially, her song. Both poems share the motive of the solitary singing girl and also share the esteem of the beauty of a song. Otherwise, they do not have much in common.23 The resemblance to another poem – William Butler Yeats’ A Crazed Girl – has hitherto not been so widely noticed, but Holmes (1990: 65) outlines its position in between Wordsworth and Stevens, and „that it also recalls the Wordsworthian prototype.” Stevens uses the traditional patterns of meter and rhyme, but does not use them in a traditional way. He seldom uses end-rhyme: The first stanza only has one end-rhyme: motion (4) and ocean (7). In the second stanza the half-rhymes heard (10), word (11), stirred (12) and again heard (14) appear. The third stanza is framed by the word sang (15 and 20) – here a central word of the poem serves as a rhyme. In the fourth stanza sea (38) and we (40) – again 22 The poem is full of contradictory phrases like: That was not ours although we understood (8), vv. 12-14 etc. 23 For the paragraph discussing The Solitary Reaper c.f. also: Weber (1974: 302-303). 206 THOMAS SCHARES important words for the poem – and made (34 and 43)24 serve as end-rhymes. The sixth stanza has two end-rhymes: lights (46), night (51) and there (47), air (48) No strophic rhyme-scheme is attachable to this sparse yield of end-rhymes. Rhyme is not used in an ordinary or traditional way to serve as a chief formal pattern to structure a poem. Stevens uses rhyme to accentuate. Often rhyme and repetition correspond with each other as prosodic devices: Stevens knits a dense web of internal rhymes. The three most important words of the poem she, sea and we rhyme and appear in a high frequency throughout the poem (repetition) are, in fact, the words repeated most often. Another formal issue of The Idea of Order at Key West to be discussed, is the proposal of its dramatic form. The poem ...contain[s] all of the standard components of the dramatic monologue: one speaker, a silent listener, and a specific place at which the dramatic action occurs. ... – the speaker is communicating his thoughts to the listener at a moment of intense insight or crisis." (Crowder/Chappell 1987: 38-39) Stevens’ usage of the blank verse as metrical structure indeed suggests the allusion to theatrical speech. The theatrical images occasionally applied add to that. But the interpretation of the poem as a “...unusual yet authentic dramatic monologue...” (Crowder/Chappell 1987: 39) should not be over-emphasized. It is not the only function of the poem to report that “The speaker has gained lasting insight into the ability of a poet-singer to shape order out of chaos by stimulating him and Ramon to look more deeply into their own minds,...” (Crowder/Chappell 1987: 42). The interaction between she, sea and we in the poem is not that linear and far more complex, as has been shown. It is not the ability of the one to stimulate the other, but the ability has to be a quality contributed simultaneously by all its participants. 25 It would thus be an underpricing of the poem to regard it as a mere report. And, Stevens' poetology applied, the poem itself should also serve as a stimulus to the reader to make use of his own imagination. Stevens obviously and firmly roots in tradition, but traditional elements never dominate his poetry. He uses traditional material rather to demonstrate the differences between him and his predecessors, but, on the other hand, is never forgetful about what tradition contributes to his poetry: A real tradition is not the relic of a past that is irretrievably gone; it is a living force that animates and informs the present. ...Far from implying the repetition of what has been, tradition presupposes the reality of what endures. It appears as an heirloom, a heritage that 24 This rhyme not detected by Weber (1974: 300) C.f. Porter (1962: 47): “The female persona …, the narrator, and Ramon Fernandez do not have individual versions of the beach experience; they all share the same experience by the sea and, consequently, the same idea of order. The girl’s song provides the common ground.” 25 A POETOLOGY OF MODERNISM: APPROACHES TO WALLACE STEVENS’ THE IDEA OF ORDER AT KEY WEST 207 one receives on condition of making it bear fruit before passing it on to one's descendants. (Igor Stravinsky, Poetics of Music, quoted from Cavanaugh (1974, xv.)) To Stevens, prosody never is the application of empty formalism. He functionalizes traditional elements.26 His use of the blank verse corresponds to the monological form, the chief rhymes are the key-words of the poem. The structure of the motifs is also chosen appropriately, nothing only contributes, everything is an inevitable part, form and contents – in fact – constitute a unity. But, finally, in The Idea of Order at Key West contradiction is an equally important factor of composition. The meaning of the employed traditional images is fractured and distorted, before they are being refurbished into a new order. Contradiction is also a rhetorical device in the argumentative flow of the poem. 4. A Song Within a Song: The Idea of Order at Key West, and Music (and Painting) The Idea of Order at Key West has strong connection to music, issued by its form as well as its contents. This fact has been pointed out above, but will be elaborated upon in the following. Critical studies by e.g. Holmes (1990) and Heller (1986) stress upon the presence of musical issues, and the issue of painting in the poem, it is obvious that the neighboring arts are so prominently present in the poem that they might lead to critical analyses based upon these connections. Regarding the structure of the poem as it has been discussed in chapter 2, I would like to suggest the application of the sonata scheme for an analysis of the poems architecture. An elaboration of the parallel structure inherent in the poem (as given in Fig. 2) results in a sonata scheme as given in Fig. 3. I. Exposition 1 first movement: 2 second movement: 3 third movement: II. Development: III. Recapitulation: IV. Coda: stanza stanza stanza stanza stanza stanza 1 2 3 4 5 6 Fig. 3 26 C.f. Heller (1986: 149): “Die Befreiung der Imagination von festen Vorstellungsmustern bedeutet für den Künstler nicht nur die freie Verfügbarkeit historisch gewachsener Stilformen und Darstellungsmittel, auf die er als Bausteine zu einer neuen Ordnung zurückgreifen kann, sondern darüber hinaus auch eine Befreiung vom traditionellen Begriff der Wahrheit als Korrespondenz zugunsten einer kritischen Verwendung eines biozentrischen Wahrheitsbegriffs, der als anarchischer, egozentrischer Individualismus der ästhetischen Weltgestaltung bei Stevens sichtbar wird…” 208 THOMAS SCHARES The thematic outline of the poem fits this scheme nicely, as well as the varying length of the stanzas does correspond with the organizational tenets of a sonata, the long fourth stanza very well serves the idea of a development of the themes, concerning quantity as well as quality. Also, the extensive length of the exposition must not surprise – the “inherent element of contrast” (Encyc. Brit. 20, [1968], 905) attested to the sonata form does also add to the justification of the application of a musical form to the poem. The variation form, attested by Northrop Frye (1976: 276ff.) as generic to Stevens’ poems, is also a chief principle of composition in The Idea of Order at Key West, as it is constitutive for the sonata form. The central themes she, we and sea are introduced in the first stanza, are going through the first iteration in the second and third stanza (exposition), are labored over in the large fourth stanza (development). The thematic development here also includes the prevalence of one theme, or the other one (c.f. fig. 2). The recapitulation of the fifth stanza delivers a re-evaluation of the variations given in the exposition and the development, and, finally, stanza six serves as the coda: a final comment on the themes and variations. The musical pattern of the sonata form is of course only one of several formal patterns suitable, but it is very deeply rooted in form and contents of the poem, and far from being a superficial mirror image of it. Above all, Stevens’ use of variation is a dominant characteristic of his poetry, and … takes us deep into Stevens’s central notion of poetry as the result of a struggle, or balance, or compromise, or tension, between the two forces that he calls imagination and reality. We notice that in the musical theme with variations, the theme is frequently a composition by someone else or comes from a different musical context. Similarly the poet works with imagination, which is what he has, and reality, which is given him. So from Stevens’s point of view, poems could be described as the variations that imagination makes on the theme of reality. (Frye 1976: 277) Musical allusion in The Idea of Order in Key West go even further than that. The nucleus of the poem is the girl’s song. It seems to be crucial here, that the girl does not simply recite a poem, but sings a song. Whereas it is never revealed, whether she sings an original song, or if she recites one. Her appearance as a poet, and this is what counts here, is, more correctly, the appearance of a poet-singer. This alludes to the origins of art in myth here being represented by the archetype of the Orphic singer, referring to a time, when poetry used to be reproduced and perpetuated orally, and poetry was sung to an audience (c.f. Holmes 1990: 66). The scope of reference here reaches from ancient myth to the romantic idea of the unity of arts. The magic of music, beyond the plain uttering of words, mingles with the words of the girl’s poemsong. This marriage of the arts, as it may be called, is what appeals to the two listeners. It is the power beyond plain words, a touch of the unspeakable – the musical element of the song – which sets free the energies of imagination. A POETOLOGY OF MODERNISM: APPROACHES TO WALLACE STEVENS’ THE IDEA OF ORDER AT KEY WEST 209 The poem is not an attempt to replace27 the girl’s song, not an experiment trying to copy the musical structure of the song into the poem. But the musical structure of the sonata form evident in the poem might be understood as a symphonic approach to a song, like Romantic classical composers, who often took up folk themes and turned them into symphonic variations (two famous examples being Brahms’ Ungarische Tänze, and Chatschaturjan’s Sabre Dance). Not very much about the musical and verbal qualities of the girl’s song are revealed in the poem itself. The poets only concern is the song’s effect, which in the end is being described by a poem; a poem-song through a poem with a musical structure. The song is re-created … so daß die betreffende Stelle in seinem Werk soweit wie möglich die gleiche Wirkung auf einen Leser anstrebt wie die Wirkung der Komposition auf einen Hörer. Nachahmung mag Analyse oder Deutung einschließen, aber nur, um ihr eigenes Ziel zu fördern, welches nicht Verständnis der Musik, sondern ihr Erlebnis durch die Vermittlung der Literatur ist. (Brown 1984: 35-36) Through this transposition d’art, Stevens shares his experience of the creative powers of music and words combined in a song-poem (although the words here seem secondary, since we never get to know them), by re-ordering this folk-art like song structure into a symphonic poetical structure; the connections between music and poetry being constitutive for every step along the way of this process. Although, in my reading of the poem, the recourse on music is much stronger than the presence of other art forms, the affinities apparent to painting should also be taken into account: Descriptive passages of the poem remind many critics of painting, and the different impressions in the poem painted with words remind of different styles of painting: E.g. Burney (1962: 15-17) identifies a “Cezanne like paragraph”, “Monet-like impressionism” and “Klee-like art”. He asserts that Stevens uses art history, shifting his painting images from romantic to impressionist to post-impressionist to neo-romantic, as a way of rendering his rejection, first, of the rather melodramatic integrity of romanticism (‘the genius of the sea’), and then the merely mimetic theatricality of impressionism (‘meaningless plungings’). (Burney 1962: 16) Concluding, Burney compares Stevens’ search for a synthesis of art and reality with concepts of painting by Cezanne. The rich texture of The Idea of Order at Key West invites for approximations to its meaning by applying most heterogeneous tools; above all, the aspects of synaesthesia and poetology seem to be the two recurring forces determining the poems analytical scope. This observation can only lead to the conclusion, that this poem is no less than a poetological program of modernism, as seen through the Stevensian lens. 27 C.f. Brown (1984: 33): “Im engeren Sinne scheinen die Verbindungen zwischen Musik und Literatur auf vier grundlegende Möglichkeiten beschränkt zu sein: Kombination, ‚Ersetzen‘[replacement], Einfluß, Parallele oder Analogie.” 210 THOMAS SCHARES 5. Conclusion: A Poem about Poetry – The Idea of Order at Key West as a Poetology of Modernism What makes Stevens’ poetry „difficult” to many readers is the strict devotion to his poetical principles; the theoretical „Überbau” of Stevens’ poetry overshadows each of his poems. „Wallace Stevens was a poet for whom the theory and practice of poetry were inseparable” (Frye 1963: 161) By writing poetry, Stevens considered himself bound to the universal task of the poet to create a „surpreme fiction”; – this has to take place in single and separate poems, of course; but each of these poems is entangled in the poet’s ultimate work of to create his own epistemological poetic version of reality conceived by imagination.28 The „paradox of reality and imagination” (Frye 1976: 294), the necessary aporia of composition through decomposition (in Stevens already something genuinely modernist)29 stand for Stevens’ Modernist, or, as he would rather call it, New Romantic approach to writing poetry. To Stevens Poetry has to do with reality in that concrete and individual aspect of it which the mind can never tackle altogether on its own terms, with matter that is foreign and alien in a way in which abstract systems, ideas in which we detect an inherent pattern, a structure that belongs to the ideas themselves, can never be. (W. Stevens 1957: 236) The Idea of Order at Key West – „bearing a massive weight of thought and feeling that cannot be separated from each other” (Beckett 1977: 100) – is an outstanding illustration of Stevens’ poetology (Doggett 1959: 370): At first glance it is, indeed, a poem about poetry, about the methods, aims, and effects of poetry. “[I]n Stevens, a reflexive intelligence that cannot evade the knowledge of its own processes is always present.” (Vendler 1988: 77). The poem describes the purpose of a poem by giving both cause and effect of one (and, at the same time, of course being itself a poem). To Stevens, reception of and understanding of the world/reality depend on the method of the mental processing of it. The living creature and its environment, imagination and reality, the mind and the world, this is the simplest and most elementary of all philosophical ideas, as old as subject and object. Here is the fundamental idea of Stevens’ poetry – this duality of mind and world – and it permeates most of his writing. (Doggett 1966: 368) Imagination enables man, and especially the artist as the chosen one, “to bring the mind closer to the thing it perceives” (Doggett 1959: 372). Imagination, 28 Weak imagination either surrenders to reality (= realism) or runs away from it (= solipsism); imagination has to “fight back” with a “subjective violence corresponding to the objective violence of external pressure” c.f. and cit. Frye (1976), 277-278. 29 “… the artist’s need to dismantle ‘reality’ before rearranging it … in art.” Vendler (1988: 77), c.f. also Frye (1976: 287) and Holmes (1990: 74). A POETOLOGY OF MODERNISM: APPROACHES TO WALLACE STEVENS’ THE IDEA OF ORDER AT KEY WEST 211 becoming visible through poetry, is the most valuable faculty of man to Stevens, the Modernist poet. Being of a generation in desperate need and search for values, a generation facing more than a mere loss of values30, he finds more than consolation in poetry. His „surpreme fiction” is the artistic center of a Modernist recognition and re-evaluation of reality which endeavors to lead out of the threatening emptiness of a 20th century world. The Idea of Order at Key West comprises no less than the whole of this artistic program, Stevens’ „sense of the poem as enacted mental process rather than a statement or narrative” (Vendler 1988: 78), rendering the whole thought contained in the poem, along with all of its possible critical readings, into what we rightfully might call a Poetology of Modernism. BIBLIOGRAPHY Adorno, Theodor W. (1945), “Theses Upon Art and Religion Today”, in The Kenyon Review 7:4, 677-682 (cited from T.W.A., Noten zur Literatur. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp 41989, 647-653). Andrews Johnston, Sara (1991): ‘Life’s a Beach’: The Shore-Lyric from Arnold to Ammons. Chapel Hill: North Carolina UP 1991. Brown, Calvin S. (1984), Theoretische Grundlagen zum Studium der Wechselverhältnisse zwischen Literatur und Musik (German Translation of: Music and Literature – A Comparison of the Arts), Athens: Georgia UP 1948. Cavanaugh, William C. (1974), Introduction to Poetry, Dubuque/Iowa: Brown. Crowder, Ashby Bland, Charles Chappell (1987), "The Dramatic Form of 'The Idea of Order at Key West' and 'Peter Quince at the Clavier'", in College Literature 14:1, 38-47. Doggett, Frank (1966), Stevens’ Poetry of Thought, Baltimore: John Hopkins Press. Ellmann, Richard (1957), "Wallace Stevens' Ice-Cream", in The Kenyon Review 19, 89-105. Frye, Northrop (1963), “The Realistic Oriole: A Study of Wallace Stevens”, in Marie Boroff (ed), Wallace Stevens: A Collection of Critical Essays, Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 161-176. Frye, Northrop (1976), “Wallace Stevens and the Variation Form”, in N.F., Spiritus mundi: Essays on Literature, Myth, and Society. Bloomington: Indiana UP. Gelpi, Albert (1987), A Coherent Splendor: The American Poetic Renaissance, 1910-1950. Cambridge and others: Cambridge UP. Heller, Jürgen (1986), William Carlos Williams, Wallace Stevens und die Moderne Malerei: Ästhetische Entwürfe, Verfahren der Komposition, Frankfurt/M. et.al., Peter Lang. Holmes, Barbara (1990), “The Decomposer's Art: Ideas of Music in the Poetry of Wallace Stevens”, New York and others: Peter Lang (New Connections: Studies in Interdisciplinarity 1). Kaplan, Alice (2010): “Ghostly Demarcations: on Ramon Fernandez”, in The Nation, feb. 15, 2010 (online: http://www.thenation.com/article/ghostly-demarcations-ramon-fernandez). Miller, Joseph (1987), "Wallace Stevens", in DLB [= Dictionary of Literary Biography] 54, 471-505. 30 “The individual might still be capable of having religious experiences. But positive religion has lost its character of objective, all-comprising validity, its supra-individual binding force. It is no longer an unproblematic, a priori medium within which each person exists without questioning. Hence the desire for a reconstruction of that much praised unity amounts to wishful thinking, even if it be deeply rooted in the sincere desire for something which gives ‘sense’ to a culture threatened by emptiness and universal alienation.” Adorno (1945: 647). 212 THOMAS SCHARES Müller-Schwefe, Gerhard (1969), Einführung in die Gedichtinterpretation: Schlüssel zur englischen Lyrik, Dortmund: Lensing. Porter, James E. (1962), „Stevens’ ‚The Idea of Order at Key West’”, in The Explicator XX, 47-48. Ryan, Michael (1982), “Disclosures of Poetry: On Wallace Stevens and 'The Idea of Order at Key West'”, in The American Poetry Review, 11:5, Sept./Oct. 1982, 29-34. Tymieniecka, Anna-Teresa (ed.), “Poetics of the Elements in the Human Condition: The Sea. from Elemental Stirrings to Symbolic Inspiration, Language, and Life-Significance in Literary Interpretation and Theory”, Dordrecht and others: D. Reidel 1985 [= Tymieniecka, Anna-Teresa (ed.), Analectica Husserliana. The Yearbook of Phenomenological Research, vol. 19.] Vaught Brogan, Jaqueline (1993), “Elizabeth Bishop: Perversity as Voice”, in Marilyn May Lombardi (ed), Elizabeth Bishop, The Geography of Gender, The University Press of Virginia, 175-195. Vendler, Helen (1988), The Music of What Happens, Cambridge/Mass., Harvard UP 1988. Wallace Stevens, Ideas of Order, 1936. Wallace Stevens, The Necessary Angel, 1951. Wallace Stevens, Opus posthumous, 1957. Wallace Stevens, Letters (ed. Holly Stevens), 1966. Weber, Alfred (1974): „Wallace Stevens: 'The Idea of Order at Key West'“, in Klaus Lubbers (ed), Die amerikanische Lyrik: Von der Kolonialzeit bis zur Gegenwart, Düsseldorf: Bagel 1974, 292-305. L’ENFANCE – LE PASSÉ QUI NE PASSE PAS DANS LES ROMANS DE PASCAL QUIGNARD ANDREEA DIACONESCU∗ CHILDHOOD – THE PAST DOES NEVER PASS IN THE NOVELS OF PASCAL QUIGNARD The childhood – remaining between the time’s borders – shows a certain relationship to the temporality that contributes to the originality of Pascal Quignard’s approach. Quignard’s characters cannot completely get rid of this fantastical moment where temporality blocks in a present time of a happy or unhappy fullness, as appropriate. The emotional intensity is in counterpoint with the vectorized time acting ruthlessly on the adult who feels the violence in a painful way. At Quignard, the characters have different views on their childhood, according to two basic affects that have marked them: the happiness and the unhappiness. At the poles there are: Charles Chenogne from ‘Salon du Wurtemberg’ (“The Salon in Wurtemberg”) – who interrupts very often the well-ordered recall of the period 1963-1986 to dive obsessively in the memories of the childhood spent in Wurtemberg – and A. from ‘Carus’ who is running away from the childhood memories, even if they persist to disturb his memory. Other characters revolve around these poles with some variations: Quoeun from ‘Carus’ and Ann Hidden have a disillusioned attitude towards the unhappy childhood, while Edouard Furfooz from ‘Escaliers de Chambord’ unconsciously seeks refuge in the manipulation of toys to forget the trauma of childhood. On the other hand, the protagonists of ‘L’Occupation américaine’ (“The American Occupation”) represent a special case due to their premature decision to abandon the French childhood. The oversized temporality of the childhood remains constant in these situations that we intend to analyze. Keywords: childhood, the past, oversized temporality, happiness, unhappiness. En faisant le bilan des choses longues et des choses peu durables dans le fragment CXXXII de son journal, Apronenia Avitia du roman Les Tablettes de buis d’Apronenia Avitia note : « Parmi les choses qui sont très longues j’ajouterai l’enfance.» (Quignard, 2006 : 116). Charles Chenogne, le protagoniste du Salon du Wurtemberg, a une observation similaire : « Quand je retourne à Bergheim, je crois rejoindre le site le plus vieux du monde. C’était l’enfance, c’était la mâchoire de Heidelberg. […] C’était la grotte de Schuhrloch.» (Quignard, 1995 : 397). En effet, si dans le paradis la temporalité est exclue et que le rêve en brouille les limites, l’enfance – en restant entre les frontières chronologiques – démontre un ∗ Docteur en philologie à l’Université de Bucarest, [email protected] 214 ANDREEA DIACONESCU certain rapport à la temporalité qui contribue à l’originalité de la démarche quignardienne. Les réflexions explicites sur la façon particulière de l’enfant de concevoir sa relation avec le temps sont moins marquées dans les romans, tandis qu’elles parsèment les essais. Un exemple parlant c’est la réflexion qui clôt le premier chapitre de La Leçon de musique : Si j’oublie un instant la mue masculine, l’attente, telle est la seule expérience que le temps nous donne de lui-même. La durée est une résistance. Le temps est ce qui dure, ce qu’on endure. […] L’enfant – qui sait la vérité […] – ne sait pas endurer le délai. (Quignard, 1998 : 55-57) L’enfance est donc cet âge magnifique, perdu presqu’en entier et qui rappelle le chaos originaire par le fait qu’elle ne connaît pas la tyrannie du temps. Le moraliste Jean de La Bruyère le soulignait dès le XVIIe siècle : « Les enfants n’ont ni passé, ni avenir et, ce qui ne nous arrive guère, ils jouissent du présent.».1 Effectivement, l’enfant vit sans conscience du passé (qui se dilue dans un hier qui comprend tout ce qu’il a déjà vécu) et sans se rapporter à un futur explicite. Son parcours existentiel se déploie dans un présent perpétuel, un présent de jouissance entière que la chronologie du passé et de l’avenir ne vient pas troubler. « Source d’une indéfectible nostalgie », selon l’expression de Quignard lui-même, l’enfance revient dans la mémoire de l’adulte par éclats ou par éclairs.2 Les personnages de Quignard ne peuvent pas se défaire complètement de ce moment fantasmatique où la temporalité se bloque à un présent de plénitude heureuse ou malheureuse, selon le cas. L’intensité émotionnelle est en contrepoint avec le temps vectorisé agissant impitoyablement sur l’adulte qui en ressent de manière douloureuse la violence. Par la suite, le temps transforme le présent dans un moment fugace qui se décompose instantanément en ce qui a été et ce qui sera. Sorti de l’enfance, l’homme appartient irrémédiablement au temps, mais il peut en court-circuiter la linéarité par le souvenir mélancolique qui surgit à son insu, en brisant parfois la démarche ordonnée de remémoration.3 L’abolition du temps, propre à l’enfance, se maintient dans le souvenir qu’on en conserve. En effet, si la mémoire intervient pour modifier les souvenirs de toutes les autres étapes de la vie, elle reste fidèle et immuable pour les souvenirs d’enfance qu’on revoit toujours de la même façon : heureux ou malheureux, confiant ou effrayé, optimiste ou désespéré.4 Chez Quignard, les personnages envisagent l’enfance de manière différente en fonction de deux affects essentiels qui l’ont marquée : bonheur ou malheur. Aux pôles se situent Charles Chenogne – qui interrompt souvent la remémoration 1 La Bruyère Jean de, Les caractères, Paris, Bookking International, 1993, p. 251. Lapeyre-Desmaison Chantal-Andrée, Pascal Quignard le solitaire – rencontre avec Chantal Lapeyre-Desmaison, Paris, Flohic, 2001, p. 129. 3 Rabaté Dominique, Pascal Quignard – étude de l’oeuvre, Paris, Bordas, 2008, p. 106-107. 4 Tadié Jean-Yves et Marc, Le sens de la mémoire, Paris, Gallimard, coll. « Essais », 1999, p. 300. 2 L’ENFANCE – LE PASSÉ QUI NE PASSE PAS DANS LES ROMANS DE PASCAL QUIGNARD 215 ordonnée de la période 1963-1986 pour plonger obsessionnellement dans les souvenirs de l’enfance wurtembergeoise – et A. de Carus qui fuit les souvenirs d’enfance, même si ceux-ci s’obstinent de troubler sa mémoire. D’autres personnages gravitent autour de ces pôles avec certaines variations : Quoeun et Ann Hidden ont une attitude désabusée envers l’enfance malheureuse, tandis qu’Edouard Furfooz se réfugie inconsciemment dans la manipulation des jouets pour oublier le traumatisme de l’enfance. En revanche, les protagonistes de L’Occupation américaine constituent un cas particulier à cause de leur décision précoce d’abandonner l’enfance française. La temporalité surdimensionnée de l’enfance reste constante dans les cas que nous analyserons ci-dessous. Charles Chenogne profite de la moindre occasion pour évoquer divers aspects de son enfance passée au domaine familial de Bergheim, dans le Wurtemberg. Les souvenirs le hèlent et il essaie de s’arracher à leur fascination en saisissant tout prétexte pour les confier au papier et s’en libérer. Quoiqu’il ait passé sa petite enfance à Paris, Charles dit : « Curieusement, je n’ai pas gardé le plus petit souvenir de deux premières années de ma vie à la fin de la guerre, à Paris.» (Quignard, 1995 : 263). En réalité, il est naturel de se cogner au vide mémoriel, étant donné que l’amnésie infantile ne permet pas que les souvenirs les plus anciens ne remontent pas au-delà de l’âge de trois ans. Selon Freud cité par les frères Tadié, les souvenirs des trois premières années, loin de disparaître sans trace, exercent « une influence déterminante pour toutes les époques postérieures ». Mais ce que Freud définit comme refoulement, d’autres attribuent au développement insuffisant du langage ou au fonctionnement de la mémoire qui a encore des carences.5 Dans ce contexte, l’affirmation tranchante de Charles : « Tous mes souvenirs sont wurtembergeois.» (Quignard, 1995 : 263), assigne à l’enfance une place stable à Bergheim. Les enfants Chenogne ne migrent qu’en été quand ils passent les vacances à Regnéville ou à Coutances. Charles adulte évoque nostalgiquement une scène d’enfance de Coutances qui n’a rien de spectaculaire, mais qui est importante parce qu’elle a contribué à le rendre conscient de son identité. C’est une brique dans le processus de création de sa personnalité et cela justifie sa conservation immuable à la longue, malgré le banal qui la caractérise. Envoyé par sa mère chez le pharmacien pour acheter certains produits, le petit Charles est heureux de la mission que sa mère lui a confiée et fier en même temps en entendant le pharmacien l’appeler « Monsieur Chenogne ! » de manière cérémonieuse. Fils unique et le cadet de quatre sœurs, Charles sent qu’à l’exception de sa mère, toute sa famille comme les domestiques de la maison de Bergheim ont eu de la tendresse pour lui, enfant. D’ailleurs, dans le premier souvenir d’enfance qu’il évoque, Hiltrud, une femme de chambre allemande qu’il craignait et aimait à la fois, détient le rôle principal : 5 Ibid., p. 297. 216 ANDREEA DIACONESCU La moindre circonstance, et la plus fortuite, était comme le grain de levain dans la pâte qui reposait, à Bergheim, au-dessus du poêle de fonte bleue – et devant lequel Hiltrud nous demandait de ne pas parler français de crainte que la pâte ne s’affaissât. (Quignard, 1995 : 35). Charles réaffirme plusieurs fois son attachement à Hiltrud, qui substitue Yvonne Chenogne après le divorce : « Comme je l’avais aimée, comme elle me faisait peur !» (Quignard, 1995 : 240). Une raison importante pour laquelle Charles rachète Bergheim et s’y installe, c’est le salut de son enfance allemande patronnée par la figure de Hiltrud qu’enfant il appelait mutti. « O mutti, mutti ! ai-je envie de crier » (Quignard, 1995 : 398), pense-t-il en gagnant Bergheim pour vérifier l’état des travaux de rénovation. Hiltrud renvoie à l’image de la gouvernante de Pascal Quignard qui l’a arraché à la crise autiste qu’il avait traversée à l’âge d’un an. Bergheim est le lieu où a vécu cette femme qui l’a élevé enfant. L’image heureuse de l’enfance est liée à Hiltrud, à Fräulein Jutta et à ses sœurs qui l’impliquaient dans leurs jeux et dans leurs activités. Charles dévoile la contribution de Luise, la puînée, dans la découverte de la musique : « C’est à Luise que je dois d’aimer la musique.» (Quignard, 1995 : 50). Pourtant sa sœur préférée, c’est Marga, un peu plus âgée que lui, qui lui reste proche aussi pendant la maturité. Néanmoins, nous constatons une particularité qui domine l’évocation de l’enfance heureuse de Bergheim : Charles paraît attaché plutôt au lieu et aux objets qui ornent la maison des Chenogne. Parc, orgue, salon de musique trop jaune, gravures de Cozens, de Girtin ou de Wieland, tous l’attirent par leur immobilité qui lui donne l’impression que rien n’a changé depuis son enfance. En y étant de retour, il s’imagine en Orphée qui retrouve son Eurydice après un long et difficile voyage dans les Enfers. Cette fois-ci, Eurydice n’est pas une femme, mais la maison aux brise-bise, comme Marga l’appelle. Charles parvient à la réaménager à l’ancienne dans l’effort de retrouver son éclat d’autrefois. En décidant de s’y installer définitivement, il répond à l’appel de l’enfance : « J’ai trop souhaité de m’opposer à ce que je suis, aux sons de mon enfance !» (Quignard, 1995 : 396). Cette phrase résume la particularité identitaire de Charles qui a été obligé dès petit de déceler entre l’identité allemande et celle française. En effet, même si en général les souvenirs qu’il évoque ne sont pas datés, l’enfance de Charles subit l’intervention brutale de la temporalité qui la coupe en deux périodes distinctes : avant et après l’abandon de la mère. Le profond attachement aux objets est donc explicable : ceux-ci ne s’enfuient pas, ils ne trahissent pas. En revanche, Edouard Furfooz arrive à la conclusion contraire : « Il avait été le jouet de ses jouets mêmes.» (Quignard, 2002 : 383). Les jouets l’ont trahi en le faisant s’enliser dans un passé générique. Giorgio Agamben souligne cet aspect par la précision que le jouet, en démembrant et en altérant le passé, ou bien en miniaturisant le présent, c’est-à-dire en jouant tant sur la diachronie que L’ENFANCE – LE PASSÉ QUI NE PASSE PAS DANS LES ROMANS DE PASCAL QUIGNARD 217 sur la synchronie, rend présente et tangible la temporalité humaine en soi.6 Dans le cas d’Edouard les jouets ont un statut ambigu : ils couvrent un manque en protégeant contre le malheur et contre la solitude, mais en même temps ils empêchent le personnage d’en devenir conscient. Les « jouets sans enfants » (Quignard, 2002 : 25), objets qui n’appartiennent pas à l’usage, perdent leur pouvoir après la découverte de la petite barrette que le protagoniste ne peut encadrer dans aucune catégorie. À partir de ce moment-là, des failles apparaissent dans son passé, ce qui permet à Edouard de récupérer le souvenir de l’enfance à Paris. Le malheur qu’il ressent en retrouvant le souvenir de la mort de la petite fille le plonge de nouveau dans la chronologie. C’est pourquoi il fait le geste symbolique de renvoyer à Anvers le groupe de petits musiciens qui jouaient dans le silence. La raison d’existence des jouets disparaît avec la récupération complète de la mémoire. Si Edouard renonce à l’enfance à quarante-cinq ans, Patrick et Marie-José à dix ans s’empressent de rejeter la leur par l’enterrement des jouets français dès qu’ils découvrent les poubelles du camp américain. Mais tant qu’ils n’ont pas d’accès direct à l’intérieur de la base, ils ne quittent pas l’enfance en entier. Les recherches dans les poubelles les maintiennent dans un temps uniforme, orienté uniquement vers le futur proche vu qu’ils attendent impatiemment que la nuit tombe pour les recommencer : « Les deux enfants se prirent de passion pour leurs allées et venues nocturnes. Ils rôdaient. Ils maraudaient.» (Quignard, 2009 : 23). Dès que le sergent Will Caberra l’introduit dans la maison des Wadd, Patrick devient conscient du fait que le temps désormais fractionné s’écoule irréversiblement : Il la vit. Ce fut soudain. Soudain, il fut surpris d’avoir quitté l’enfance. Ce fut une découverte qui le prit de court : l’enfance était partie ; tous les liens s’étaient dénoués ; la fusion s’en était décomposée. Le temps s’était mis en marche sans qu’il s’en fût rendu compte. Toutes choses s’appauvrirent dans un instant. Tout devint conscient. Tout devint distant. Tout devint langage. Tout devint mémoire. (Quignard, 2009 : 46) Patrick associe l’enfance à une fusion temporelle qui la place hors du temps chronologique et hors de la mémoire. Dans ses pensées se mêlent deux conceptions opposées de la temporalité : la circularité antique versus l’horizontalité chrétienne. La représentation antique du temps comme cercle se restreint dans le cas de Patrick à la période de l’enfance perçue comme un continuum ponctuel, infini et quantifié, tandis que la ligne droite caractérise la maturité que le jeune homme est en train de toucher. 7 Il y a une coupure nette entre les deux séquences de sa vie. Désormais prisonnier du temps chronologique, le jeune homme ne peut plus revenir à l’état d’innocence et l’exil est la seule modalité de couper court au harcèlement de l’enfance. 6 Agamben Giorgio, Enfance et histoire, traduit de l'italien par Yves Hersant, Paris, Editions Payot et Rivages, 2002, p. 132. 7 Ibid., p. 164-167. 218 ANDREEA DIACONESCU Ann Hidden de Villa Amalia se trouve à mi-chemin en ce qui concerne la perception de l’enfance. La relation difficile avec sa mère cache une enfance solitaire et malheureuse, marquée par l’abandon du père et par la mort de son frère. L’écoulement du temps et l’exil volontaire à Paris n’effacent pas l’impression d’être engloutie par le tourbillon des souvenirs désagréables de l’enfance à chaque fois qu’elle revient en Bretagne visiter sa mère : Au bout de quelques heures aux côtés de sa mère toute la petite enfance revenait. Toute la frustration, la dépendance, l’éducation, les obsessions maniaques, la détresse, la haine réafleuraient. Toute l’atmosphère se tendait de nouveau comme une corde de violon sur la touche. (Quignard, 2006 : 48). Partageant le même espace, mais pas le même temps, Ann et sa mère sont des prisonnières : l’une de l’enfance, l’autre de l’attente. Si Ann réussit à s’en défaire, sa mère y reste dans l’espoir du retour de son époux. Cette situation dure depuis longtemps parce qu’elle est connue par les anciens amis d’Ann. Aux retrouvailles avec Georges, cette particularité de la vie de Marthe Hidelstein figure parmi les questions de raccommodement : – Et ta mère… vit toujours ? – Oui. […] Maman vit toujours là-bas. – Et elle… attend toujours ? – Oui, toujours dans la même maison. Tous les jours. Toujours. Elle attend toujours. (Quignard, 2006 : 22) Avec Georges, Ann partage l’enfance écolière qui s’écoule doucement, sans laisser de traces profondes dans sa mémoire. De toute façon, comme elle n’est pas trop convaincue de la vérité des affirmations de Georges, celui-ci lui montre un cadre où « il y avait les six photos des classes de l’enfance » (Quignard, 2006 : 21). Elle s’en souvient en entier en contemplant pour un instant une photo où « elle était assise sur un banc à côté de sœur Marguerite.» (ibid.). Un rang plus haut, Georges, qu’elle reconnaît enfin. Sa mémoire a besoin du support solide de la photo pour recouvrer des souvenirs apparemment oubliés. En même temps, Ann se trouve en contrepoint avec son ancien collègue qui ne peut pas se défaire complètement de l’emprise de son image enfantine : « Aux yeux de Georges c’était une petite fille fière, un peu hostile, toujours sur ses gardes, bouleversée par un rien, fragile, inquiète, mystérieuse.» (Quignard, 2006 : 222). En revanche, Ann ne doit plus faire appel à aucun support extérieur pour garder en mémoire l’image vive de la petite Léna. Avec celle-ci elle « partage l’enfance absolue », selon l’affirmation de Midori Ogawa.8 Paradoxalement, en 8 Ogawa Midori, « Le solstice d’hiver » dans Roman 20-50, (Revue d'étude du roman du XX siècle), sous la direction de François Berquin, no. 44, décembre 2007, p. 101. e L’ENFANCE – LE PASSÉ QUI NE PASSE PAS DANS LES ROMANS DE PASCAL QUIGNARD 219 étant mère d’emprunt pour Magdalena Radnitzky, Ann réussit à vivre une nouvelle enfance remplie de bonheur aux côtés de la petite qui s’attache d’un coup à la villa et à celle qui, comme un chamane, apaise toutes ses peurs : « Naissait en elles une incroyable énergie dès qu’elles se voyaient. On pouvait presque dire qu’elles s’aimaient. On ne pouvait estimer, de l’une et de l’autre, qui aimait le plus.» (Quignard, 2006 : 181). La maison et Magdalena sont les composantes de son paradis dans lequel le temps même lui donne l’illusion d’avoir fait un arrêt. La mort de Léna le remet brutalement en marche. Selon Giorgio Agamben, la mort brise l’opposition signifiante entre la synchronie et la diachronie, entre le monde des morts et le monde des vivants.9 La disparition de la petite transforme la villa dans un espace de cauchemar qu’Ann abandonne pour ne garder dans sa mémoire que le souvenir du bonheur. Chaque fois qu’elle s’en souvient, c’est toujours la même image qui apparaît dans son esprit : apaisante, douce, récurrente en permettant à Ann l’abandon temporaire de la chronologie au profit d’un évanouissement temporel : [L]e soir, elles prenaient leur bain avant le dîner. Elles étaient si belles […] autour de la table, devant leur assiette, toutes propres, toutes roses, leurs cheveux mouillés, les vestes de pyjama toutes propres. (Quignard, 2006 : 236) Si Ann Hidden se réconcilie avec sa propre enfance malheureuse parce qu’elle a l’occasion de vivre en joie une autre enfance aux côtés de Magdalena, Quoeun de Carus garde le souvenir d’une enfance triste, humiliante et humiliée, où la temporalité excède. Il confesse : J’ai le souvenir de l’enfance, comme d’un long, un interminable séjour très triste, et sans cesse offensé, et qui ne peut que se mépriser des limites, des maladresses, et des fautes dont on ne cesse de lui crier aux oreilles l’existence. La mémoire est un lancinant rappel, en nous, de cet état, et qui contraint à le renouveler… (Quignard, 2002 : 198) C’est le seul moment où ce personnage mystérieux évoque son propre passé. Il démantèle l’image générale de l’enfance qui serait normalement pleine de joie et de liberté. Par contre, Quoeun ne se souvient que des contraintes et des interdictions qu’on lui infligeait, de son impuissance de protester et du désir de s’en affranchir. C’est pourquoi il caractérise l’enfance par l’épithète interminable. On se rappelle que chaque jour Quoeun honore la mémoire d’une personnalité célèbre, mais il offre très peu de détails sur sa vie privée. À la lumière de cette confession, nous pouvons affirmer que le culte des morts assure au personnage une sorte de protection contre l’envahissement des souvenirs du malheur de l’enfance. En plus, plonger dans le temps ancien, rigoureusement encadré dans le calendrier sert à ne plus percevoir le lancinant rappel d’un passé 9 Agamben Giorgio, op. cit., p. 152. 220 ANDREEA DIACONESCU individuel contraignant. Enfin, la confession surprenante de Quoeun s’inscrit dans « une longue discussion touffue » (Quignard, 2002 : 195) sur la notion d’enfance où tous les participants se mettent d’accord sur l’état de dépendance et de faiblesse qui s’y rattache. Le temps qui s’y dilate démesurément accentue l’angoisse enfantine que les personnages retrouvent de façon involontaire à travers les cauchemars. Malgré tous ses efforts, A. ne réussit pas à s’arracher à la domination de l’image de l’océan de l’enfance qui le hante en tant que « [s]ouvenirs ou fragments de cauchemars, ou de rêves » (Quignard, 2002 : 180). Ce qui l’épouvante, c’est l’immobilité du temps par rapport au mouvement de l’eau qui pressent l’orage. La petite Lena de Villa Amalia apprend à aimer les orages grâce à l’intervention apaisante d’Ann, tandis qu’A. de Carus ne parvient pas à vaincre l’angoisse provoquée par l’immensité de la nature déchaînée. L’angoisse se transfère imperceptiblement vers le présent du personnage dépressif, ce qui le fait voir uniquement du vide autour et à l’intérieur de lui. Le lent processus de guérison comprend l’adoucissement des souvenirs angoissants par le récit. Bref, A. se rend compte que fuir les souvenirs nauséabonds accentue le vide puisqu’il ne trouve rien qui les remplace. Alors, la solution, c’est de les exorciser en les ramenant à la surface de la conscience pour les décrire minutieusement. A. suit son propre conseil : – Se souvenir des morts, se souvenir de ceux qui ne sont plus – reprit A. lentement – c’est-à-dire se souvenir de ceux qui ont été et qui tout à coup ne sont pas, c’est inventer de toutes pièces des petites images, c’est se protéger de leur vrai souvenir, car ce qui « souvient » d’eux après leur mort, vers nous, ce n’est pas eux vivants, mais eux morts. (Quignard, 2002 : 157). Par la suite, A. réussit à tempérer sa peur et à revenir entre les frontières temporelles chronologiques. Il est même capable de disserter sur l’enfance au banquet organisé par Karl le 1er mai. En essayant de la définir, il emploie le mot fantasme qui renvoie discrètement à la hantise qu’elle peut exercer sur la mémoire d’un adulte. L’enfance est « plus que fantasme » (Quignard, 2002 : 196) qu’on peut vaincre grâce au dynamisme mnésique. C’est avec un optimisme modéré qu’A. conçoit désormais l’enfance, en sachant que les souvenirs désagréables ne disparaissent jamais en entier. Enfin, il faut remarquer que, pour Quignard, l’enfance est vécue et conçue en général comme l’expérience tragique par excellence : la peur originelle et sans âge qui fait le fond de l’enfance de tous ses personnages est aussi poignante qu’insensée ; mieux, elle est si bouleversante parce qu’elle est absurde, absolument irréductible à toute rationalité. Là encore, il faut choisir son camp, dit Stéphane Chaudier.10 10 Chaudier Stéphane, « Les narrats de Quignard » dans Frontières de la nouvelle de langue française – Europe et Amérique du Nord (1945-2005) sous la direction de Catherine Douzou et Lise Gauvin, Dijon, Editions Universitaires de Dijon, 2006. L’ENFANCE – LE PASSÉ QUI NE PASSE PAS DANS LES ROMANS DE PASCAL QUIGNARD 221 BIBLIOGRAPHIE 1. Agamben, Giorgio (2002), Enfance et histoire, traduit de l'italien par Yves Hersant, Editions Payot et Rivages, Paris. 2. Chaudier, Stephane (2006), « Les narrats de Quignard » in Frontières de la nouvelle de langue française – Europe et Amérique du Nord (1945-2005), sous la direction de Catherine Douzou et Lise Gauvin, Editions Universitaires de Dijon, Dijon. 3. La Bruyère, Jean de (1993), Les Caractères, Bookking International, Paris. 4. Lapeyre-Desmaison, Chantal (2001), Pascal Quignard le solitaire – rencontre avec Chantal Lapeyre-Desmaison, Flohic, Paris. 5. Ogawa, Midori (2007), « Le solstice d’hiver », in Roman 20-50 (Revue d'étude du roman du XXe siècle), sous la direction de François Berquin, no. 44, Paris. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. (a) Quignard, Pascal (2002), Carus, Gallimard, coll. « Folio », Paris. (b) Quignard, Pascal (2002), Les Escaliers de Chambord, Gallimard, coll. « Folio », Paris. Quignard, Pascal (1998), La Leçon de musique, Hachette Littératures, Paris. Quignard, Pascal (2009), L’Occupation américaine, Seuil, coll. « Points », Paris. Quignard, Pascal (1995), Le Salon du Wurtemberg, Gallimard, coll. « Folio », Paris. (a) Quignard, Pascal (2006), Les Tablettes de buis d’Apronenia Avitia, Gallimard, coll. « L’imaginaire », Paris. 12. (b) Quignard, Pascal (2006), Villa Amalia, Gallimard, coll. « Folio », Paris. 13. Rabaté, Dominique (2008), Pascal Quignard – étude de l’oeuvre, Bordas, Paris. 14. Tadié, Jean-Yves, Marc Tadié (1999), Le sens de la mémoire, Gallimard, coll. « Essais », Paris. INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL TIME IN CARIBBEAN BRITISH WOMEN’S POETRY MONICA MANOLACHI∗ This essay deals with the poetry of Grace Nichols, Jean ‘Binta’ Breeze and Dorothea Smartt, three British poets of Caribbean origin. Starting from several philosophical conceptions of time, it attempts to map the temporal expressions in several poems specific to the feminine postcolonial diasporic experience and their meanings for a multicultural society. First, the essay takes into consideration I. Kant’s conception of time as a form of intuition, G. W. F. Hegel’s view that history is nothing else but the manifestation of the spirit in time, M. Heidegger’s notion of being in time and explores how these women poets coming from the domain of the Other imagine temporality in a postcolonial context. Second, the essay discusses L. Blaga’s perspective on temporal horizons that may determine a cultural style and M. Eliade’s distinction between the profane time and the sacred time, to prove to what extent the universality of their perspectives can fit other geographical cultural zones. Third, it reveals the tight connection between the theoretical conception of time, elaborated by feminists such as J. Kristeva and C. T. Mohanty, to show the context in which Caribbean women poets published their work in Great Britain.Through close reading, the essay delineates the stylistic modes in which history turns into personal memory and how personal memory turns into history through poetry and literary texts in general. Keywords: postcolonial literature, Caribbean British women poets, diaspora, philosophy of time, personal memory. In an essay from 1974 entitled The Muse of History, Nobel Prize winner Derek Walcott draws attention to a fruitless attitude towards history on behalf of some of his contemporary Caribbean authors. In the context of the postcolonial cultural turn, valorized rather as a critical framework than as a historicist construct over the last decades, he writes: In the New World, servitude to the muse of history has produced a literature of recrimination and despair, a literature of revenge written by the descendants of slaves or a literature of remorse written by the descendants of masters. [...] The truly tough aesthetics of the New World neither explains nor forgives history. It refuses to recognize it as a creative or culpable force. (37) Walcott’s observation is symptomatic for the reasons why the perception of time in the Caribbean experienced a twist in the second half of the twentieth century. Instead of a passive attitude towards the literature of the colonizer, instead of a focus on simply consuming what the West had produced, the ∗ English language teaching assistant, University of Bucharest, e-mail: [email protected] MONICA MANOLACHI 224 postcolonial writers decided to allow time for writing their own versions of history. They often departed from merely imitating the values imposed by the colonial rule, searched forms of expression that left behind mere revengeful attitudes and strived to variously differentiate themselves in terms of style, which resulted in a third space where meaning serves both the West and the Caribbean. This focus on modality has been noticed by many critics. For the purpose of the present study, it is worth mentioning Keya Ganguly’s synthesis (2004) on the relationship between temporality and postcolonial critique: “Temporality has been explored rather more fruitfully in postcolonial studies by approaches that regard the postcolonial not as an epoch or age but as a particular mode of historical emergence.” (162) That the tension between history and artistic creativity is a central aspect in Derek Walcott’s work is reflected in his poetry as well. For instance, in the volume entitled The StarApple Kingdom (1980), he imagines a dialogue between a European visitor of the islands and a local man, in which history takes center stage: Where are your monuments, your battles, martyrs? Where is your tribal memory? Sirs, In that grey vault. The sea. The sea Has locked them up. The sea is History. (123) As a leader of his Caribbean generation of poets, Walcott had the intuition to represent history in a way that avoids easy nationalist or regionalist conceptions of time. In line with the Hegelian view that the “world history represents the development of the spirit’s consciousness of its own freedom and of the consequent realization of that freedom”1, Walcott, as well as some other Caribbean poets of the subsequent generations, has built a type of highly reflexive attitude towards history, based on a balanced perspective on the rapport between culture and nature, be it natural environment or human nature, rather than on aspects of objective time. This tendency of focusing on subjectivity in relation to the temporal dimension has significantly oriented the focus of the creative expression towards different personal views of the world, which is one of the reasons why the Caribbean has produced a great number of writers in the West in the second part of the twentieth century. The Caribbean ethos and the Caribbean British experience of migration have been the source of a specific corpus of transgressive literature, which has had effects on how the temporal dimension has been tackled. The contact zone between the Caribbean and the British cultures has been a site of a continuous negotiation regarding a type of hybrid subjectivity, where the poets have become active postcolonial agents of cultural transformation. As a “place of memory”, to use French historian Pierre Nora’s phrase, the history of the 1 Nisbet, p. 138. INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL TIME IN CARIBBEAN BRITISH WOMEN’S POETRY 225 Caribbean has been void of monuments and historical archives for a long period of time. In contrast with the case of France, where the places of memory mean celebration based on man-made material heritage to a great extent, the absence of material memory in the West Indies has determined many Caribbean British poets to reinvent the past, especially the long history of loss specific to the slave trade era. In this process, language (Standard or Creole) probably plays the most important role and is a living proof of historical transformation. At textual level, these authors construct characters with very powerful voices, the poetic “I” is usually omnipresent, they rewrite forgotten stories by doing research in the archives of British and other European libraries, use rhythms that suit the tropical lifestyle, dwell extensively on the specificity of the Creole English and even propose new vocabulary for things that might have existed several centuries ago. The reinvention of the past in this sense is then an intuitive act that makes possible the recuperation of presumed psychological phenomena that the blacks and the mulattos might have felt in the past. In an anthropological fashion, they propose that the Kantian idea of the “raw man”, which the Western philosophy theorized during the Enlightenment, should be reread from new perspectives that are more suitable to the present and can open new horizons for the future. In this way, the external reality has been processed internally and the resulting postcolonial literature confirms that there is a specific form of postcolonial temporality, at least in the fact that, in a sense, temporality has become more subjective because writers have become more aware of their own role in time. The development of internet technology over the past decades can be viewed as being determined, at least partially, by the fact that the former centers of power cannot locate their Other in the former colonies anymore, because the Other has already learned the Western lessons. Similar stances can be found in the works by the three Caribbean British women poets selected for this article. They are Grace Nichols from Guyana, Jean ‘Binta’ Breeze from Jamaica and Dorothea Smartt from Barbados. While the first two migrated from the Caribbean to Britain when they were already adults, the third is born and bred in England and belongs to the second generation of immigrants. What follows is a close reading and a cultural contextualization of several poems, taking into account several conceptions of time developed by Western philosophers, (postcolonial) feminists and Romanian thinkers. It is a transcultural exploration of how these perspectives are reflected in the poems, which aims at distinguishing significant particularities of approaching time, specific to the Caribbean history and geography. As it will be shown, the specificity of postcolonial time is a debatable aspect even among the critics who study postcolonial culture. Grace Nichols has published seven books of poetry and several others for children and has been celebrated by literary critics in numerous articles and thematic studies. The poem “Holding My Beads” quoted below is taken from her first MONICA MANOLACHI 226 volume entitled I Is a Long Memoried Woman (1983). The main poetic voice in the whole book belongs to a feminine character that is several centuries old and thus covers several historical periods, ranging from the beginning of life on Earth up to the present. She addresses an implied audience that most probably represents the Western world but not only. Her perception of time involves time-space compression 2 and simultaneity, as expressions of postmodernity, suggested by the comparison of the numerous lives evoked with beads on a string: Unforgiving as the course of justice Inerasable as my scars and fate I am here a woman …. with all my lives strung out like beads before me It isn’t privilege or pity that I seek It isn’t reverence or safety quick happiness or purity but the power to be what I am/a woman charting my own futures/ a woman holding my beads in my hand (86) Nowadays, the poem is a typical example of asserting what feminist theorists have formulated as “her story” in contrast with the unilateral History of the West. Indeed, the 1980s was a decade when a few critical essays on (postcolonial) feminism made a difference regarding other past formulations on the relationship between history and gender. In Women’s Time (1981), Julia Kristeva was drawing attention to the Nietzschean concepts of cursive, linear and historical time versus the monumental, supranational and ahistorical time and to how women experience them as repetition (cyclical rhythms, gestation etc.) and as eternity (myths of resurrection). In Kristeva’s view, these conceptions of time are connected with female subjectivity and maternity, but they are not simply feminine, but closely interconnected with masculinity. The importance of her intuition for the postcolonial world resides in the statement that: “the time has perhaps come to emphasize the multiplicity of female expressions and preoccupations so that from the intersection of these differences there might 2 David Harvey explored this idea in the contexts of modernity and postmodernity and their relationship with capitalism. Caribbean poets’ response to this concept has been a form of withdrawal, yet not a tragic one, but as search for new types of postmodern discourse that still preserve strategically useful traits of modernity. Many poems delve into personal histories that can restore the significance of forgotten times. While poets create forms of subjectivity that defy time and space, they also manage to create both a sense of place in the Caribbean or in Britain as well as to conceive a transnational form of bearable belonging. The shortcomings of immigration take affirmative discursive articulations in Caribbean British women’s poetry. INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL TIME IN CARIBBEAN BRITISH WOMEN’S POETRY 227 arise […] the real fundamental difference between the two sexes […] productive of surprises and of symbolic life” (863). Implicitly, Kristeva points out a postmodern conception of gender and its relation with any other possible category, as a condition for better understanding the complexity of our contemporary world. Moreover, as Rosemary Marangoly George (2004) notes, postcolonial feminist theory, emerged beginning with the 1980s, distinguishes by a number of characteristics: “the fashioning of cautionary signposts, the disclosure of absences, an insistence on what cannot be represented in elite texts, an emphasis on the more than ‘purely literary,’ and the persistent embedding of gendered difference in a larger understanding of race, nationality, class, and caste”. It is not only a “condensed theory of decolonization” but “a methodology especially invested in examining culture as an important site of conflicts, collaborations, and struggles between those in power and those subjected to power” (212). Although Marangoly George’s approach starts from a historicist view on the postcolonial, the other dimensions she takes into account imply a richer perspective on it involving location, language or nonliterary expression. In this context, because of their contestatory, ironic and subversive, yet tenderly feminine tone, Grace Nichols’s first volumes are in line with the ideas vehiculated in the essays that deal with the role of the women writers coming from the former colonies to the West. To take into account a Romanian theory of time, it is significant that Nichols has a slightly different perspective on the past than what the philosopher of culture Lucian Blaga formulated in his essay entitled Temporal Horizons3 (1935), drawing on the fluid conception of time. The latter proposed the metaphor time-waterfall to designate the past time that becomes less and less inferior in relation to a heroic origin. In his view, only a ritual and the belief in miracles can make sure that time will not stop. In contrast, Nichols has a less pessimistic attitude. Instead of dwelling on a descending direction of time, she invests each of her invented mythical past lives with the same monumental value. Time is then a subjective routine that is not deteriorated by its passing and its traumatic effects. In the poem quoted above, the beads represent a metaphor of value in the context of the slave trade, because possessing them involved gaining a certain social status. The poem acts as a declaration of independence in relation to the literary critics who might expect a type of poetry that prolongs an exotic specificity. As a metonymy of mnemonic religious rituals, colonial trade and feminine beauty, the trope of the beads engenders a hierophany of black feminine self-determination. The circularity of the bead chain suggests that temporal reversibility is possible for the purpose of a higher level of self-awareness. The condition that sustains such a view is a particular form of will, courage and strength, which can also ensure continuity and, as the 3 L. Blaga’s notions are translated by the author of this essay. MONICA MANOLACHI 228 poet writes, the power of “charting my own futures”. Her choice and its plural character question the conception of temporality in its multiplicity. It is not only the present that counts. Its value rests upon a matrix of connections with other temporal forms, be they past or future, linear or circular, objective or subjective or of any other type, and the awareness of this matrix. In her fourth volume of poetry, entitled Startling the Flying Fish (2005), Nichols addresses again the problematic of time, memory and the necessity of remembering. After two other volumes in which she tackled two main stereotypes regarding the black woman in general, being fat and being lazy, to a great extent related to the immediate experience of immigration, the fourth volume presents another several centuries old feminine character, named Cariwoma, who is meant to celebrate the memory of the Carib and Arawak tribes, decimated by the European conquerors in the first part of the fifteenth century. According to this character, history is a matter of time compression that can be rewritten at any moment: “Yes, I Cariwoma watched the history happen / like a two headed Janus, / however far apart heads can be” (11). Because the omnipresent figure of the dead is out of time and, therefore, it is not normally a being in the present time, its exteriority allows her the necessary detachment and calm attitude towards existence. The result is that we can talk about a Weltanschauung of hope rather than about one of despair. With the mask of the atemporal bicephalous Cariwoma, the poet addresses ancient Greek, African and Amerindian gods and heroes and proposes a new cosmogony based on identifications that connect various parts of the world. For instance, Zeus is evoked as though he is a contemporary man, if one takes into consideration the Creole grammar at the end of the following fragment: And why shouldn’t I let myself be possessed by the gods? Why shouldn’t I open myself to their amorous advances? They who never think that a woman is past it – they for whom whiling away some time with a mortal is but a drop in eternity’s ocean Zeus, Zeus, whatever happen between us is we business. (50) Instead of wailing over a history of war and plunder, the poet proposes a spirit who does not bear any grudges, but is able to transgress it, which eventually creates a sense of belonging to a fruitful self. She calls it “Sea self” and it has a “Sea memory”, which raises the possibility of adding another metaphor of time to INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL TIME IN CARIBBEAN BRITISH WOMEN’S POETRY 229 Blaga’s view on temporal horizons. According to his proposal, time-fountain represents the future, time-waterfall the past and time-river the present and history gains a more profound meaning according to the stress on the above possible perspectives. In this context, time-sea or time-ocean represent perspectives that can avoid temporal irreversibility and make possible the simultaneity of various temporal dimensions. In other instances, Nichols connects the irreversibility and the circularity of time to produce a hybrid conception that involves the whole universe: The way the red sun surrenders its wholeness to curving ocean bit by bit. The way curving ocean gives birth to the birth of stars in the growing darkness, wearing in its path to cosmic smoothness. The impulse of stones rolling towards their own roundness. The unexpected comets of flying fish. (73) In plus, the comparison of the temporal flow with the cyclical character of water provides a more complex view on the temporal dimension, which, up to a point, is in line with the Nietzschean idea of the cyclicity of time, but transcends it because it proposes a focus on the transformative nature of temporality itself. The sun, often used as a metonymy of empire in postcolonial poetry, is here a symbol of objective, cyclical time. Its surrender implies the imperial decline and the subsequent historical change, which is followed by a new cosmic zone that influences the life on earth, as the metaphor in the last line suggests. The “flying fish” is specific to the Caribbean and stands for what Edouard Glissant called the poetics of relation, relation between submerged memory and visible history, earthly matters and cosmic possibilities. Such transtemporal experiences are also depicted in the second volume by Dorothea Smartt, entitled Ship Shape (2008). It tells the story of Samboo, a black young man brought by sailors from Africa to Lancaster in the seventeenth century. In reality, he died within days after his arrival and was buried in a local cemetery. The poet reimagines his inner life, his feelings and hopes, his fears and distress, while he travels from the African coast to Barbados and then to England. In gender and postcolonial terms, it is significant that, in contrast with the other two women poets selected here, Smartt writes in her second volume much less about “her story” in contrast with History, but more about “his story”, an attitude which differs from the general trend of postcolonial feminist literature, centered on specific experiences of women. “Mama’s Bangles” is a poem in which the personal memory of cultural trauma and its powerful effect on the present count significantly more than the whole history of slavery: MONICA MANOLACHI 230 Sounds like a bell – Mama bangles pounding yam, Timbuktu tinkling in my Uncle, the young Imam, gift to she. Bangles like nobody’s in the village, bangles that ring out where she is to clay-faced men before they took me. Perhaps she still living, still at home looking fuh me? Hol’ing out she palms to rub m’head, An mek she bangles chime? Perhaps she in Allah paradise or she wid d’ole gone-before-people? Lef’ t’one side fuh d’magic markings of Allah, Were d’ole Gods angry, like our fathers said? Did they send the clay-faces? Did they Send me ’way from Mama to punish she, me, we? I miss my mama, but want she here with me to wuk de canes? To tek d’lash? To run wid she han’s all between she legs From d’whiteman, to chime in wid d’night screams...? NO! NO! That would be all wrong! They woulda treat she like a beast. No. I glad she not here wid me. Glad, I cry at the sounds like a bell. (51) Even though the memory of the mother sold into slavery is at the root of the story, the poet traces several subsequent moments which mark an untold chain history of submerged resistance: from the Bantu civilization in the Western Africa (the history of Timbuktu) and the Oriental world (“Allah paradise”), existing at the time of the European Renaissance; to the slavery era in the Caribbean when (women) slaves experienced abuse; to the days when black men like Samboo were brought to Europe; and eventually to the modern days suggested by the frame of the first and the last lines, which include no sign of Creole English. Although it reminds of a horrific past, it allows the main character to eventually choose his present. It is a type of present perfect which is not linguistically but culturally formulated. It can be called cultural present perfect, because it displays the past as a tapestry of experiences, it evokes the present and it is a fundament for a possibly better future. However, the author shows that no matter how great Samboo’s will of survival might have been in reality, his experience of migration to a land where people spoke another language, the very different climate and his race, which was not really welcome, could and still can have tragic consequences. The nostalgia of innocence that Samboo represents is not an easily inhabitable chronotope in the context of the slave trade. To creatively reconsider the meaning of an unexpectedly interrupted life becomes then a mode of re-living an archetypal existence. To use the INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL TIME IN CARIBBEAN BRITISH WOMEN’S POETRY 231 distinction made by Mircea Eliade (1959), anxiety, sufferance and death in a profane time gain new meanings in a sacred time. At this point, one could ask what makes time sacred. Is it the simultaneity of tenses? Is it the capacity of human mind to strike the balance between objective and subjective time? Is it the capacity to process external time, that is History, to turn it into internal time, into a visionary temporality, so that the future should be better graspable? In any case, the search for an “other” time, as Ganguly (2004) terms it when trying to clarify if there is a specific postcolonial time or not, the quest for another dimension of it, be it cultural or technological or of any other type, seems to have been a constant issue ever since man split time in categories. Smartt’s Samboo is not simply an evocation of the real man who is buried in a cemetery in Sunderland, England. Renamed Bilal, he represents both the past and the future, because his fragile destiny stands for the cultural fragility that connects the West and the Orient in the context of the contemporary multicultural Great Britain, Europe and world in general, which needs permanent fine tune, support and clarification. Another example that reflects the distinction between time-river and the possibly wider time-sea is Jean Binta Breeze’s poem entitled “Mermaids”, a short ballad in free verse from her volume Spring Cleaning (1992), in which a feminine character meets “her rivers wide” and eventually “the river”, the latter being a possible personification of time. The river is depicted as a dangerous masculine creature who steals women’s lives: now on the edge a woman cries her rivers wide cups a hand and drinks her sisters hairs are in her throat her sisters dreams wake in her veins in swift recoil she curls the ground around her the river whispering wash your hair rushes over banks caressing o lover do not ask one more let her voice be wind as it was before do not bring down her waters (29-30) MONICA MANOLACHI 232 The fragment reveals that the relationship with the souls of the dead sisters mirrored in the waters is meant to increase self-awareness and to equate the Heideggerean philosophical notion of being in time with making right choices, a recurrent theme present in the Jamaican writer’s work. The antagonism between the river and the mermaids as creatures of the sea suggests that a linear perspective on the world may be too constraining and could generate uneasiness, which may act like an unsurpassable fate. Eventually, the personage is “slipping from / her lover’s arms” and “chooses her own fruit”. In The Fifth Figure (2005), a work part memoire, part poetry, part prose, the writer explores to a wider extent the sociocultural conditions that led to a break with the hubristic past of her family tree and to a more positive vision upon what possibilities life can offer and how to enjoy them to the full as an artist. To the histories of the past that constitute external temporality, the author opposes her own perception of time, rooted in the present, but not before dismembering the untold stories of her family tree. The second poem by Jean ‘Binta’ Breeze selected here is entitled “I Poet”, a typical example of “her story” in contrast with the History. In contrast with the previous poem, the author chooses to use Creole English as a sign of belonging to the Caribbean and as a mode of distinguishing her style form what is usually considered the English or even the British canon. Differently than in Nichols’s and Smartt’s poems, “I Poet” does not make any reference to a mythical time or to a bright future. Instead, its simple style and the subtle use of Creole spelling convey the effects of the present time on the poet’s personality: ah was readin readin all de time fram book fram play fram t.v. fram life in odder words fram yuh all befo ah was writin ah was readin yuh all neva did know who yuh all was but ah was full a love ah give it here ah give it dere neva see no harm in a likkle share of de warmes ting ah have sista, bredda, older, younger neva matta jus love like evrybody was preachin INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL TIME IN CARIBBEAN BRITISH WOMEN’S POETRY 233 ah was readin ah was lovin befo ah was writin ah read all yuh poems ah read all yuh plays ah read all tea leaf, palm, anyting wid a good story even if it didn’t always have a happy endin an evryting ah read, ah sey, but how come I know dis story aready? or I do dat yesterday I see dat last night I live troo dat so I stap readin fi a while stap lovin fi a while jus befo I start writin I stap evryting jus fi a moment an I sey, maybe, (I humble) I sey, maybe it was you readin me all de time so doah I was well hurt inside wen yuh all did sey I wasn’t no poet I never mind cause I sey I was poet all de time so I start write an I tankful to madda an fadda dat ah did read an love firs fah I know when I writin I poem is you all you (88) As it is the case with other authors, the use of Creole English often allows language games within what Bill Ashcroft (2009) has called the “metonymic gap” 4 . For instance, if in the first part of the poem the pronoun in the first person singular is spelled as “ah”, it becomes Standard English in the second part, which subtly expresses the importance of the burden of language difference. The final “I”, which replaces the indefinite article “a” at the end of the poem, reveals the initial statute of the Caribbean poetry within the literary 4 Drawing on Barbadian poet Kamau Brathwaite’s poetry, Ashcroft introduces a new concept into discussion11: “the language is metonymic of the culture, that is, linguistic variation stands for cultural difference. This sets up what can be called ‘the metonymic gap’ – the cultural gap formed when writers (in particular) transform English according to the needs of their source culture” (174). 234 MONICA MANOLACHI canon and the tribulations of being recognized as a poet before the multicultural turn of the 1980s. The monologue above stages a moment of high awareness regarding the author’s position as a writer among other writers, which is instrumented by tense and aspect play. The lines “ah was readin / readin all de time” have an ambivalent meaning that mix an active and a passive attitude to reading: “readin” can be taken as both a part of the past continuous form of the verb and the passive form of the phrasal verb to read in. When the moment of revelation comes and the poet writes “I stap evryting / jus fi a moment / an I sey, maybe, (I humble) / I sey, maybe / it was you readin me all de time”, the ambivalence of readin raises again the question of who is reading whom. The contrast between “just fi a moment” and “all de time” shows how the subjective time acts upon the objective time, whose representational value is often taken for granted. The moment of self-reflection enables the comparison between being “no poet” and being “poet all de time”, as well as a type of serenity, wisdom and power to overcome misunderstandings. The theme of being and time leads us once more to the Heideggerean discussion on subjectivity. The main point Caribbean British women poets make when they tackle the issue of time is to claim recognition, which is related to issues such as dignity, consistency, originality, wisdom or a strong sense of hope. This process involves thorough revisions of history, literary history, cultural history, history of knowledge and contemporary conceptions of otherness. Their views often differ from those of the Western feminists who initially, in the aftermath of the 1960s cultural change, were not able to place themselves in the shoes of the black women or mulattas of what was called then the Third World. Immediately after the 1980s, when multiculturalism became an issue in the academic world and when Caribbean poetry gained momentum, Chandra Talpade Mohanty (1991) mapped the feminisms of the third world women (black, mullatas, white), “with divergent histories and social locations”, as an imagined community, drawing on Benedict Anderson’s formula, and as “the way we think about race, class, and gender – the political links we choose to make among and between struggles” (4). One of the four ideas that is characteristic to the collection of essays edited by Mohanty is “the significance of memory and writing in the creation of oppositional agency” (10), which the poets discussed above were very aware of at the time when they wrote their volumes. The focus on memory, as a subjective expression of temporality, and on plurality and difference form then one of the most powerful strategies of striking the balance between internal and external temporal experience, between (trans)personal and (trans)cultural identity. In the context of the postcolonial identity, it has challenged the linearity of time and resulted in a performative perspective on it, based not only on its cyclical but also on its derivative character. INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL TIME IN CARIBBEAN BRITISH WOMEN’S POETRY 235 BIBLIOGRAPHY Ashcroft, Bill (2009), Caliban’s Voice. The Transformation of English in Post-Colonial Literatures, Routledge, London and New York. Blaga, Lucian (1994/1935), “Temporal Horizons”, in Horizon and Style, Humanitas, Bucharest. Breeze, Jean ‘Binta’ (1992), Spring Cleaning, Virago Press, London. *** (2005), The Fifth Figure, Bloodaxe Books, London and Northumberland. Eliade, Mircea (1959), The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion, Willard R. Trask (trans.), Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, New York. Ganguly, Keya (2004), “Temporality and Postcolonial Critique”, in Neil Lazarus (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Postcolonial Literary Studies, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 162-179. Harvey, David (1990), The Condition of Postmodernity: an Enquiry Into the Origins of Cultural Change, Oxford University Press, Oxford. Hegel, G. W. F. (1974), Lectures on the Philosophy of World History: Introduction, H. B. Nisbet (trans.), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Heidegger, Martin (2005/1962), Being and Time, Blackwell Publishing, Oxford. Kristeva, Julia (1997/1981), “Women’s Time”, in Warhol, Robyn R. and Diane Price Herndl (eds.), Feminisms – An Anthology of Literary Theory and Criticism, Macmillan Press, Houndmills, pp. 860-879. Lawson Welsh, S. (2007), Grace Nichols, Northcote, Tavistok. Marangoly George, Rosemary (2004), “Feminists Theorize Colonial/Postcolonial”, in Neil Lazarus (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Postcolonial Literary Studies, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 211-231. Mohanty, Chandra Talpade et al. (eds.) (1991), Third World Women and the Politics of Feminism, Bloomington, Indiana University Press. Nichols, Grace (1990/1983), I Is a Long Memoried Woman, Karnak House, London. *** (2005), Startling the Flying Fish, Virago, London. Smartt, Dorothea (2008), Ship Shape, Peepal Tree Press, Leeds. Walcott, D. (1998/1974), “The Muse of History”, in What the Twilight Says. Essays, Faber and Faber, London, pp. 36-64. *** (2007), Selected Poems, Edward Baugh (ed.), Faber and Faber, London. SPATIAL AND TEMPORAL STRUCTURE IN A CONTEMPORARY HUNGARIAN NOVEL FROM ROMANIA SUSANA MONICA TAPODI* László Bogdán's 1400-page trilogy entitled Kintrekedtek [The Exluded] (Tatjana [Tatiana], 2008, A vörös körben [In the Red Circle] 2010, Két boldog fénygombolyag [Two Happy People] 2011) is of a hybrid genre. Its magical realism is typical of Hungarian minority literatures, and its complicated action refers to minority existence. However, at the same time it represents a transition between a travel, adventure, picaresque, a sci-fi, fantasy and detective novel, with parts resembling pornography and many transtextual games. We can find references to the present, to the era of Romania’s dictatorship and transition period, suggestions to a small city from Transylvania (Saint George), to Bucharest, but Tatiana’s memories are linked to Budapest and Moscow, and in gradually widening circles, we reach together with the heroes Vienna, Venice, Ravenna, via the Adriatic islands we arrive in the U.S.A. The heroes participat in a global anti-poverty programme of an “Italian millionaire philanthropist” named Eduardo de Sica (reminiscent of George Soros). With the help of memories, dreams and parapsychological experiments of the immortal hosts, the two week action, which takes place in the autumn of 2004, expands in time and space to the age of Caesar and Ovid, the Middle Ages, old (Alatir, Nekrromikon) and new myths (yeti, Star Wars) are referred to. Objective and subjective time, fantasy, fiction, and specific Eastern European political and social problems (Chechen hostage-story, veterans of Afghanistan, terrorism, the oppressive machinery of the dictatorship, the interception methods of the Securitate, corruption, mafia, drug trafficking, poverty) are mixed in this exciting series of novels, which has an international cast and dissects the multifold issues of identity. Keywords: minority literature, objective and subjective time, space, transtextual games, Eastern European political and social problems. Long novels written today are perhaps a contradiction: the dimension of time has been shattered, we cannot love or think except in fragments of time each of which goes off along its own trajectory and immediately disappears. We can rediscover the continuity of time only in the novels of that period when time no longer seemed stopped and did not yet seem to have exploded, a period that lasted no more than a hundred years. (states Italo Calvino in 19791) The spatial and temporal structure of László Bogdán’s 1400-page trilogy A kintrekedtek/The Excluded (Tatjána avagy kifelé a férfikor nyarából/ Tatiana or Leaving the Summer of the Era of Men, 2008, A vörös körben/ In the Red Circle, 2010, A két boldog fénygombolyag/ Two Happy People, 2011) follows * Sapientia University, Department of Humanities (email: [email protected]). The study was created within the framework of the one-year group research programme entitled The Narratology of Space, supported by the Institute of Reasearch Programmes of Sapientia University. 1 Calvino, Italo, Ha téli éjszakán egy utazó [If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler], Európa, Bp. 2011, 12. 238 SUSANA MONICA TAPODI the course of fragments heading in different directions. The hybridity of the genre strengthens the experience of being shattered. Its magical realism and complex plot point at a certain minority existence which is typical of the Hungarian minority literatures. At the same time it represents a transition between travel, adventure, picaresque, sci-fi, fantasy and detective novels, with parts that touch upon pornography, containing various transtextual games. The chronotopes partly refer to the present, the Romania of the dictatorship and of the transition years, to a small town in Transylvania (Saint George), to the capital Bucharest, but Tatiana’s memories are also connected to Budapest and Moscow. Space widens in gradually expanding circles, after Vienna, Venice and Ravenna via the Adriatic islands the heroes arrive in the U.S.A. The heroes take part in a global anti-poverty programme of Eduardo de Sica, an “Italian millionaire philanthropist” who reminds us of George Soros; in the last volume they are going to escape from him. With the help of memories, dreams and parapsychological experiments of the immortal hosts, time and space of the two week action, which takes place in the autumn of 2004, become expanded: the age of Caesar and Ovid, the Middle Ages are mentioned, the old (Alatir, Nekrromikon) and new myths (yeti, Star Wars) move the action towards the realm of the fantastic. Not only the mythical and historical past receive their place within the narration but also, due to the “immortals”, distance measured in light-years and mythical future as well. Objective and subjective time, fantasy, fiction, and specific Eastern European political and social problems (Chechen hostage-story, veterans of Afghanistan, terrorism, the oppressive machinery of the dictatorship, the interception methods of the Securitate, corruption, mafia, drug trafficking, poverty) are mixed in this exciting series of novels, which has an international cast and dissects the multifold issues of identity. The main narrator, who bares certain traits of the author’s biography2, is the lawyer János Asztalos; he is the one to tell the story in volumes I and III, partly in first-person narrative, partly in the third person. He also lets Tatiana, his new love, talk about her childhood in Moscow and university years in Budapest. The main narrator of volume II is Attila Szabó, a Hungarian actor from Transylvania, who, being a drug smuggler, together with his love, Anna, seeks refuge from the mafia’s fury on Eduardo’s yacht. They are being accompanied by Anna’s half-sister, the Romanian actress Laura ChelaruKellner and her Arabian art collector love Ahmed, who are also being chased by the international mafia. Thus, the narration of the recent past events and the unraveling of the present mysterious plot restarts. The dreams and memories keep interrupting the story, thus it is not only the plot that loses its linearity, but also personality becomes disrupted: identity 2 School years in Bucharest, talent in writing poetry, his love, Viola leaves Romania and dies later on in a motorbike accident in Italy etc. see “Az én útvesztői” [“The Labyrinth of the Self”] Lövétei Lázár László’s interview with László Bogdán in Székelyföld. 2011/9. SPATIAL AND TEMPORAL STRUCTURE IN A CONTEMPORARY HUNGARIAN NOVEL FROM ROMANIA 239 will be a pile of divergent stories, conscious and unconscious desires, it is made up of texts, just like in the case of Umberto Eco’s hero who tries to recreate his own self by means of the texts read in his childhood. 3 The problem of identity turns into the key question of the trilogy: it is not only the intellectuals, who having become guinea pigs, now have to face their own and others’ past traumas hidden in the subconscious; they have to define their individual goals and find the way out of the collective nightmares that have been forced upon them, they have to discover who the „immortals” playing with them are. The mysterious hosts do not know either who they themselves really are. Only towards the end of volume III, A két boldog fénygombolyag/Two Happy People, when Tatiana succeeds in organizing their escape, do we discover that before having taken up their immortal earthly bodies, Eduardo and the others had been the representatives of a civilization from another planet who had lost in a cosmic battle. The „immortals” have only been in possession of a memory since they overtook the body of a human being killed with force. They themselves have to fight to find their own identities, just like the people with whom, out of boredom or some hidden purpose, they conduct their psychological experiments. We are different, it is no fraud, no delusion, we are human, but not human at the same time. By all means our genes do not resemble that of human beings, probably the strangers who invaded us two thousand years ago, completed upon the genes of the original specimen the mutations that made us immune and immortal. (…) If I had only for a while succeeded to get somehow separated from the parasite, the way I called it, that was leading and dominating me, I would have probably gone mad, my personality would have been shattered since during those two thousand years not only had the former Roman warrior’s memories faded, but also his personality had disappeared. – Eduardo complained (Two Happy People 389). Part of the chronotopes refers to the city of Saint George before the change of regime and at the beginning of the 21st century: the Sugás garden, the Kripta restaurant etc. The main character of and the first person narrator in volume I, the lawyer János Asztalos studied in Bucharest but starts off from a provincial town, hitchhiking in front of the Romanian liberating soldier’s statue passing through Brasov, Szeged and Vienna on his way to Venice. There he meets his love, Tatiana and joins Eduardo de Sica’s group, in order to go on a voyage around the islands of the Mediterranean, this is also a journey into his own and his Russian love’s inner, mental sea. The main narrator of volume II, Attila Szabó, the actor who leaves his job behind, also goes on his smuggler trips to Bucharest starting from within the same small town. He often recalls his teacher who was driven to committing 3 Umberto Eco, Loana királynő titokzatos tüze [The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana], Európa Könyvkiadó, Bp. 2007 240 SUSANA MONICA TAPODI suicide and whose character evokes the tragic-fated Árpád Visky from Saint George driven into death by the Securitate. In volume II János tells us one of his 1984 memories when he was interrogated by a Securitate officer. (In Saint George that year under the pretext of an exploding statue the secret police badgered many Hungarian intellectuals with questions.) These places function as narrative tropes, they are text parts which fulfill a narrative function that lets us draw the picture, the map of the place itself. In the first two novels the ironically depicted excerpts are being repeated, on his journey to Bucharest the hero encounters the aggressive, nationalistic disposition of his Romanian fellow passengers. E.g.: We do not want autonomy based upon ethnical principles! a lady said. – We do not want Hungarian conclaves… You mean perhaps enclaves – corrected her the strict soldier. (Tatiana 14) The Hungarians want to take Transylvania back. They have never given it up and will never give it up. Really now, my dear lady – and I get back lest the wildly gesticulating lady, building up should accidentally prick my eye and then there will be one more single-eyed Hungarian. – Transylvania is not like a nut at all that we can put in our pocket out of lordly moodiness and leave with it. And where could we take it, tell me, where? (In the Red Circle 44) Next to the irony there is also self-irony, the single-eyed Hungarian could refer to the writer András Sütő who in 1990’s black March was left without one of his eyes by the enraged Romanian crowd. The novel also offers us a realistic picture of the relations in Bucharest and the whole of Romania before and after the regime change. Laura and Anna take refuge from the mafia’s attack in the Intecontinental hotel. On his smuggler trips Attila also stops at the hotel to hand over the suitcase he has been carrying. In the 80’s the Securitate officer interrogates the intellectuals he watches in the restaurant Capşa. The same colonel Badea appears now on Eduardo’s yacht as a CIA agent and, paradoxically, it is his estate on the island of Lake Erie that the protagonists flee to from the immortals at the end of part three. The plot’s present events always point at further things as well. The CIA and KGB agents’ questioning on the yacht – Tatiana knows the latter, Ferenc Kondor from Budapest before the change of regime – sheds light on the fact that Eduardo and his mates aim at world power. They conduct the psychological experiments on their guests because they are analyzing how they could erase humankind’s desire for power and possession in order to establish some sort of a utopian society. The intricate story’s principles at micro level can be extended and extrapolated onto the macro level too. (In the past the heroines were either SPATIAL AND TEMPORAL STRUCTURE IN A CONTEMPORARY HUNGARIAN NOVEL FROM ROMANIA 241 nearly or really raped, the first loves of the male heroes fled the communist Romania or both died in an accident.) The open or hidden violence and the resulting desire to escape, to flee are among the main motifs of the text. Volume III renders us a detailed description of the methods of tapping used during dictatorship in Romania, the fear the Securitate implemented on individuals or the terror in schools. Not only do we get a picture of the Ceauşescu and post communist Romania but also of the whole Central Eastern Europe stumbling among the difficulties of transition (the sad situation of the Afghan veterans, the issue of homelessness, beggars, drug smuggling, mafia, corruption, poverty etc.). The plot’s present is spelled out in the middle of the trilogy, more precisely in volume II: the frame story takes place during 3 weeks in early autumn of the year 2004 when the protagonists follow the broadcasting of the Chechen hostage crisis. After a thousand pages and the shifting of different spatial and temporal levels, in reality/”real time” there have only passed two weeks. The specific means to extend the coordinates of time and space is transtextuality: real time and space are permeated by the time and space of fiction. Just like Umberto Eco when writing The Name of the Rose, László Bogdán included many educational elements in the adventurous plot. Interpretations of Shakespeare and translation critique, paraphrasing Petronius, Kafka, Poe, Joyce, Dosztojevszkij, Bulgakov, Pessoa, Caragiale, Borges, Cortázar, Vargas Llosa, García Márquez, Stanislav Lem, Umberto Eco, parodies, quoted and interpreted Vogul bear songs, Homeric Hymns, quotes from Faríd ad- Dín Attar, Baudelaire, Catullus, Ovidius, Petrarca, Puskin, Rilke, Dsida, Mandelstam, Salamov, Ahmatova, the analysis of the Orphic tradition and of the Dionysus cult, the interpretation of Monteverdi’s music, the Ravenna mosaics, Canaletto or Francesco Guardi’s paintings, Lao Ce, Tao Te King or Wittgenstein’s thoughts are all incorporated within the body text. The quotes taken from Vaszilij Bogdanov and Ricardo Reis’ works, reminding us of Eco’s postmodern games, create a labyrinth text. Vaszilij Bogdanov, whose „poem translations” are being published by László Bogdán, is a lyrical counterpart if we decode the name. In the volume Ricardo Reis on Tahiti (2007) he continued to write the adventures of Pessoa’s heteronyms and poems. The main characters of the trilogy The Excluded all dream about visiting the Reis on Tahiti. There is a certain stereotypy at work when choosing the heroes’ nationality: next to the Romanian nationalists and Hungarian resistance we encounter gipsy burglars, Arabian art collectors doing suspicious business and Armenian mafia. At the same time the Hungarians fit well into the picture: the drug smuggler group is international but the unknown consigners write to the actor-dealer in Hungarian. János, the lawyer wants to divorce his wife because it turns out that while he was defending the political prisoners, his wife had SUSANA MONICA TAPODI 242 become an informer for the Securitate. Moreover, it was the idea of the Securitate colonel tailing him that in 1988 the wife – also a spy – of his friend who was being accused of high treason, asked him to defend the prisoners. At the end of volume III the plot is interrupted by an exciting turn, it is precisely the colonel’s house that represents a refuge to the protagonists. Orthodoxy, one of the main elements of foreignness, which is the most prevailing sign of cultural otherness in the works of contemporary Transylvanian writers, does not play an important role here: the activity of the “immortals” is endowed with the mystical aura of Eastern religions, Shamanism and Buddhism included, using for example well-known sacred places (the monastery in Suzdal) and characters taken from Russian literature like Father Mitrofan, who had more than once been in the Siberian lagers and whom Tatiana remembers of many times. What we have here is a true piece of minority literature, in which the discontinuity between place, language and the self is being rendered both thematically and, due to the break in linearity, also formally – we encounter dreams, nightmares and memories which disrupt the flow of the text. Thus, the trilogy brings out the characteristics of a postcolonial existential situation. The incorporated themes of the popular genres (sex, yeti, primordial beings protruding through worm tubes, the rush) hide the trilogy’s ideological guiding principle, which is the battle to maintain the integrity of one’s personality, of one’s identity, the battle for freedom. This fact is very much consistent with the traditional value system of Hungarian literature in Transylvania. BIBLIOGRAPHY Bogdán, László (2008), Tatjána, avagy kifelé a férfikor nyarából [Tatiana or Leaving the Summer of the Era of Men], Mentor, Marosvásárhely. Bogdán, László (2010), A vörös körben [In the Red Circle], Mentor, Marosvásárhely. Bogdán, László (2011), A két boldog fénygombolyag [Two Happy People], Mentor, Marosvásárhely. Calvino, Italo (2011), Ha téli éjszakán egy utazó [If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler], Európa, Budapest. Eco, Umberto (2007), Loana királynő titokzatos tüze [The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana], Európa Könyvkiadó, Bp. Lövétei Lázár, László (2011), “The Labyrinth of the Self”, interview with László Bogdán in Székelyföld, 2011/9. THE PLAIN IN THE SLOVAK LANGUAGE LITERATURE IN ROMANIA DAGMAR MARIA ANOCA∗ The author presents the image of the plain (as a Pannonic archetype in the vision of Professor Michal Harpáň from the University of Novi Sad, Serbia) in the literary works (poetry, prose) of the Slovak writers living in Romania (Ivan MiroslavAmbruš, Pavol Bujtár, Štefan Dováľ, Pavel Husárik, Adam Suchanský, Peter Suchanský, Ondrej Štefanko). Keywords: Slovak minority living in Romania, Slovak writers living in Romania, Michal Harpáň, the image of the plain, the anthropologic significance. The reflection regarding the Slovak language literary phenomenon has begun at the moment when the anthology Variácie was published at the Kriterion Publishing House in 1978 thanks to the efforts of Professor Corneliu Barborică from the Bucharest University. The Slovak language literature in Romania is a complex phenomenon and may be studied from several points of view. 1 Culturologically and ethnologically it may be considered as a cultural sub-system of the Slovak culture in general. From the point of view of literary theory and comparatistics, applying different criteria (geographic-political or state-related, national, linguistic criterion, or the criterion concerning the aesthetics of literature, the conscience of the creating ego 2 we may speak of an autochthonous context which coexists in other literary contexts, respectively it is integrated in other, more ample contexts. From the point of view of literary history, obviously, in the run of the time, it presents more stages, sub-stages of development, which we derive, according to the traditional methodology, from folkloric roots, but ∗ University of Bucharest, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, e-mail: [email protected] Obviously no matter what methodology might be applied, it, too, represents a deformation, the adopting of a pressure and force from outside the researched object in a way a violation – which could lead to a limitation in approach, the way some researchers question the justness, justification and the possibility of application of any methodology in the literary sciences. But for us these problems seam counterproductive, because our aim is to describe the topic, no matter how relative, approximate or traditional it may be. Šveda (2008: 7-8). 2 The system of contexts was elaborated by the slovacist from Serbia, Michal Harpáň based on the comparatistic theory of the Slovak comparatist researcher Dionýz Ďurišin from Slovakia. 1 244 DAGMAR MARIA ANOCA also from the tradition of the cultivated creation – of literature in its larger meaning. Using the historical and also thematic criterion, we consider that this phenomenon has its beginning in 1853, the year when the first written book was published in a place that is now in Romania, dealing with relations between environments inhabited by the Slovaks. At that time the Slovaks constituted communities formed by people displaced within the Hapsburg, respectively Austrian-Hungarian Empire. To offer necessary work force in these areas, but also to offer them living resources. Ever since 1918, passing through different events, the Slovaks (the Slovak Diaspora living in Romania) represent one of the national minorities in Romania. The period that may be really considered as being the period of the Slovak language literature in Romania is the one coming after 1918, when they created the Romanian unitary national state, the kingdom of Greater Romania, including the Slovak communities of the Western parts of the country (Satu Mare, Bihor, Sălaj, Arad, Banat, Caraş-Severin counties). But the mid-war period is characterized by discontinuity and modest conditions as for number and value, the phenomenon gaining vigor only in the 8th decade, when the „Ivan Krasko” Literary Cercle was born in Nădlac town, Arad county, which was to become the cradle of several vigorous talents. Prose writers such as Pavol Bujtár, Štefan Dováľ, poets such as Ondrej Štefanko, Ivan Miroslav Ambruš, later on Adam Suchanský and others constituted and consolidated the autochthonous literary context and soon awaringly passed to its integration into the Romanian national (state) context and also into the Slovak one. Simultaneously the resuscitation of the Pannonic diaspora context begins thanks to the affirmation of Slovak language writers in Hungary and the setting up of cultural-literary links with the Slovak writers of the former Yugoslavia. After 1990 this approach amplifies, being sustained by changes in literary and cultural thinking of that time, the Slovak spirituality becoming increasingly more open to recognize all literary facts due to co-nationals or written in Slovak as organic part of a single body of the Slovak national culture which includes, besides the literary production of the mother country, all the cultural values created by the Slovak diaspora. „Officially“, the Slovak language literary phenomenon in Romania was recognized at the Conference of the Romanian Writers in 1981 (Tezele...; Raportul...). Most Slovak language writers live in Nădlac, which led Florin Bănescu, a writer from Arad, to speak of a „Nadlac phenomenon”, mentioning them several times as „the Musketeers of the Western Plain” Bănescu (d). 3 Indeed, the Western Plain of Romania is a permanent topic of their prose or poetry, as well as in the works of the artist Maria Štefanko (1951), especially in her graphical cycles „Eye of the Plain” and „Houses”. 3 Florin Bănescu made huge efforts to promote this phenomenon in the literary and nonliteraly press published in Western Romania in different languages: Orizont, Flacăra roşie, Vörös Lobogó, Neue Banater Zeitung. Bănescu (a),b), c). THE PLAIN IN THE SLOVAK LANGUAGE LITERATURE IN ROMANIA 245 As for the topic, i.e. the motif of the Plain in the context of the Slovak diaspora of the Pannonic space,4 Professor Michal Harpáň from the Novi Sad (Serbia) University elaborated a deep-digging essay, Básnické paradigmy panónskeho archetypu (The Poetic Paradigm of the Pannonic Archetype; Harpáň 2004: 62-93),5 by finding similarities between the poetry of the three autochthonous contexts of Slovaks from the above mentioned space (i.e. the Slovaks from Romania, Serbia and Hungary). Because the same elements, archetypes and their attributes occur in the prose creations, as well, in this paper, we shall extend the application of the premises of Prof. Harpaň to this field, too. Obviously the focus of our research lies in the works of those writers who constituted the autochthonous context for the first time and who are relevant of it, as I have mentioned before: Pavol Bujtár, Štefan Dováľ, the poets Ondrej Štefanko, Ivan Miroslav Ambruš, later on Adam Suchanský, Pavel Husárik. According to the preface of Prof. Michal Harpáň: The Pannonian peasant archetype may be followed in the framework of the poetry from the Pannonian space through a rich row of topics and motives, but the fundament of this paradigm is the soil, the Plain (NB: the word „earth“ – zem- in Slovak is of feminine gender, DMA) and the man – the Peasant. They, in fact, constitute correlated archisems, each of them generating its own system of coordination, as well as a reciprocal connection. Both poles offer an unlimited number of concretizations corresponding to each segment of individual experience that depends, in fact, on each creator‘s intentions. Harpáň (2004 : 63-64). He continues by showing that the two poles are in reality an ensemble of components. Otherwise, the plain implies other manifestations, too, elements of nature such as water, wind, fog, fire. Thus, the concrete space gets sometimes mythical dimensions. Harpáň (2004: 64). On the other hand, the pole of the plain represents the static, and the man-peasant pole stands for the dynamical. This pole develops in two classes of functions, considering the division of actions, operations, processes according to the male, respectively female, manwoman, father-mother, the plain/exterior space – courtyard/interior space principles. The next two classes may be identified according to the sacred or profane character of different actions/activities. Many times the profane facts transform themselves into sacred at some authors, following their noetics. At the same time, an archaizing tint is involved. 4 We prefer this term to the Low Lands, meaning Slovak communities from Serbia, Romania’s Western Plain. For Hungary’s Eastern part / the Plain of the Tisza there is a space for which the existing Slovak culture uses the term „Dolna zem”. i.e. the low land, low territory, rooted in Romanian in the form of „Ţinuturile de Jos” – this equivalent being usual in documents related to the Hapsburg, respectively Austro-Hungarian Monarchy period up to its end. In the Slovak cultural space (as well as in the Hungarian one, too, the term Alföld) it continues to be used without any negative connotation. 5 The work was first published as an appendix to the Slovak cultural magazine of the Pannonic space, Dolnozemský Slovák. 246 DAGMAR MARIA ANOCA The topic, the motif of the plain manifests concretely, according to the literary historian Harpáň under three classes of paradigms: the paradigm of space, the anthropological paradigm and the ritualic paradigm. As for the space paradigm, Harpáň finds that its first, initial step is the „taking into possession of the space” – considering the migration of Slovaks from another area to their present-day habitat. The second step is the motif of the house, of the building up of the house, and especially their becoming aware of the search for a new home, its setting up, their taking it into possession. The feeling of historicity is present in the poem Naše dejiny (Our History) of Ondrej Štefanko from the volume Stojím pred domom (I Stay in front of the House, 1980), cycle Rozjímanie v domovine (Meditations at Birthplace), where we may see that „Our history is like pincers/ of imagination...”, and the persistence of the migrants in the new places is expressed by the attributes of the plain: „we persist like the dust of the road.“ Harpáň (2004: 67) Then, the exterior and interior attributes of the home are evoked as signs of the plain. We agree with Harpáň when he states that the verses which explain the essence of the relationship to the plain, house, home are „Core is my home/ not shell, not dry leaf“, sending a universalized message. Very concrete aspects of this paradigm occur in Štefanko’s first volume, but in the ulterior, modified editions everything refers to the spatial paradigm with concrete elements and attributes of the plain space: the hamlet, the geraniums, the toponyms of Nădlac surroundings. The anthropologic paradigm, as well, has different forms and motifs, such as: enumeration of second names known and emblematic for that space, or through characteristic activities, or through the childhood spent outside in the hamlet. Anoca (2008 b) In a similar way, the space paradigm and the others are to be found in the descriptions and prose works of the Slovak writers. We find the most eloquent examples in Pavol Bujtár’s works whose intention of offering a realistic, but also emotional picture of this space is clearly obvious in his novel Pastierik – The Little Shepherd (published in 1996, but the author’s date is 1960). Let us see how the writer expresses the attributes of the plain, the biologic pulse related to the weather, the annual cycle, vegetation, living creatures, forms of life intrinsic to the plain: As if the great heat of the last days rampaged on the plains. The crimson poppies wilted very fast. The corn-cockles with their fat cheeks, their flowers the colour of light lilac closed themselves and in their little bellies small black seeds were growing. In the wheat fields quails were wheepling to their many broods to avert them. Bujtár (1996: 63). In the following fragment we witness the evolvement of the anthropologic paradigm: The torrid days of June installed themselves. During the day it was hot, sweat was flowing even in the shade. It was mostly people from the neighbouring fields that came to THE PLAIN IN THE SLOVAK LANGUAGE LITERATURE IN ROMANIA 247 the hamlet to take fresh water in their earthenware jugs. In the afternoon those who could afford it would look for some shade totake a winkle of sleep. But there were hardly any who would be so lucky, because those who came to the fields to work straight from the village were in a haste to finish as fast as they could. (Bujtár 1996: 58) The elements of nature, the forces, water, and wind appear in the introductory passages of the chapters, according to the traditional prose model: At the end of May, the temperature grew higher. During the nights it would often rain, at daytime it was warm, thus, the vegetation grew fast. In the fields the playful winds were turning pin-wheels over the enormous wheat-fields... The long rows of young corn rustled gaily in the breeze and the pleasant green caressed someone’s look. The acacias growing around the hamlets were gloriously blossoming. The sweet dizzying smell of the myriads of flowers bestrewed all over the area and there was no person who acknowledged but once in their lifetime that a thing like that, such a perfume and beauty is rarely found in the world. Thousands of bees and other insects became victim of the temptation of the sweetness of the blossoming trees. Bujtár (1996: 45). But even in poetry the aquatic (the Mureş River, the well, mud, rain, tempest) is definitory for the plain. It occurs in the poem Nelada (a title alluding to some fabulous space, a kind of „Atlantis”) of Ivan Miroslav Ambruš from the volume Za cenu žitia (With a Life’s Price, 1981): „Your senses will be pointed like a tempest/ in the rustling of the leaves/ just like the Mures (in Slovak with female gender – Maruša- my note, DMA)/ that feeds the earth.” The spatial paradigm allows allegoric-mythical images (as Harpáň calls them) such as the delivering plain (Štefanko: „The Deliverer is groaning under the hooves of the horse/, she quakes with the iron in her flesh”), an ancient image, that is also found in the poetry of Slovaks living in Romania. We find its variant in the young virgin’s motif of the prose writers. Thus, in the 20th century-like expressionist tonalities Peter Suchanský (Nădlac, 1897-Bratislava, 1979) tries to translate into myths the Western Plain, generally known as Dolná zem (Lowlands), in his work Obraz z detstva – Picture from Childhood (from the volume Tri snúbenice – Three Brides, 1934), introducing in the text an interesting opposition between cultural vs. wild (Apollonian vs. Dionisiac; Harpáň 2004: 71): You lie like a book from which birds learn their dear songs bringing joy in sad hearts, and loss of anxiety in the joyful ones. You are open like a noble soul in which everybody may look and enjoy the pure immaculateness. He who sees your spaces bathing in the bright sunshine has to sing with a vibrating heart and to save God the Creator for His great work. In summer you are like a noble virgin in love making her up with flowers to please her lover more. In winter like an angry knight breaking spears like straws, you boil of fury and there is no power to stop your untamable, bellicose anger when you take impetus on the open space, you are like a young horse after the long penitence of winter left first time free under the large, blue wheel of spring. Snow is flying in big flakes and in the sky the clouds descended rush and struggle on life and death. Oh yes, this is quite a 248 DAGMAR MARIA ANOCA struggle, indeed! It is not like clouds, but living beings thinking with human mind and having human feelings are approaching each other with a mortal decision. Howsoever times I assisted to such a duel, I always had in mind the ancient Roman gladiator, as I would see them in front of the Caesar’s tribune. Suchanský (1999: 9) The anthropologic paradigm, presented horizontally – synchronically, or vertically, in the diachronic time, may represent steps from the very representations of activities (first of all in Bujtár’s prose, but also in that of Štefan Dováľ, Žofine trápenia – Sophie’s Nuisances), till the mythic and sacral (as it is in the poem on the work in the fields with the help of the horse – a solar hero, in Ondrej Štefanko in the volume Dva hlasy – Two Voices II. (1987). In the volume I Stay in front of the House the cycle of Reconciliation he presents the evolution in time of his community, but he also expresses the concept of time as a cyclical flow, characteristic of agrarian civilizations, which is found in the book of the prose writer Štefan Dováľ, as well: Sophie’s Nuisances. The events are ordered according to the seasons and are related to the house. One of the dominating motifs of the space paradigm - but by the stress placed on it, and by its frequency in all authors, it is a characteristic one, we may say. In his work Harpáň mentions the fact that the anthropologic paradigm from the Pannonic poetry is also characterized by the „cult of poverty”, as a consequence of the life of these communities until recent times. Doubtlessly the anthropologic paradigm is closely related to the motif of the ancestors (mother, father, grandparents, and grandmother), one of its most expressive realization being in Ambruš’ work, where, in one of his poems, the author presents his grandfather as an eternal entity in his simplicity, in the mere cyclicality of the peasant’s life: My grandpa knew nothing of the Titanic/ He woke up at four in the morning/ He cut a piece of bacon/ A slice of bread/ Also filled the jug with water/ Harnessed the horses to the chariot/And went to plow// In the evening when he returned home tired/ He sat on the doorstep of the house/Lit a cigarette/ My grandpa/ Had heard nothing of the Titanic. Ambruš (1981: 76) The ritualic paradigm in which we may follow ethnographic elements, customs etc. are present in the poetry and prose of the Slovaks from Romania to a limited extent and in many cases with altered function. First of all, the poet Husárik uses these motifs to deprive them of the mythical dimension, to deconstruct some ingrained stereotypes which are today out of place. An embroidered fur coat, an object we expected the poet to praise, to appreciate, thus participating in the mythification of the national rituals is an occasion to taunt the love for antiquities, the peculiar attitudes of contemporaries. Contrary to him, Adam Suchanský transforms the funeral into a magic communion with Mother Earth (in the ballad without a title There Are Moments...), In fact, in this poet’s work, we witness one of the most essentialized statements regarding the THE PLAIN IN THE SLOVAK LANGUAGE LITERATURE IN ROMANIA 249 Slovak mentality and their own image in the poem Acacia Wood Fiddle and Maplewood coffin. Anoca (2008 a). The plain as an existential element, environment of life, a synthesis of space and anthropologic paradigm may represent, from a formal point of view, the base of some artistic procedures and means, such as: the counterpoint, i.e. the following of the same idea, respectively its resumption in different registers. Thus, the natural phenomena, constituting the attribute of the plain – like plants, animals, among them evidently the flight of a butterfly - send us to another plan, that of the human beings, they express the experiences and desires of the child in the next example more persuasively: A middle-aged woman was walking on the serpentine path along the irrigation channel. She was pushing a bicycle with two sacks with corn and pumpkins. Near her, a ten year old boy was bouncing on the autumn field following colorful butterflies. From time to time he reached the channel, purposely dragging his old sandals on the half-dry grass, to his delight, dozens of locusts jumped scared. Reaching the channel he stopped then returned running to the edge of the cornfield, whispering in the breeze, as if approving the mischief of the boy. Suddenly he notices a small butterfly dressed in many colors lingering to enjoy the afternoon sun’s rays, lazily moving its wings from time to time as it would whisper, in silence, half dreaming: Leave me alone! Leave me alone! The boy approached him carefully with his open hands, stopping here and there and oops! The butterfly was trapped. Feeling the struggle of the little wings the boy turned towards the pathway. – Mommy, mommy! Look what a beautiful butterfly I’ve got! The woman stopped the bicycle; she supported it with her right leg and tied her scarf. The few wrinkles on her forehead relaxed. – Milanko dear, you have plenty of butterflies. – But none like this. It’s beautiful, colorful, like that from Jarka’s textbook. – And what do you want to do with it? The boy stood for moment thinking. – I let it go, to be free. At the same moment he opened his palms and the colorful butterfly flew away, first up, towards the sun, then it turned to the copper-yellow field until it got lost. – If only they released my daddy out of prison, like it... After saying these words he remained embarrassed as if he had said some indecent, forbidden word. The smile went away from the face of the woman, the wrinkles returned to her forehead and all her face was covered by an invisible shadow. She started suddenly, followed by the silent boy. Dováľ (2008: 22). The plain with its paradigms and attributes will be the support of some meditations definitory for a way of thinking and of living, and first of all in case of a writer, but also in case of a simple man, belonging to an ethnic minority, what, in a noetic plan, still exceeds the limits of the ethnic: Each time when I stay in front of the immaculate sheet of paper, when I look around me or when I meditate on anything, I am visited by the genius loci, the spirit of this place, of this space where I grew up and reached my maturity, he surely is close by and whispers to me who I am, my facts, the effusions of my mind, the way I look and listen; he introduces me in the pathways, always the same, traced by me and by those I live with, DAGMAR MARIA ANOCA 250 pathways cut not just in the earth on which I rely, but also in what defines me, every time when I praise myself and the others I stop to be myself and I become the executant of the commands of the genius loci no matter how I might oppose it, no matter how much I might protest, I remain his slave, I am unable to act any other way. As if all is given to me, subconsciously, of things and events done in this plain, in this settlement, in these people, all what happened in the past, and today, and yesterday and surely will happen tomorrow, because I may not detach me of myself, of my roots and escape beyond the horizon where sky unifies with earth, that feeling of the infinite which is caused by the look on the plain is incomparable to nothing else, even if unto my death I do not stop shouting, though I always swore, I will not agree with the stifling futility, it does not allow me to breathe, however I humiliate myself again and again in front of the smallest and most senseless gesture, of the psychical process present in all those who live here, the apricot and the little peach survive and will be left behind, a print almost imperishable surviving the apricot-tree and the peach- tree and the nut-tree, they will survive and there will be always traces, traces almost imperishable of their earthy nature... [...] people step next to me, people who met this place, this space, they shaped it, they left here their traces in all what they did and anything they would have done, a richer and richer crop, better and better tools and goods, unsatisfied with what became stale, pushing forward on and on, and the traces and footprints of these people and of this place pervaded me and persist in me because I am convinced that indeed here our genius loci met the universal spirit, indeed here, in our place, and in myself both of them found their home thus creating culture, our culture, the unforgettable, the non-repeating and eternal which was transformed long ago into a trace, we and I just deepen it in this place, in this space, in the world… Štefanko (1997: 124-127) The plain, its image, its artistic transformation becomes a reference, a human spot, a pure metaphysical presence. BIBLIOGRAPHY Ambruš, Ivan Miroslav (1981), Za cenu žitia, Kriterion, Bucureşti. Anoca, Dagmar Mária (2008), a) „Pietna spomienka na Básnika a na segment spoločného času stráveného vo sférickom priestore”, in Naše snahy plus, V, 3-4, pp. 65-69; b) „Cercul refăcut”, in Arca, 1-2-3(214-215-216), pp. 161-167. Bănescu, Florin, a) „O reuşită antologie literară”, in Flacăra Roşie, XXXIX, 11332, pp. 2 ; b) „Arad und Autoren”, in Neue Banater Zetung, XXX, 7472, pp. 4; c) „Arader Kurier”, 1986, 398; d) „În Cîmpia de Vest”, in Orizont, 34, 12, pp. 4. Bujtár, Pavol (1996), Pastierik, Vydavateľstvo Kultúrnej a Vedeckej Spoločnosti Ivana Krasku, Nadlak, Nadlak. Dováĺ, Štefan (2008), „Prípad Jara Konôpku”, in Tu a inde, Vydavateľstvo Ivan Krasko, Nadlak, pp. 22. Harpáň, Michal (2004), Texty a kontexty, Bratislava. *** „Raportul Consiliului Uniunii Scriitorilor”, in România Literară, XIV, 27, pp. 6-7. Suchanský, Peter (1999), Obrazy z Dolnej zeme a zo sveta, VKVSIK, Nadlak. Štefanko, Ondrej (1997), Zo zápisníka kacíra nadlackého, VKVSIK, Nadlak. Šveda, Ján (2008), „Koniec literárnej histórie?”, in Nový život, 7-8, pp. 26-28. *** „Tezele conferinţei naţionale a scriitorilor”, in România Literară, XIV, 19, pp. 11-13. RECENZII Alexandra Vrânceanu y Angelo Pagliardini (eds.), “Migrazione e patologie dell’humanitas nella letteratura europea contemporanea”, Frankfurt am Main-Berlin-Bern-Bruxelles-New York-Oxford-Wien, Ed. Peter Lang, 2012, 265 p. El tomo concebido por Alexandra Vrânceanu y Angelo Pagliardini a raíz de un congreso organizado por los mismos en Roma, en el 2010, recoge trabajos que, desde una generosa perspectiva interdisciplinaria, establecen diversas conexiones entre migración y discurso, entendido en un sentido amplio, desde la literatura y el cine, hasta los relatos de la experiencia traumática, en el caso de los refugiados políticos, y las prácticas culinarias como comunicación identitaria. Un planteamiento de este tipo podría resultar especialmente interesante y motivador para el mundo académico rumano, debido a la escasez, en nuestro país, de los estudios dedicados a la literatura migrante. Cabe señalar, asimismo, la participación en la antología de dos profesoras de la Universidad de Bucarest, Monica Spiridon y Alexandra Vrânceanu, la meritoria iniciadora del proyecto. Y, por último, el peculiar interés de este volumen para el campo cultural rumano y sus contactos con otros campos culturales se debe a la presencia, entre los escritores y artistas comentados, de Paul Celan, Elie Wiesel, Mircea Eliade, Constantin Brâncuşi, Panait Istrati, Ana Novac, Aglaja Veteranyi, Dumitru Ţepeneag, Dinu Flămând y Hertha Müller. De hecho, la mayoría de los estudios vienen dedicados a escritores rumanos e italianos. A diferencia de cómo ocurre en la mayoría de las introducciones, los dos coordinadores (y, al mismo tiempo, autores de sendos estudios presentes en el tomo) no se limitan a resumir el enfoque o la temática de los trabajos, siguiendo simplemente la sucesión de estos en la antología, sino que ofrecen una presentación tipológica y racionalizada del material, vertebrada por criterios como la metodología, el contenido y la problemática teórica o la pertenencia lingüística y nacional de los autores estudiados. A primera vista, el último criterio taxonómico mencionado resultaría inadecuado especialmente en una recopilación como ésta, dedicada a unos escritores y a una literatura que destacan precisamente por la trasgresión de las barreras lingüísticas, étnicas o nacionales. Sin embargo, la razón de uso de la variable en cuestión reside en que solo tiene sentido tematizar y poner en tela de juicio lo que sigue vigente, a pesar de su inadecuación − o sea conceptos como “literatura nacional” o “monolingüismo −, puesto que, en una auténtica e ideal “república mundial de las letras”, categorías como “literatura rumana” o “literatura migrante” serían igual de poco funcionales. La presente reseña se ha redactado tomando como punto de partida y guía precisamente el estudio introductorio, muy elaborado y coherente. De hecho, estas mismas cualidades caracterizan la antología en su conjunto, lo cual es más digno de aprecio todavía si tenemos en cuenta el perfil interdisciplinario, que abarca enfoques procedentes de la literatura comparada, la historia de la literatura, la traductología, la historia de la lengua, la filmología, la sociología, la antropología (mediación intercultural), la psicopatología, etc. En el volumen se mencionan conceptos vehiculados en las últimas décadas en el campo investigado − “literatura del exilio”, “literatura migrante”, “literatura transnacional”, “literatura-mundo”, “república de las letras” −, cuyos significados, solapados muchas veces, están todavía en construcción. Al fin y al cabo, la hibridez identitaria, cultural, discursiva o meramente lingüística es el rasgo definitorio de la literatura escrita por los migrantes, un rasgo comentado en sus textos por Alexandra Vrânceanu, Monica Spiridon, Francis Claudon, Sebastiano Martelli, Gisèle 252 RECENZII Vanhese, Pietro Trifone o Angelo Pagliardini. Todos estos autores instrumentalizan metáforas territoriales, símbolos y mitos de la circulación y de la multiplicidad (Ulíses, Eneas, Jano, Babel), al abordar temas diversos, como los posicionamientos de Dumitru Ţepeneag con respecto a los cánones literarios rumano y francés, la representación literaria del retorno del emigrante italiano y la formación del “territorio cultural europeo”, de la “literatura del sur” o de una transfronteriza y cosmopolita “república de las letras”. Las figuras y las figuraciones de la territorialidad, la circulación y la multiplicidad (no olvidemos que, etimológicamente, “metáfora” significa “transporte”) se relacionan con una propuesta reivindicativa, de “abrir fronteras”, de romper categorías limitativas como la de “literatura nacional”, o de “viajar” entre conceptos polarizados, provocando interferencias y mestizaje. Esta necesidad de mezcla, ruptura, transformación y movilidad de los clichés conceptuales −incentivada por unos estudiosos que asumen también el papel de agentes dentro del campo cultural− constituye, en realidad, un legítimo intento de adecuar el discurso teórico al proceso existencial vivido y reflejado por el migrante. Se trata a menudo de una vivencia dolorosa que deriva en una verdadera patología específica, tanto en sentido metafórico-literario, como metafórico-psicoanalítico: el “complejo de Jano”, definido por Jung e identificado por Danilo De Salazar en la literatura de Aglaja Veteranyi, la personalidad múltiple, heteronímica, percibida por Alexandra Vrânceanu en el caso de Dumitru Ţepeneag o la literatura “histérica” de Hertha Müller, comentada por Ileana Alexandra Orlich. No obstante, la literatura es, a la vez que representación del trauma, cura. Este valor terapéutico viene señalado por Maria Cristina Tumiati, Maria Concetta Segneri y Adela Ida Gutierrez, desde una perspectiva sociológica, en los relatos de los refugiados que solicitan asilo político. Por otro lado, la función curativa del discurso se relaciona a menudo con la autobiografía o, en literatura, con la autoficción, un género híbrido, típicamente postmoderno e, igual que toda manifestación comunicativa migrante, transcategorial. El género discursivo de las contribuciones recogidas en el volumen es, asimismo, variado, abarcando desde ensayos que abren prometedoras vías de investigación (como los de Francis Claudon o Monica Spiridon) y elocuentes panoramas o cartografías del tratamiento teórico o analítico recibido en la literatura por un tema en concreto (Sebastiano Martelli, Angelo Pagliardini), hasta reveladores y perspicaces estudios de caso, que, al mismo tiempo, cruzan con provecho diversas perspectivas teóricas (Alexandra Vranceanu). Considero que lo observado anteriormente es suficiente para justificar la necesidad de la traducción de este tomo al rumano o, por lo menos, de su amplia difusión en nuestro ámbito académico. Pero quisiera añadir un argumento más a favor de la utilidad de la visión propuesta por el libro que constituye el objeto de esta reseña: la “literatura migrante” no es, como podría parecer a primera vista, un tema periférico, o de nicho, que se refiera únicamente a la actividad literaria de una minoría. La circulación de los tópicos, los modelos y las formas de expresión (lo que Itamar Even-Zohar denominaba “repertorio”) de un campo cultural a otro o entre estratos distintos del mismo campo ha constituido siempre el fundamento de cualquier corriente estética o ideológica, invariablemente mestiza y cambiante, a pesar de su uniformizante y estática radiografía, consignada en los manuales de literatura. El estudio de la comunicación migrante no hace más que traer a colación unas fórmulas de representación que “histerizan” y problematizan la hibridez y la movilidad inherentes de toda literatura. Además, la identificación, realizada por los formalistas rusos en las primeras décadas del siglo XX, entre literariedad y “extrañamiento” cobra un significado renovado en los estudios sobre migración y literatura, que se ocupan, al fin y al cabo, de distintas hipóstasis de la enajenación, de la percepción de lo ajeno, desde lo propio, y de lo propio, desde lo ajeno. Como afirmaba Julia Kristeva, citada por Ileana Alexandra Orlich, “Writing is impossible without some kind of exile”. MIHAI IACOB∗ ∗ University of Bucharest, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, [email protected] RECENZII 253 Renata Bojničanová, Los bandoleros y su reflejo en la tradición oral – La prosa popular. Comparación catalano-eslováca, Bucureşti, Editura Universităţii din Bucureşti, 2011, 325 p. Renata Bojničanova es una hispanista y eslovaquista eslovaca que después de doctorarse en la Universidad Complutense de Madrid, está desarrollando su vocación pedagógica en la Universidad Comenius de Bratislava. Con este libro, la autora vuelve al tema que había tratado en su tesis doctoral, la imagen del bandido en la tradición eslovaca y catalana, en la literatura oral y culta. Esta vez, sin embargo, el análisis se centra exclusivamente en la prosa popular pero mantiene la perspectiva pirenaico-carpática. Tal como observa la folclorista Viera Gašparíková, que firma el prólogo del libro, esta misma apertura a la comparación carpático-balcánica hacia el Mediterráneo Occidental es el elemento de novedad que convierte el trabajo de Renata Bojničanova en una contribución original que viene a completar el mosaico de la imagen del bandido en el folclore europeo. El libro se compone de dos partes complementarias: el trabajo teórico-aplicativo en que se compara el material folklórico sobre los bandoleros eslovacos y catalanes con el fin de demostrar el paralelismo que existe entre los dos espacios culturales y una recopilación de los textos que sirven como base para esta comparación y que están agrupados en unas Antologías comentadas de leyendas sobre bandoleros eslovacos y catalanes. En la introducción del trabajo teórico, la autora expresa el deseo de “analizar la imagen del bandolero en la tradición catalana y eslovaca y compararlas, demostrando que en las dos tradiciones dicha imagen se ha sometido a parecidos procesos de trasformación”. Se trata de aquel proceso mediante el cual la imagen del bandido criminal ha logrado convertirse en la de un héroe idealizado, generoso que quita a los ricos para dar a los pobres. Para llevar a cabo tal análisis, la autora parte en el primer capítulo de la comparación histórica del bandolerismo en Cataluña y en Eslovaquia, fenómenos que se identifican con los términos del “bandolerismo mediterráneo o pirenaico” y el “carpático”, sigue con una reflexión acerca de la figura del bandido en la prosa popular eslovaca y catalana en el segundo capítulo en el que se analiza la presencia de la figura del bandido en diferentes géneros de la prosa popular, para luego dedicarse en el tercer capítulo – el más extenso – a la comparación de las diferentes figuras de bandidos que aparecen en las leyendas populares. Especial atención se les concede en este capítulo a los dos grandes ciclos de leyendas sobre los bandidos representativos, Jánošik y Serrallonga, sobre los cuales existe mayor cantidad de leyendas. La autora trata de demostrar que las dos imágenes se rigen según las mismas pautas de la biografía histórica, ya que las leyendas existentes configuran en los dos casos una biografía marcada por los mismos momentos esenciales: 1. la infancia y la juventud (en el caso de Serrallonga se trata más bien de un período anterior al bandidaje, ya que las leyendas sobre su juventud son muy escasas); 2. la época del bandidaje; 3. la persecución del bandido; 4. la muerte del bandido; 5. el legado del bandido. Este paralelismo entre las dos tradiciones viene matizado por varios detalles particulares de las dos biografías (por ejemplo, se menciona que en las leyendas sobre Jánošik hay más elementos fantásticos que en las sobre Serralonga o que este tiene más rasgos de un héroe urbano que aquel), pero también viene completado por las figuras de otros bandoleros eslovacos y catalanes presentados al final del tercer capítulo. En el cuarto capítulo, dedicado a las conclusiones, la autora expresa su convicción de que las semejanzas que acaba de presentar no se deben a una influencia directa entre las dos zonas, que son bastante apartadas entre sí, sino son de carácter tipológico. Las llama “coincidencias tipológicas” y las define con las palabras de Viera Gašparíková: “Coincidencias tipológicas son aquellas que surgieron ‹‹de lo parecido de la condición humana, de las circunstancias vitales parecidas, de una situación vital parecida y de la similitud de los destinos humanos››”. La autora explica que en este caso, lo “parecido” se traduce en los prolongados conflictos bélicos y la consecuente inestabilidad de los dos espacios comparados que fueron causa de la crisis económica, 254 RECENZII de la pobreza generalizada y del desorden social, lo que creó un ambiente favorable para el desarrollo de diferentes formas de bandolerismo en Eslovaquia y Cataluña y que solo el progreso económico y la mejora de las condiciones de la vida que se produjeron de manera más palpable desde el siglo XIX, han llevado a la desaparición del bandolerismo (la autora tiene sus reservas con respecto a este tema y en la introducción del libro hace breves referencias a ciertas formas modernas de bandolerismo como las mafias o la piratería en la red). No obstante, el paralelismo general de las tradiciones eslovaca y catalana es contrarrestado por una diferencia esencial observada por la autora: en las leyendas eslovacas prevalece el contenido social (la imagen del bandolero cuya misión es de contrapesar la injusticia del sistema social quitando a los ricos y dando a los pobres), mientras que en las leyendas catalanas es más importante el contenido aventurero (una imagen del bandolero que se parece más a los héroes de novelas de caballería). También hace parte del capítulo cuarto una lista de motivos comunes o parecidos en las leyendas eslovacas y catalanas sobre bandidos. Para captar objetivamente estos motivos la autora se sirve del Catálogo de la literatura oral en prosa (Katalóg prozaických podaní) de Viera Gašparíková, en el cual se resumen y denominan los motivos conocidos en relación con los bandoleros carpáticos. Además, y esto es el segundo elemento novedoso del libro, Renata Bojničanova propone una serie de nuevos motivos interétnicos que podrían completar el catálogo. Así pues, al tratar el tema del bandolerismo, que es él mismo interesante, y al plantearlo desde la perspectiva de la comparación pirenaico–carpática, pero también por proponer una ampliación del catálogo de motivos folclóricos, el trabajo de Renata Bojničanova se convierte en un punto de referencia y lectura necesaria para quien se interesa por el folclore europeo en general o por el tema del bandolerismo en particular. Además, la publicación del libro en el editorial de la Universidad de Bucarest podría funcionar como un impulso para los especialistas rumanos a quienes la autora lanza un llamamiento para contribuir a completar la imagen del bandido en el folclore europeo con trabajos similares que incluyan un análisis del espacio cultural de las regiones históricas rumanas. En efecto, al leer la recopilación de leyendas que acompaña al trabajo teórico el lector rumano encontrará motivos que le son muy familiares ya que aparecen en las los cuentos y las leyendas rumanas también, como el motivo de la hierba mágica que abre cualquier puerta o candado (iarba fiarelor) – o la prueba de lanzar la maza para demostrar la fuerza y muchos otros. De este modo, la lectura de las antologías de textos sobre bandoleros que forma la segunda parte del libro puede resultar para algunos todavía más interesante que la lectura del material teórico mismo. El único defecto que tiene esta parte es el hecho de que los textos catalanes no vienen acompañados por la traducción española tal como ocurre en el caso de las leyendas eslovacas lo que se debe posiblemente a la presuposición de la autora de que el texto catalán es suficientemente inteligible para los lectores de castellano. Finalmente, el conjunto formado por el trabajo teórico y las antologías de leyendas de Renata Bojničanova es una lectura agradable. Especialistas en el folclore o simplemente aficionados a los cuentos y leyendas populares, los que leerán su libro (re-)descubrirán el placer de adentrarse en el fascinante mundo de los bandoleros. PAUL BUZILĂ∗ ∗ University of Bucharest, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, [email protected] ANALELE UNIVERSITĂŢII BUCUREŞTI (AUB) LIMBI ŞI LITERATURI STRĂINE ÎN ATENŢIA COLABORATORILOR Pentru o cooperare eficientă între editori, autori şi casa editorială, autorii de articole şi de recenzii sunt rugaţi să respecte următoarele norme: Articolele pot fi trimise în engleză, franceză, italiană, spaniolă, germană, rusă. Articolele trebuie să fie trimise pe suport electronic (e-mail sau CD) în format WORD (.doc or .rtf). Articolele trimise trebuie să conţină numele şi afilierea instituţională a autorilor, ca şi adresa de e-mail. 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În cazul în care una dintre componentele trimiterii bibliografice lipseşte, se vor folosi normele consacrate − [s.l.], [s.a.]. La volumele colective se va indica îndrumătorul/coordonatorul/editorul 256 prin (coord.) sau (ed.)/(eds.) după nume şi prenume. În cazul în care există mai mulţi autori/coordonatori/editori, doar primul nume va fi inversat (Zafiu, R., C. Stan...). Kleiber, Georges, 2001, L’anaphore associative, Paris, Presses Universitaires de France. Zafiu, R., C. Stan, Al. Nicolae (eds.), 2007, Studii lingvistice. Omagiu profesoarei Gabriela Pană Dindelegan, la aniversare, Bucureşti, Editura Universităţii din Bucureşti. (2) Pentru articole din volume colective: Rand Hoare, Michael, 2009, “Scientific and Technical Dictionnaries”, in A. P. Cowie (ed.), The Oxford History of English Lexicography, Oxford, Oxford University Press, pp. 47-94. (3) Pentru articole din reviste se indică numele autorului, prenumele autorului, anul, titlul articolului între ghilimele, urmat de in + numele revistei cu italic (neabreviat), volumul/tomul, numărul, pagini. În cazul în care există mai mulţi autori, doar primul nume va fi inversat. Fischer, I., 1968, « Remarques sur le traitement de la diphtongue au en latin vulgaire », in Revue Roumaine de Linguistique, XIII, nr. 5, pp. 417-420. Cornea, P., 1994, „Noţiunea de autor: statut şi mod de folosinţă”, în Limbă şi literatură, vol. III-IV, pp. 27-35. Toate referinţele bibliografice din text trebuie să apară în bibliografia finală. Articolele trimise vor fi discutate de o comisie de specialişti în domeniile filologice: lingvistică, literatură, studii culturale şi de traductologie. Articolele trebuie trimise la următoarea adresă de e-mail: [email protected] THE ANNALS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF BUCHAREST FOREIGN LANGUAGES AND LITERATURES NOTES FOR CONTRIBUTORS The authors of the articles and book reviews are requested to observe the following publication guidelines: The articles can be edited in English, French, Italian, Spanish, German, Russian. The articles should be submitted electronically (by e-mail or CD) in a WORD format (formats .doc or .rtf). The articles should contain the author’s full name and affiliation, along with the author’s e-mail address. The authors are requested to supply an auto-bio-bibliography (approximately 10 lines), in a footnote. The articles should contain an abstract (10-15 lines), followed by 5-7 Keywords (Times New Roman, 9, single spaced). All the articles and book reviews must be edited using diacritical marks; if there are special Fonts, these should also be sent. The page format: paper A4 (no Letter, Executive, A5 etc.); The page margins: top – 5,75 cm; bottom – 5 cm; left and right – 4,25 cm; header – 4,75 cm; footer – 1,25 cm. The articles submitted for publication must be typed single spaced, in Times New Roman, 11. The title of the article should be centered, bold, all capitals (Times New Roman, 11) The author’s name (bold capitals) should be centered, under the title (Times New Roman, 9). The abstract (with the translated title, if the article is written in other language than English; Times New Roman 9, single spaced) precedes the text of the article; the Keywords (Times New Roman 9, bold) follow the abstract and they are preceded by the word Keywords (in italics, bold). The notes should be indicated by superscript numbers in the text and typed at the bottom of the page (single spaced, Times New Roman 9). The references or the quotations sources should be indicated in the text, following the format: (Author year:(space)page) − (Pop 2001: 32); (Pop/Ionescu 2001: 32). The abbreviations or abbreviated titles (RRL, tome L, nos 3-4, p. 216) can be used in the papers; they will be included completely in the listed references at the end of the article, as it follows: RRL – Revue Roumaine de Linguistique, tome L, nos 3-4, 2005. The references should observe the following styles: 1. Books Basic Format: Author, A. (, B. B. Author, C. C. Author), Year of publication, Title of Work, Location, Publisher. Kleiber, Georges, 2001, L’anaphore associative, Paris, Presses Universitaires de France. 258 2. Edited Books Basic Format: Author, A. A. (, B. B. Author, C. C. Author)(ed./eds.), Year of publication, Title of Work, Location, Publisher (only the name of the first editor inverted). Zafiu, R., C. Stan, Al. Nicolae (eds.), 2007, Studii lingvistice. Omagiu profesoarei Gabriela Pană Dindelegan, la aniversare, Bucureşti, Editura Universităţii din Bucureşti. 3. Articles or Chapters in Edited Book Basic Format: Rand Hoare, Michael, 2009, “Scientific and Technical Dictionnaries”, in A. P. Cowie (ed.), The Oxford History of English Lexicography, Oxford, Oxford University Press, pp. 47-94. 4. Articles in Journals Basic Format: Author, A. A. (, B. B. Author), Year of publication, “Title of the article”, in Title of Periodical, volume number (issue number), pages. Fischer, I., 1968, « Remarques sur le traitement de la diphtongue au en latin vulgaire », in Revue Roumaine de Linguistique, XIII, nr. 5, pp. 417-420. All the bibliographical references should appear in the final bibliography. All the papers will be peer-reviewed by a committee of specialists in different philological fields: linguistics, literature, cultural studies, translation studies. The first version of the articles should be submitted to the e-mail address: [email protected] Tiparul s-a executat sub c-da nr. …../2012 la Tipografia Editurii Universităţii din Bucureşti LIMBI ŞI LITERATURI STRĂINE COLEGIUL DE REDACŢIE Redactor responsabil: Membri: Secretari de redacţie: Prof. dr. Andrei A. Avram Prof. dr. Mihaela Voicu Prof. dr. Alexandra Cornilescu Prof. dr. Constantin Geambaşu Prof. dr. George Guţu Prof. dr. Yves D’Hulst (Universitatea din Osnabrück) Prof. dr. Sanda Reinheimer-Rîpeanu Prof. h.c. dr. Stefan Sienerth (Universitatea din München) Prof. dr. Radu Toma Lect. dr. Sabina Popârlan Lect. dr. Ruxandra Vişan Redactor: Irina Hriţcu Tehnoredactor: Emeline-Daniela Avram Redacţia ANALELE UNIVERSITĂŢII Şos. Panduri nr. 90-92, 050663 Bucureşti ROMÂNIA Tel./Fax +40 214102384 E-mail: [email protected] Internet: www.editura.unibuc.ro Librărie online: http://librarie-unibuc.ro Centru de vânzare: Bd. Regina Elisabeta nr. 4-12, 030018 Bucureşti – ROMÂNIA Tel. +40 213143508 (int. 2125) ANALELE UNIVERSITĂŢII BUCUREŞTI LIMBI ŞI LITERATURI STRĂINE EXTRAS ANUL LXI – 2012, nr. 2