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Direction Dirección Direcció ZuzedaritzaPablo Barrio
Monographic coordination Coordinación del monográfico Coordinació del monogràfic Monografikoaren coordinazioaPaula MeissIbai Atutxa
Editorial board Consejo de redacción Consell de redacció Erredakzio KontseiluaNoemí Acebo, Izaro Arroita, Ibai Atutxa, Pablo Barrio, Joan Ferrús, Ana García, Atenea Isabel González, Inés Marcos, Bernat Padró Nieto, Paula Meiss, Francisco Piñón, Alba del Pozo García.
International Advisory Board Comité científico Comitè científic Batzorde zientifikoaTomás Albaladejo, Iñaki Aldekoa, Vicenç Altaió, Manuel Asensi, Ana Luisa Baquero, Luis Beltrán, Josu Bijuesca, Luis Alberto Blecua, Túa Blesa, Pedro M. Cátedra, Francisco Chico, Américo Cristófalo, Perfecto Cuadrado, Joseba Gabilondo, Germán Gullón, Jon Kortazar, Manuel Martínez, Mara Negrón, Rafael Núñez, Mari Jose Olaziregi, Manel Ollé, J. A. Pérez Bowie, J. M. Pozuelo Yvancos, David Roas, Rosa Romojaro, Mª Eugenia Steinberg, Enric Sullà, Meri Torras, Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek, Darío Villanueva.
Publishers Entidad editora Entitat editora ArgitaratzaileaAsociación Cultural 452ºF
Email adress Dirección electrónica Correu electrònic Helbide [email protected]
Postal address Dirección postal Direcció postal HelbideaUniversitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Edifici d’estudiants –Edifici R–. Campus Bellaterra. Barcelona. 08193
ISSN 2013-3294
Legal LegalaLicencia Reconocimiento-No comercial-Sin obras derivadas 3.0 de Creative Commons
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We are pleased to present this second issue of 452ºF Journal of Literary Theory and Comparative Literature. Behind it we find the work and effort of an Editorial Board which includes new members, as well as the support of an International Advisory Board that continues to offer its work to enforce this project. Moreover, we also have to mention the financial support granted by the Consell Social (UAB) through its Programa Universitat i Societat, and by the ETC from the same university.
For this monographic section of 452ºF we decided to focus on the interest created by postcolonial and subaltern studies, as well as on the discussion of comparative literature as the discipline that aims to overcome the national identifications of literature. We have tried to present some ways in which those disciplines are productive for literary theory; different kinds of strategies they use to approach the literary event, and which are their contributions to the literary corpus. Thus, we can ask ourselves if there is a certain stagnation of criticism in its approach to the texts; in other words, whether new literary proposals have not been incorporated to theoretical thought, or whether on the contrary they reveal their productivity in practice. We proposed two ways to organize the problematization of the relation between national identities and literature. On the one hand, we suggested the analysis of literary texts that would argue, propose or ask themselves about national identities. For this line of analysis we did not want to be led by already-established conceptualizations of the nationalities those literatures are assigned to. We have valued those approaches that suggest breaking and questioning the established, as well as those articulations that justify traditional assignments when the approach is well-supported and original.
On the other hand, we were also interested in the questioning through original disciplinary and theoretical reflections that would provide possible answers to the problematization of the immovable relation within the noun phrase national literature, a dismantling of the naturalness of this relation that has been developing in different areas of the academia. The concepts of deconstruction (Derrida), postnationality (Gabilondo, Castany Prado, Resina), postcoloniality (Bhabha, Said), empire and globalization (Hart, Negri), nomadism (Gnisci), subalternity (Spivak) and the identity as rhizome (Deleuze—Guattari) are only a few that can be incorporated to a new reflection on national identity and its relation with the disciplines that
EDITORIAL en-
study literature. We have tried to find contemporary approaches to the subject, both in their attempts to understand the present situation of literature and its study, and also in their overview of the state of the art in different geographical areas.
The Monographic section of this issue includes four collaborations. In “Apología de la literatura inmigrante”, Paula Meiss starts analysing migratory travel literature as a new subgenre, to conclude questioning not only the concept of “national literature”, but also the understanding of national identities that comparative literature proposes. “Interrogating Notions of Nationhood, Nation and Globalization in Postcolonial Africa” by Elda and Chipo Hungwe is based on the close reading of four novels that interestingly exemplify the transition from a criticism that is born out of postcolonial thought, to an analysis that differentiates itself through its focus on concepts such as “nation,” “nationality,” ethnicity” or “nationalism.” The third article, “My Name Is Legion: Literature and Genealogy in António Lobo Antunes” by Aino Rinhaug, is based on Foucault’s and Deleuze’s theoretical proposals, aiming at the better understanding of the power relations that articulate the discourse on the nation, and the nation as a discourse. The last article of the monographic section, “Re-enacting the Nation: Unsettling Narratives in the El Güegüense Theatre of Nicaragua”, by Alberto Guevara, carries out a comparison between the critical reading of the play and the different stage productions of it in different festivities, to propose the dramatic genre as a site where the homogeneity of cultures and identities are questioned through mestizaje.
The Miscellany section also has four articles. Raquel de Medeiros Marcato in “Gênero comercial em evidência: O filme Cidade de Deus manipula a realidade?” attacks the stereotypes that commercial cinema makes use of in order to represent realistic violence. Владимир Луарсабишвили’ s article “«к переводу стихотворения г. арести ‘Defenderé la casa de mi padre’” presents some of the poetic translation problems that we can find when dealing with two languages that do not have an extensive interchange. It is a special collaboration for this issue in its Basque version, written by the same translator whose work is analysed in the article. Leticia Pérez in “The Surrealist Collection of Objects” analyses the object collecting that different Surrealist artists practiced as an expression of a certain positioning towards the materialism of society. Last, but not least, Melissa Guenther offers in “L’Espagne sous le regard d’une Française: la Relation du voyage d’Espagne (1691) de Madame d’Aulnoy” a contrast between Spanish and French feminine representations, under the gaze of a female traveller of the 17th century.
Probably one of the most interesting proposals of our understanding of the monographic section of this second issue of 452ºF lies in the fact that it does not suggest continuity, but a breaking-off. We invite the reader to actually read and interpret: to be critical; and we hope that s/he is not left indifferent to the proposal we offer. The aim of the journal’s second issue is to provide original perspectives and, to a certain extent, a summary of the aspirations of the journal as an instrument of spreading and updating knowledge: we offer a selection done today to understand what is happening today around literature.
EDITORIAL es-
Presentamos aquí el segundo número de 452ºF Revista de Teoría de la literatura y Literatura comparada. Tras la aparición de este ejemplar se esconde el trabajo de un consejo de redacción renovado por nuevas presencias, así como de un comité científico que continúa ofreciendo su apoyo a este proyecto. Además, podemos mencionar la ayuda financiera obtenida del Consell Social de la UAB a través de su Programa Universitat i Societat, así como del ETC de la misma universidad.
Para este monográfico de 452ºF hemos querido partir del interés que han creado los estudios poscoloniales y de subalternidad, así como de la discusión de la literatura comparada entendida como la disciplina que apunta a superar las identificaciones nacionales de la literatura. Hemos buscado presentar de qué maneras esas disciplinas son productivas para la teoría de la literatura, de qué diferentes estrategias se valen para acercarse al hecho literario, y cuáles son los aportes que añaden al corpus teórico. De esta forma podemos preguntarnos si existe un cierto estancamiento de la crítica en su acercamiento a los textos, esto es, si las nuevas propuestas literarias no han sido incorporadas a la reflexión teórica, o si en cambio, demuestran su productividad en la práctica. Propusimos como eje la problematización de la relación entre identidades nacionales y literatura a través de dos vías. Por un lado, sugerimos el análisis de textos literarios que cuestionaran, propusieran y/o se interrogaran acerca de las identidades nacionales. Para ello no deseamos regirnos por conceptualizaciones ya establecidas en relación con las nacionalidades a las que se adscriben las literaturas. Se han valorado enfoques que tienden hacia la ruptura y el cuestionamiento, así como aquellas articulaciones que justifican las adscripciones tradicionales si el enfoque es fundamentado y original.
Por otra parte, buscamos también el cuestionamiento a través de reflexiones teórico-disciplinares novedosas, que articularan respuestas posibles a la puesta en duda de lo inamovible del sintagma literatura nacional, una desarticulación de lo natural de esta relación que viene sucediendo en diversos ámbitos de la academia. Los conceptos de deconstrucción (Derrida), posnacionalidad (Gabilondo, Castany Prado, Resina), poscolonialidad (Bhabha, Said), imperio y globalización (Negri, Hart), nomadismo (Gnisci) y subalternidad (Spivak), y la identidad como rizoma (Deleuze-Guattari) son sólo algunos de los que es posible incorporar
a una nueva reflexión sobre la identidad nacional y su relación con las disciplinas que estudian la literatura. Hemos buscado acercamientos al tema que pudieran caratularse de contemporáneos, en tanto buscan comprender la situación actual de la literatura y su estudio; y también en cuanto proceden de reflexiones formadas en el conocimiento del estado de la cuestión en los diversos ámbitos geográficos.
El Monográfico de este número cuenta con cuatro colaboraciones. En el artículo «Apología de la literatura inmigrante», Paula Meiss parte del estudio del relato de viaje migratorio, para acabar el análisis poniendo en duda no sólo el concepto de «literatura nacional», sino la misma comprensión de la identidad nacional desde la literatura comparada. «Interrogating Notions of Nationhood, Nation and Globalisation in Postcolonial Africa» de Elda y Chipo Hungwe, se basa en la lectura de cuatro novelas y ejemplifica de forma muy interesante la transición de una crítica que nace del pensamiento poscolonial, a un análisis que consigue dar un paso diferenciador al centrarse en conceptos como «nación», «nacionalidad», «etnicidad» o «nacionalismo». El tercer artículo, «My Name Is Legion: Literature and Genealogy in António Lobo Antunes» de Aino Rinhaug, nace de las propuestas teóricas foucaultianas y deleuzianas con el objetivo de comprender mejor las relaciones de poder que articulan el discurso de la nación, y la nación como discurso. El último artículo del monográfico, «Re-enacting the Nation: Unsettling Narratives in the El Güegüense Theatre of Nicaragua» de Alberto Guevara, lleva a cabo una comparación entre la lectura crítica de la obra de teatro, y las diferentes puestas en escena en festividades, para así proponer el género dramático como lugar donde se cuestiona desde el mestizaje la homogeneización de las identidades y culturas. En todos ellos, creemos, es posible leer la teoría de la literatura, la literatura comparada y la misma literatura como anclaje de un pensamiento que libera las identidades colectivas de las imposiciones geopolíticas establecidas en el mapa global actual, abriendo la posibilidad a nuevas comprensiones que rompen con una idea ontológica del ser nacional.
La sección de Miscelánea cuenta en esta ocasión con cuatro artículos. Raquel de Medeiros Marcato en «Gênero comercial em evidência: O filme Cidade de Deus manipula a realidade?» ataca los estereotipos de los que parte un cierto cine comercial para utilizar representaciones de la violencia realista. El artículo de Владимир Луарсабишвили «к переводу стихотворения г. арести “Defenderé la casa de mi padre”» presenta algunos problemas de traducción poética entre dos lenguas sin intercambio extenso, y es una colaboración especial en su versión en euskera, realizada por el mismo traductor cuyo trabajo se analiza en el artículo. Leticia Pérez en «The Surrealist Collection of Objects» lleva adelante un análisis del coleccionismo que desarrollaron diversos artistas surrealistas como expresión de una postura ante el materialismo de la sociedad. Por último, Melissa Guenther ofrece en «L’Espagne sous le regard d’une Française: la Relation du voyage d’Espagne (1691) de Madame d’Aulnoy» un contraste entre las representaciones femeninas españolas y francesas bajo la mirada de una viajera del siglo XVII.
Puede que una de las propuestas más interesantes que resulten de nuestra lectura del monográfico de este segundo número de 452ºF resida en que no se limita a proponer la continuidad, sino la ruptura. Invitamos al lector a que lea e interprete: a que sea crítico; y esperamos que no quede indiferente ante la propuesta que ofrecemos en este propósito de conseguir un segundo número de la revista que aúne perspectivas novedosas y que resuma en gran medida las aspiraciones de la revista en tanto instrumento de difusión y actualización: ofrecemos un trabajo hecho hoy para entender hoy lo que pasa alrededor de la literatura.
EDITORIAL ca-
Presentem aquí el segon número de 452ºF Revista de Teoria de la Literatura i Literatura Comparada. Darrere de l’aparició d’aquest ejemplar s’amaga el treball d’un consell de redacció renovat per noves presències, així com un comitè científic que continua oferint el seu suport a aquest projecte. Podem mencionar, a més, la ajuda financera obtinguda del Consell Social de la UAB mitjançant el seu programa Universitat i Societat, així com del ETC de la mateixa universitat.
En aquest monogràfic de 452ºF hem volgut partir de l’interès que han creat els estudis postcolonials i de la subalternitat, així com de la discussió de la literatura comparada entesa como una disciplina que apunta a superar les identificacions nacionals de la literatura. Hem buscat presentar de quines maneres aquestes disciplines son productives per a la teoria de la literatura, quines estratègies utilitzen per aproximar-se al fenomen literari i quines son les aportacions que afegeixen al corpus teòric. D’aquesta manera podem preguntar-nos si existeix un cert estancament de la crítica en el seu acostament als textos, és a dir, si les noves propostes literàries no han sigut incorporades a la reflexió teòrica o si, en canvi, demostren la seva productivitat en la pràctica. Vam proposar com a eix la problematització de la relació entre identitats nacionals i literatura a través de dues vies. D’una banda, vam suggerir l’anàlisi de textos literaris que qüestionessin, proposessin i/o s’interroguessin sobre les identitats nacionals. Per a aquest propòsit no desitgem regir-nos per conceptualitzacions ja establertes en relació amb les nacionalitats a les quals s’adscriuen les literatures. S’han valorat enfocaments que tendeixen cap a la ruptura i el qüestionament, així com aquelles articulacions que justifiquen les adscripcions tradicionals si l’enfocament és fonamentat i original.
D’una altra banda, vam buscar també el qüestionament a través de reflexions teòrico-disciplinars noves, que articulessin respostes possibles a la posada en dubte de la immobilitat del sintagma literatura nacional, una desarticulació de la naturalitat d’aquesta relació que ve succeint en diversos àmbits de l’acadèmia. Els conceptes de deconstrucció (Derrida), posnacionalitat (Gabilondo, Castany Prado, Resina), poscolonialitat (Bhabha, Said), imperi i globalització (Negri, Hart), nomadisme (Gnisci), subalternitat (Spivak) i la identitat com a rizoma (Deleuze-Guattari) són només alguns dels quals és possible incorporar a una nova reflexió
sobre la identitat nacional i la seva relació amb les disciplines que estudien la literatura. Hem buscat aproximacions al tema que poguessin considerar-se contemporànies, en tant que busquen comprendre la situació actual de la literatura i la seva investigació; i també quan procedeixen de reflexions formades en el coneixement de l’estat de la qüestió en els diversos àmbits geogràfics.
El Monogràfic d’aquest número consta de quatre col•laboracions. En l’article «Apología de la literatura inmigrante», Paula Meiss parteix de l’estudi del relat de viatge migratori, per acabar l’anàlisi posant en dubte no només el concepte de «literatura nacional», sinó la mateixa comprensió de la identitat nacional des de la literatura comparada. «Interrogating Notions of Nationhood, Nation and Globalisation in Postcolonial Africa» d’Elda i Chipo Hungwe, es basa en la lectura de quatre novel•les i exemplifica de forma molt interessant la transició d’una crítica que neix del pensament poscolonial, a una anàlisi que aconsegueix donar un pas diferenciador al centrar-se en conceptes com «nació», «nacionalitat», «etnicitat» o «nacionalisme». El tercer article, «My Name Is Legion: Literature and Genealogy in António Lobo Antunes» d’Aino Rinhaug, neix de les propostes teòriques foucaultianes i deleuzianes amb l’objectiu de comprendre millor les relacions de poder que articulen el discurs de la nació i la nació com a discurs. L’últim article del monogràfic, «Re-enacting the Nation: Unsettling Narratives in the El Güegüense Theatre of Nicaragua» d’Alberto Guevara, porta a terme una comparació entre la lectura crítica de l’obra de teatre i les diferents posades en escena en festivitats, per proposar el gènere dramàtic com a lloc on es qüestiona des del mestissatge la homogeneïtzació de les identitats i cultures. En tots ells, creiem, és possible llegir la teoria de la literatura, la literatura comparada i la mateixa literatura com l’ancoratge d’un pensament que allibera les identitats col•lectives de les imposicions geopolítiques establertes al mapa global actual, obrint la possibilitat a noves comprensions que trenquen amb una idea ontològica del ser nacional.
La secció de Miscel•lània compta en aquesta ocasió amb quatre articles. Raquel de Medeiros Marcato en «Gênero comercial em evidência: O filmi Cidade de Deus manipula a realidade?» ataca els estereotips dels quals parteix un cert cinema comercial per a utilitzar representacions de la violència realista. L’article de Владимир Луарсабишвили «к переводу стихотворения г. арести “Defensaré la casa del meu pare”» presenta alguns problemes de traducció poètica entre dues llengües sense intercanvi extens, i és una col•laboració especial en la seva versió en euskera realitzada pel mateix traductor, el treball del qual s’analitza en l’article. Leticia Pérez a «The Surrealist Collection of Objects» porta a terme una anàlisi del coleccionisme que van desenvolupar diversos artistes surrealistes com a expressió d’una postura davant del materialisme de la societat. Finalment, Melissa Guenther ofereix en «L’Espagne sous le regard d’une Française: la Relation du voyage d’Espagne (1691) de Madame d’Aulnoy» un contrast entre les representacions femenines espanyoles i franceses sota la mirada d’una viatgera del segle XVII.
Potser una de les propostes més interessants que resulten de la nostra lectura del monogràfic d’aquest segon número de 452ºF resideix en que no es limita a proposar la continuïtat, sinó que aposta per la ruptura. Convidem al lector a que llegeixi i interpreti, a que sigui crític. Esperem que no quedi indiferent davant la proposta que oferim sota l’objectiu d’aconseguir un segon número que incorpori noves perspectives i que resumeixi en gran mesura les aspiracions de la revista en tant que instrument de difusió i actualització: oferim un treball fet avui per entendre avui el que passa al voltant de la literatura.
EDITORIALA eu-
452ºF Literaturaren teoria era Literatura konparatua aldizkariaren bigarren alea da hemen aurkezten duguna. Argitalpen honen atzean, erredakzio kontseilu berrituaren lana dago, eta baita proiektua babesten jarraitzen duen batzorde zientifikoarena ere. Gainera, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona-ko Consell Social-ak, Universitat i Societat programaren bitartez, emandako diru-laguntza aipatu behar dugu, eta baita unibertsitateko ETC-ak emandakoa ere.
Ale honetako monografikoaren oinarrian, ikasketa postkolonialek eta subalternitate ikasketek sortu duten interesa dago. Literatura konparatuaren baitan sortutako eztabaida hori hartu dugu aintzat, literatura eta nazioak lotzen dituen identifikazioa gainditzearen alde egiten duela kontuan izanda. Diziplina horiek literaturaren teoriari eta corpus teorikoari egin dizkioten ekarpenak aztertu nahi izan ditugu, eta baita gertaera literariora hurreratzeko erabiltzen dituzten estrategiak ere. Geure buruari galdegin diogu kritika geldirik ote dagoen nolabait, testuetara hurbiltzean, hau da, hausnarketa teorikoak ez ote dituen literatur proposamen berriak bere egin edota praktikan frogatzen ote den proposamen horien emankortasuna. Nazio identitateen eta literaturaren arteko harremanaren problematizazioa hartu genuen ardatz, bi bidetatik. Alde batetik, nazio identitateen inguruan galderak eta zalantzak planteatzen dituzten literatur testuen azterketa iradoki genuen. Horretarako, ez ditugu literaturari esleitzen zaizkion nazionalitateen inguruan nagusitu diren kontzeptualizazioak erabili nahi. Haustura eta zalantza dakarten ikuspuntuak hartu ditugu aintzat, baina baita tradizioari atxikitakoak ere, originalak eta ongi oinarritutakoak izatekotan.
Literatura nazionala, aldaezina dirudien sintagma hori, zalantzan jartzen duten diziplina-hausnarketa berritzaileak bilatu nahi izan ditugu, harreman horretan naturala dena desegiten dutenak, akademiaren arlo ezberdinetan egiten ari diren bezala. Beraz, nazio identitatearen eta literatura ikertzen duten diziplinen arteko harremanaren inguruan hausnartzeko erabiliko ditugun kontzeptuen artean izango ditugu dekonstrukzioa (Derrida), postnazionalitatea (Gabilondo, Castany Prado, Resina), postkolonialitatea (Bhabha, Said), inperioa eta globalizazioa (Negri, Hart), nomadismoa (Gnisci) eta subalternitatea (Spivak), edota identitatea errizoma gisa (Deleuze-Guattari). Garaikidetzat har ditzakegun hurbilketak hartu ditugu aintzat; literaturaren eta bere ikerketaren egungo egoera ulertzea dute helburu, eta gainera, leku
ezberdinetan, gaia zertan den jakinda egindako hausnarketak dira.
Ale honetako monografikoak lau kolaborazio ditu. “Apología de la literatura inmigrante” artikuluan, Paula Meissek migrazio-bidaien kontakizunak aztertu ditu, zalantzan jarriaz “literatura nazionala” kontzeptua eta baita nazio identitatea ere, literatura konparatuaren ikuspegitik. Elda eta Chipo Hungweren “Interrogating Notions of Nationhood, Nation and Globalisation in Postcolonial Africa” artikulua lau nobelen irakurketa da eta oso modu interesgarrian adierazten du pentsamendu postkolonialean sortutako kritikatik pauso bat haratago doan kritikarako trantsizioa, “nazioa”, “naziotasuna”, “etniatasuna” edota “nazionalismoa” bezalako kontzeptuak aztertuta. Hirugarren artikulua, Aino Rinhaug-en “My Name Is Legion: Literature and Genealogy in António Lobo Antunes”, Foucaulten eta Deleuze-ren proposamen teorikoetatik abiatzen da. Helburua botere harremanak ulertzea da; nazioaren diskurtsoak eta nazioa diskurtso gisa kontuan hartuta. Monografikoko azken artikuluan, “Re-enacting the Nation: Unsettling Narratives in the El Güegüense Theatre of Nicaragua”, Alberto Guevarak alderatu egin ditu antzezlan baten irakurketa kritikoa eta jaialdietako eszenaratze ezberdinak. Proposamen honen arabera, antzerkian, mestizajetik, zalantzan jartzen da identitateen eta kulturen homogeneizatzea. Artikulu horietan guztietan, presente daude literaturaren teoria eta literatura konparatua, eta baita talde nortasunak egungo mapa globalean ezarritako inposizio geopolitikoetatik askatzen dituen pentsamoldea ere. Bide egiten diote beraz, izate nazionalaren ideia ontologikoa apurtzen duten pentsaera berriei.
Miszelanea sailak lau artikulu ditu oraingoan. “Gênero comercial em evidência: O filme Cidade de Deus manipula a realidade?” delakoan, Raquel de Medeiros Marcatok indarkeria errealista irudikatzeko zinema komertzialak darabiltzan estereotipoak aztertzen ditu. Владимир Луарсабишвили-en “к переводу стихотворения г. Арести ‘Nire aitaren etxea defendatuko dut’” artikuluak itzulpengintza poetikoaren arazoetako batzuk aztertzen ditu harreman esturik ez duten bi hizkuntzen artean. Euskarazko bertsioa kolaborazio berezia da, itzultzaileak berak bere lana azalduaz egina. Leticia Pérezek, “The Surrealist Collection of Objects” artikuluan, zenbait artista surrealisten bildumazaletasuna aztertzen du, gizartearen materialismoaren aurrean hartutako jarrera gisa. Azkenik, “L’Espagne sous le regard d’une Française: la Relation du voyage d’Espagne (1691) de Madame d’Aulnoy” artikuluan, Melissa Guenther-ek emakume espainiarren eta frantziarren irudikapenak alderatu ditu, XVII. mendeko bidaiari baten ikuspuntutik.
Behar bada, 452ºF aldizkariaren bigarren ale honetako monografikoaren alderdirik interesgarriena da jarraipena baino haustura proposatzen duela. Irakurri eta interpretatzeko gonbidapena egin nahi genioke irakurleari, kritikoa izan dadila, epel gera ez dadila. Bigarren ale honetan ikuspuntu berritzaileak biltzea izan da gure xedea, aldizkariaren beraren helburuak laburbilduaz, hedatzeko eta gaurkotzeko tresna dela uste baitugu: gaur egindako lana eskaintzen dugu, gaur ulertzeko literaturaren inguruan gertatzen ari dena.
PAULA MEISS Apología de la literatura
inmigrante: ¿hacia una hospitalidad planetaria?
ELDA HUNGWE | CHIPO HUNGWE
Interrogating Notions of Nationhood, Nation and
Globalisation in Postcolonial Africa: A Textual Analysis of
Four African Novels
AINO RINHAUG My Name Is Legion
Literature and Genealogy in António Lobo Antunes
ALBERTO GUEVARA Re-enacting the nation:
Unsettling Narratives in the El Güegüense Theatre of
Nicaragua
13 30 48 62
RAQUEL DE MEDEIROS
MARCATOGênero comercial em
evidência: O filme Cidade de Deus manipula a realidade?
ВЛАДИМИР ЛУАРСАБИШВИЛИ
К переводу стихотворения г. Арести «defenderé la casa
de mi padre»
LETICIA PÉREZThe Surrealist
Collection of Objects
MELISSA GUENTHER
L’Espagne sous le regard d’une Française : la Relation
du voyage d’Espagne (1691) de Madame d’Aulnoy
80 96 112 127
mono
mis
mono
Juan Manuel Tavella
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Cita recomendada || MEISS, Paula (2010): “Apología de la literatura inmigrante: ¿hacia una hospitalidad planetaria?” [artículo en línea], 452ºF. Revista electrónica de teoría de la literatura y literatura comparada, 2, 13-29, [Fecha de consulta: dd/mm/aa], < http://www.452f.com/index.php/es/paula-meiss.html >.Ilustración || Carlos Aquilué Artículo || Recibido: 09/10/2009 | Apto Comité científico: 8/11/2009 | Publicado: 01/2010Licencia || Licencia Reconocimiento-No comercial-Sin obras derivadas 3.0 de Creative Commons.
APOLOGÍA DE LA LITERATURA INMIGRANTE: ¿HACIA UNA HOSPITALIDAD PLANETARIA?Paula MeissDoctoranda en teoría de la literatura y literatura comparada Universitat de Barcelona
452ºF
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Resumen || El presente artículo postula la posibilidad de utilizar el relato de viaje migratorio como objeto de estudio de una disciplina comparatista que tenga en cuenta, por una parte, las consideraciones de Armando Gnisci sobre la hospitalidad y, por otro lado, también las de Gayatri Spivak sobre la planetariedad de la literatura comparada. De esta forma, intenta postular una posible línea de investigación en literatura comparada que no requiera del concepto de ‘literatura nacional’ para poder llevarse a cabo. El análisis del relato de viaje migratorio, a través de una serie de variables reconocidas dentro de la tradición de viajes, permite en fondo y en forma un comparatismo del encuentro.
Palabras clave || Viaje | Migración | Literatura comparada | Gnisci | Spivak | Weltliteratur.
Abstract || This paper suggests the possibility of making use of the narrative of migration as the object of study of a comparatist discipline that takes into account Armando Gnisci’s considerations on hospitality, as well as Gayatri Spivak’s on planetarity and comparative literature. In this sense, the paper aims at suggesting a possible line of research en comparative literature that needs not rely on the concept of national literature to be developed. The analysis of the narrative of migration, through a series of variables well recognised in travel literature, allows both in form and contents a comparatism of the encounter.
Key-words || Travel | Migration | Comparative literature | Gnisci | Spivak | Weltliteratur.
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0. (in)Dependencia de la nación
El objetivo del presente trabajo se desprende de la siguiente premisa: si bien la literatura comparada como disciplina ha aceptado definirse, aún a día de hoy, a partir de las largamente establecidas y cuestionadas literaturas nacionales1, es posible aún también buscar las formas y recursos necesarios para que esto no sea condición sine qua non en el funcionamiento de la disciplina como tal. Así, una de las formas puede desprenderse de la tradición imagológica que escogió a la literatura de viajes como objeto privilegiado de estudio comparatista (Brunel, 1994: 125; Gnisci, 2002: 255). Lo que sugiere el presente artículo es la posibilidad de actualizar en el relato de viaje migratorio ciertas líneas de investigación ya abiertas para el estudio del relato de viaje, entendido a la manera más clásica como aquel en que se parte, se viaja y se vuelve. De esta forma, y teniendo en cuenta la contextualización histórico-sociológica que cada texto reclamará para sí, es posible investigar de qué maneras el relato de viaje migratorio permite un acercamiento a la literatura que no requiera de la nación para significar. Entendemos que, en tanto que texto literario que cambia de nación, un relato de migración se encuentra a la vez entre las dos y en ninguna de las dos posibles identidades nacionales que se le podrían adscribir. De esta forma, representa, en el doble sentido de que pone en escena y ejemplifica, la transitoriedad de esa identidad nacional literaria a la que parece tan difícil renunciar.
Nos interesa establecer de qué manera es posible inscribir el relato de la experiencia migratoria dentro del relato de viajes. Existe una tradición ciertamente consolidada de literatura de viajes, que no por eso deja de ser conflictiva a la hora de ser definida. Es a través del análisis de ciertos elementos presentes en esta clase de textos, que han sido tema de reflexión tanto de autores como de la crítica, que la inscripción del relato de migración dentro de una tradición más amplia de literatura de viajes podrá llevarse a cabo. En este sentido, existirá una amplia producción textual que podría etiquetarse bajo el concepto de ‘migración’, pero aún así no ser adscripta a esta propuesta dado que no contemplará todas o algunas de las variables que establecemos como pertinentes. Por eso, hablamos de aquel relato de viaje migratorio que contiene en sí mismo una reflexión —si bien más o menos velada— acerca del hecho de contar la historia; el relato del viaje migratorio que postula autopercepciones y visiones del Otro que permitan una reflexión sobre la construcción de identidad a través de la literatura; el relato del viaje migratorio que permita una discusión acerca del estatuto autobiográfico y el literario de la narración de la experiencia, si es que esta distinción tiene validez; por último, el relato de viaje que a través de una conciencia de relación con el paisaje habilite a reflexionar acerca de la relación
NOTAS
1 | Todo manual de literatura comparada incluye un apartado que versa sobre literaturas nacionales, sea para fundamentarse en su existencia inter-nacional, o para complicarse en su vertiente supra-nacional.
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del migrante con el espacio de acogida.
1. ¿Migrar no es viajar?
A partir de una recopilación del estado de la cuestión en el ámbito hispánico sobre la narrativa de viajes en general, y el tema de «literatura y migración» en particular, resulta como mínimo sorprendente la ausencia de reflexiones teóricas articuladas acerca de la pertenencia o no de la narrativa de migración a la literatura de viajes, o de colecciones de artículos sobre el tema «viajes y literatura» que incluyan algún trabajo sobre la literatura de la migración2. Caren Kaplan (1996: 2-4) realiza una serie de consideraciones que son imprescindibles para comenzar a distinguir las diferentes formas que el viaje adquiere a partir de la (pos)modernidad, y encontrar el lugar de la migración, como forma específica de desplazamiento, dentro del viaje como concepto general. No se pretende descontextualizar el objeto de estudio en pos de una categoría estética superior, como sería el desplazamiento, sino reconocer que una selección de textos susceptibles de ser reunidos bajo el nombre de ‘iteratura del viaje migratorio’ requiere que se reconozca en ellos mismos una voluntad de tematización de la migración, ya que, como señala Kaplan «such a solidarity or affiliation is political, however, and cannot simply be assumed through the articulation of aesthetic principles of literary exile or the deployment of generalized metaphors» (1996: 105).
Domenico Nucera (2002: 248) parte de reflexiones etimológicas para intentar definir la literatura de viajes, pero su clasificación excluye deliberadamente la posibilidad de que la migración constituya un viaje. De hecho, llega a afirmar que, como suceso contemporáneo, «el viaje ha terminado» (2002: 280). Dicho postulado implica considerar que nada nuevo hay para descubrir, que «hoy cualquier lugar está tan cerca y es tan poco imprevisible que ya no ofrece ninguna meta prestigiosa y exclusiva, reservada a pocos elegidos audaces, entonces, para poder ostentar el título de viajero» (281). Podemos estar de acuerdo o no con la idea de previsibilidad de cualquier lugar (y, de hecho, no lo estamos) en tanto que los lugares sólo se vuelven significativos al ser transitados, y esto siempre se podrá volver a hacer. En el planteo que nos proponemos defender, el acto de inmigrar a un espacio que es cercano a la tradición occidental, pero que puede volver a ser recorrido por un Otro (no tan ajeno como se pretende), constituye una posibilidad de re-significación de los espacios que no puede ser dejada de lado con la idea de que «el viaje ha terminado». También permite volver a pensar el viaje en sí, el viajero, las motivaciones y objetos de los mismos. Ignorar este desplazamiento de personas que se viene realizando desde tanto tiempo atrás, y que se ha ignorado durante otro tanto,
NOTAS
2 | Ver, por ejemplo, Mariño, M. y María de la O Oliva, 2004 y 2006.
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no es algo que pueda favorecer al desarrollo de las humanidades. Como señala Auerbach, negar un fenómeno de la historia es intentar escapar a la misma, y eso es algo que la literatura comparada no puede permitirse3.
Igualmente Nucera se concentra en las etimologías de los verbos partir, viajar y volver para ofrecer, a través de su interpretación de los significados que hoy le damos a estos términos, una definición del género literario, y su punto de partida puede sernos útil. A través del verbo partir establece la doble significación de separación y conjunción con el futuro que todo acto de estas características dispone. Con el verbo viajar, destaca que este acto implica más que el desplazamiento; viajar constituye «cómo ha sido recibida y transformada la experiencia del viaje, es decir, el descubrimiento del “lugar otro” » y por eso espera un «re-nacimiento bajo una forma distinta, dada la experiencia del “lugar otro” y del encuentro con el “otro” » (248). Hasta aquí, nada impediría incluir la narrativa de la migración dentro del género más amplio del viaje. Pero se añade también el verbo volver, y para Nucera esto haría que un relato migratorio no se pueda considerar de viaje: «Llegar a un lugar y quedarse allí no es viajar. Es más bien lo que en una biografía sería clasificado como un simple traslado, cambio de residencia» (250). Sobre este proceso que se define como «simple» versan todas las posibilidades que vislumbramos para esta narrativa. Creemos que en cierta medida todo relato del viaje migratorio podría entenderse como la transformación de ese volver, que no deja de percibirse como necesario, en otra cosa. El retorno no será nunca algo que se descarte. Habrá que considerar entonces qué pasa si esa vuelta postergada hace que, por un lado, el viaje no acabe nunca; y que, por el otro, haya que buscar formas de acabarlo que no impliquen el retorno al punto de partida, ya que como el mismo Nucera sugiere «siempre se parte para volver, también en el caso en que la meta no coincida geográficamente con el punto de salida» (2002: 250).
1.2 Nostalgias
El elemento que media este retorno imposible, según se reitera en la bibliografía consultada, es la nostalgia. La palabra contiene etimológicamente los significados de «regreso» y «dolor». Una de las posibles interpretaciones de esta combinación es el dolor que produce el regreso postergado. Otra, más productiva tal vez, tiene que ver con saber que el regreso no garantiza el final del dolor: una vez que se ha partido ya la vuelta nunca nos llevará a lo mismo. Este acontecimiento dentro del viaje —la conciencia de que la vuelta sin más es imposible— permitirá la narración del mismo, en un narrar el acontecimiento que concluye y define al acontecimiento mismo. Podemos pensar que ese saber que al volver ya nada será lo mismo funcionará de manera conservadora con una fuerza mayor que la
NOTAS
3 | «El que som, ho em esdevingut en la nostra història, i només en ella podem romandre com a tals i desenvoluparnos. Mostrar això, de manera penetrant, i que no s’oblidi, és la tasca del Weltfilologen (filòleg universal) dels nostres temps», Auerbach, E. (1958: 120).
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posibilidad de deconstruir discursos heredados, y reestablecer en el juego literario una nueva identidad a través de esa narración del acontecimiento. Elleke Boehmer señala que:
Migrant literatures represent a geographic, cultural, and political retreat by writers from the new but ailing nations of the post-colonial world back to the old metropolis, the literatures are a product of that retreat; they are marked by its disillusionment (1995: 237).
y con ella deseamos reconocer esa especificidad histórica que no permite considerar alegre y despreocupadamente el movimiento migratorio. No se trata de celebrar una experiencia que puede haber sido traumática, sino de identificar, trabajar, y comparar lo que de ella pueda surgir en la forma de texto literario. De este modo, tampoco se trata de revalorizar una literatura que es poco o nada conocida en la sociedad de partida del autor, y poco reconocida en el mundo de llegada, para reenfatizar su pertenencia a una u otra tradición nacional. Se trata, a pesar de lo malsonante de la palabra, de una utilización de estos textos para intentar comenzar a pensar la literatura de otra forma.
1.3 Exilios y diásporas
Creemos que la distinción que suele realizarse entre exilio y migración o diáspora no sólo contiene un elemento de voluntad y elección, por ausencia en el primero, por presencia —al menos inicial— en los segundos, sino que incluye una necesidad de incorporar también, como señala Nico Israel, «how issues of class and of post- (or neo) colonialism inflect both the experience of displacement and the reception of texts written about displacement» (2000: 13). El exilio cuenta con un estatus reconocido como tema literario, mientras que la migración es un tema todavía bastante marginal, sobre todo en el ámbito hispánico. Si bien en el ámbito anglófono se desarrolla el concepto de diáspora para hablar desde el poscolonialismo sobre los escritores emigrados, creemos que este concepto ayuda a continuar relativizando la presencia de estos escritores en los ámbitos socio-culturales de llegada. De esta forma, el concepto de diáspora, en tanto refiere a una comunidad de escritores desplazados desde un lugar de origen común y que no deja de estar presente en sus textos, contribuye a la compartimentación según literaturas nacionales, que el presente trabajo busca evitar. Por otro lado, el concepto de la francophonie se utiliza para agrupar toda la producción escrita en lengua francesa, pero existen críticas respecto de posibles nuevos colonialismos a través de un pretendido universalismo del término, que si no se deconstruye puede ocultarse4. Asimismo, el relato del viaje migratorio hacia Francia depende del país de origen para suscitar el interés de la crítica, más concentrada en la producción de la descendencia de esos inmigrantes, según señala Hargreaves
NOTAS
4 | «the adjective ‘francophone’ has to be decolonised, since it is often used in France for everything that is written in French but that is not French, reinstating an imperial dichotomy between France and ‘the rest’» Milhaud, O. (2006)
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(1995: 89). Por esto, como modelos de tratamiento del tema migratorio en literatura, las vertientes anglófona y francófona de análisis literario no nos solucionan el problema de intentar dejar de lado la identidad nacional para hablar del desplazamiento migratorio en el contexto hispánico.
Ahora bien, nos preguntamos cuál es la alternativa de tratamiento de este material literario que no considere la nación para su estudio. En este caso, consideramos el objeto de estudio como el relato literario de la experiencia del encuentro entre un forastero, que llega para quedarse, y una comunidad, entendida ésta tanto en su vertiente espacial (un lugar), como personal (un grupo de gente). Para ello, el punto de partida del análisis se basa en los postulados de Georg Simmel, que plantea que «la relació amb l’espai és només, d’una banda, la condició i, d’altra banda, el símbol de la relació amb les persones» (1988: 318-319). Así, el relato de viaje migratorio no sólo nos permitirá analizar la representación de la identidad en proceso de definición en relación con el Otro, sino también la representación de la relación con el espacio que es condición y símbolo de ese encuentro.
No sería requisito indispensable que el autor de esta narrativa hubiera atravesado la experiencia misma de migración. Al contrario, consideramos importante distinguir entre la narrativa producida por inmigrantes, la narrativa que incluya inmigrantes en sus representaciones y construcciones, y la narrativa que tematice de manera literaria el motivo del encuentro del viaje migratorio. Es esta última la que nos atrae como objeto de estudio que permitiría salvar las identificaciones nacionales para proceder a la comparación. Así, según Guillén, se entiende por tema «una parte de las experiencias o creencias humanas que en determinado momento histórico cierto escritor convierte en cauce efectivo de su obra y, por ende, en componente del repertorio temático-formal que hace posible y propicia la escritura literaria de sus sucesores» (1985: 53). En este sentido, el exilio encuentra, como tematización, una tradición mucho más extensa que la migración. Este trabajo forma parte del intento de establecer un marco teórico de acercamiento a este proceso, que va progresivamente conformándose en el ámbito hispánico, de instauración de la migración en tema literario. En este artículo, cuando hablamos de literatura de la migración nos referimos al relato de viaje migratorio, que contiene alguna clase de reflexión, explícita o no, acerca de la relación del inmigrante con el nuevo espacio de circulación mediada por la escritura, por la lectura, por la letra.
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2. El viaje a la metrópoli del imperio-que-ya-no-es: ¿posmodernidad y poscolonialismo?
Este tema del viaje migratorio a la metrópoli del imperio que ya no es tal, lo comprendemos entonces en tanto epifenómeno de dos grandes formas de pensar la contemporaneidad: por una parte, la posmodernidad y, por el otro, el poscolonialismo. Excede a los objetivos del presente trabajo analizar exhaustivamente estos dos grandes rótulos, pero nos interesa rescatar un par de coordenadas que creemos que la literatura del viaje migratorio permite estudiar.
La posibilidad de incorporar el estudio de esta clase de literatura viene dada por la doble articulación entre ciertos postulados de la posmodernidad a los que el sujeto inmigrante responde desde el lugar de forastero que define Simmel: dentro del círculo de relaciones espaciales, pero fuera del mismo a la vez (1988: 319). Como definición identitaria posmetafísica encaja perfectamente con las ideas de la posmodernidad. De la misma forma en que Homi Bhabha propone que su convicción es que
the encounters and negotiations of differential meanings and values within ‘colonial’ textuality, its governmental discourses and cultural practices, have anticipated, avant la lettre, many of the problematics of signification and judgement that have become current in contemporary theory: aporia, ambivalence, indeterminacy, the question of discursive closure, the threat to agency, the status of intentionality, the challenge to ‘totalizing’ concepts. (2004: 248),
podríamos pensar que el estatuto de la literatura de migración se corresponde con la problemática de la teoría literaria posmoderna, en tanto impide una rápida adscripción a una literatura nacional; en tanto obliga a repensar la diferenciación entre autobiografía y ficción, entre relato de experiencia y conformación de la experiencia relatada, problemáticas que florecen en los últimos años; en tanto abre nuevas perspectivas para seguir pensando la relación con el paisaje a través de la literatura, desde una posición que en principio se establece desde un no-lugar pero que provoca estrategias de apropiación del espacio que corresponden a la sobremodernidad de Marc Augé (1993). También es posible sumar las ideas de Kristeva respecto de la identidad del extranjero:
Y es tal vez a partir de la subversión de este individualismo moderno, a partir del momento en que el ciudadano-individuo deja de considerarse unido y glorioso y descubre sus incoherencias y sus abismos —sus “extranjerías”, en suma— cuando la cuestión se plantea de nuevo: fin de la acogida del extranjero en el interior de un sistema que lo anula para dar paso a la cohabitación de los extranjeros que todos reconocemos ser. (1991: 10).
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Con todo lo utópico de esta propuesta, creemos que es imprescindible destacar como posibilidad de la literatura de migración el hecho de poner en escena nuevas formas identitarias que se relacionan con la hibridación (Bhabha), el mestizaje5, la criollización (Glissant), términos que la teoría ha ido incorporando en el trabajo de diversos autores. Estas características de la identidad poscolonial se encuentran también en las definiciones identitarias posmodernas. Ahora bien, la teoría, en su esfuerzo por describir y crear hipótesis acerca de las posibilidades del desplazamiento y desarraigo, no encuentra necesariamente su correlato en la producción literaria que surge de la experiencia migratoria6. Esto, que en un principio parecería dar por tierra con esta asociación posmodernidad-poscolonialismo, debe ayudarnos a seguir pensando ambos conceptos. Aunque ambos no puedan ser yuxtapuestos sin conflicto, y de hecho no se aspira a que así sea, la comparación siempre puede ayudar a la redefinición y reformulación de sus significados. Como plantea Caren Kaplan, se trata de evaluar cómo se utiliza la metáfora del desplazamiento en la posmodernidad, y de qué manera las teorizaciones acerca de la subjetividad diaspórica desestabilizan, o no, el discurso occidental acerca del exilio (1996: 103) que está firmemente asociado a la modernidad occidental.
A nuestro entender, lo que resulta atractivo de esta clase de textos es la posibilidad de ver cómo se negocian las identidades en un contexto que no es el de origen, pero que se convierte en habitual; que se inicia como una excepción y que deviene cotidiano. Para realizar este movimiento no es necesario provenir de un país poscolonial, pero lo cierto es que se encuentran más frecuentemente exploraciones de este tipo a partir de la narrativa de autores de origen ex-céntrico, porque hay una certeza ausente en la mayoría de ellos con respecto a la identidad nacional, que es la que deviene consciente con más fuerza al realizar un viaje migratorio.
Por otra parte, la perspectiva planteada por los estudios poscoloniales para entender no sólo estas cuestiones identitarias sino también la literatura que las produce y transforma, tampoco puede ser dejada de lado. En cierta medida, las palabras de Kristeva citadas anteriormente también podemos referirlas al estudio de la literatura según filiaciones nacionales, modernas y canónicas. Podríamos considerar el canon occidental como una construcción «unida y gloriosa» que cada vez más revela sus «incoherencias y abismos». Más allá de las voluntades de cierta parte de la crítica de mantener este bastión por encima de esas incoherencias que se puedan encontrar, la incorporación del estudio del abismo —entendiéndolo como un espacio a explorar, y no como el vacío absoluto— puede aportar una «extranjerización» del canon que sólo acabará beneficiándolo. En ese lugar, en ese abismo, dentro del estudio de la literatura, se sitúa para esta propuesta la literatura de
NOTAS
5 | «Celle-ci permet au métissage d’avoir une function culturelle et sociale globale: il constraint, dans le cadre de l’hégémonie idéologique moderne européenne, occidentale, en Europe, en Occident, hors de l’Europe, hors de l’Occident, de penser le possible d’une culture, d’une société, dans la reconnaissance de déterminations croisées et dans l’invention culturelle et sociale que constitue ce croisement». Bessière, J. (2005: 19). 6 | Ver, por ejemplo, Casolla, A. (1995: 178); Petric, J. (1995: 170); Mertz-Baumgarten (2004: 288).
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la migración. No sólo porque el inmigrante es una figura extraña, alguien «de afuera», un traidor en potencia (ya se ha ido una vez, puede volver a hacerlo), sino porque, como refiere Boehmer «their work has drawn criticism for being a literature without loyalties» (1995: 236), y en esto dificulta, como decíamos, la adscripción a una tradición nacional única. Si se debe luchar de alguna manera contra la globalización, a nuestro entender esto no puede funcionar a través del refuerzo de la nacionalidades tal y como están establecidas, si se entienden como fijas, claramente definidas en el pasado, y a las que hay que respetar incluso en términos estético-artísticos. Por qué debería ser el mundo poscolonial el que dé por tierra con estas relaciones entre literatura y nación es algo que creemos se desprende del hecho de que es desde Occidente de donde surge tal asociación entre nación y literatura (Brennan, 1990). En el proceso de integrar a los cánones de literatura mundial la literatura de la migración, el mundo occidental podría iniciar el movimiento hacia la descolonización de Europa del que habla Gnisci (1996), entre otros.
3. Literatura universal o literatura del mundo
Es entonces dentro de la problemática del corpus de la literatura comparada, entendida como método de estudio de la Weltliteratur, donde buscamos inscribir nuestra propuesta. Si bien el concepto de ‘literatura universal’ lleva años bajo cuestionamiento, aún continúa pareciendo una salida al dilema de cómo superar lo nacional para hablar de literatura. Seguimos las consideraciones de Rene Wellek, Henri Remak y Joseph Lambert, para llegar a Armando Gnisci y sus ideas acerca de la cuestión, que entienden la literatura de migración como nueva literatura del mundo.
Las afirmaciones de Rene Wellek en su famosísima conferencia abogaban porque «la investigación literaria actual necesita, en primer lugar, tomar conciencia de la necesidad de definir su materia y el objeto de sus intereses» (1958: 86). Si bien el presente trabajo no puede continuar otras líneas planteadas por Wellek en esa misma conferencia, parece necesario, al menos, remitir a esta premisa. Por eso mismo, y también siguiendo los postulados de Henry Remak, apuntamos a proponer el estudio de la literatura del viaje migratorio como forma de sintetizar el estudio de la Weltliteratur: «Debemos disponer de síntesis, a menos que el estudio literario quiera condenarse a sí mismo a la fragmentación y el aislamiento externos» (1971: 90). Creemos también que la incorporación de esta narrativa, que no se trabaja generalmente en los cánones de estudio, funciona tal y como explica José Lambert (1989), como forma de abrir el abanico de posibilidades para la teoría misma: si queremos una renovación de los estudios literarios, sería paradójico continuar
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trabajando los mismos textos, autores, géneros, convenciones y culturas sobre las que se establecieron esos primeros estudios que buscamos superar.
3.1 Una línea posible
Un trabajo comparatista que tenga en cuenta los textos que se producen en el acto de trasladarse de un país a otro, de una cultura a otra, por una parte, desestabiliza el estudio de la literatura desde una perspectiva nacional. El texto es susceptible de ser adoptado tanto por la cultura de partida como por la cultura de llegada. En ese transcurso, cubre un arco que no puede ser ignorado a la hora de estudiar las pertenencias de un texto. Incluso si es la representación del viaje migratorio (no la transformación de una experiencia personal) lo que podemos encontrar en el texto literario, aún así implicará un intento imaginario de movimiento entre dos culturas. Existe una objeción que suele hacerse a esta clase de integraciones al canon occidental, como la planteada por Rey Chow7, que implica básicamente que se comprende el interés del comparatista como una nueva forma de eurocentrismo imperialista que jamás logrará entender realmente esos textos ajenos. Como respuesta, podemos apuntar a la idea de lectura a contracorriente, en cierta medida análoga a la práctica de la deconstrucción. Si Chow, entre otros, entiende que un comparatista nunca podrá leer una cultura (y por tanto, un texto) tal y como lo haría un local, el objetivo no es refutarlo, sino asentir con él: la lectura del extranjero puede ser una forma enriquecedora de leer. Está claro que esta clase de lectura no la postulamos exclusivamente para los textos de tradiciones no occidentales, sino que en cierta medida se corresponde con la re-lectura del canon occidental que iniciaron los estudios poscoloniales. Si estos estudios demostraron que es posible encontrar en los mismos textos que se leen desde hace siglos conformaciones y representaciones que la crítica ha pasado por alto, será necesario resaltarlas una vez más, leyendo estos textos como un extranjero. Es importante la distinción que realizan algunos críticos entre valor político-ético y valor estético de un texto. Es posible rechazar y denunciar uno sin por eso dejar de reconocer el aporte del otro.
Por otra parte, nos interesa en particular el movimiento de la periferia hacia el centro, que viene desarrollándose de manera continua a partir de la segunda mitad del siglo XX. Es por esto que la narrativa de la migración que consideramos es aquella que implica un movimiento desde las ex-colonias hacia las antiguas metrópolis. Esta propuesta no se concentra en los movimientos migratorios desde Europa hacia América y Australia, por ejemplo, que se produjeron sobre todo a fines del siglo XIX y primera mitad del XX. Entendemos que las particularidades que ambos movimientos (centro-periferia y periferia-centro, por simplificar) presentan, en concreto con respecto
NOTAS
7 | «the integration of non-Western texts into the comparative literature canon may just mean confronting a new class of ‘Eurocentric’ specialists in remote cultures: there is no guarantee that exposure to the alien canon will teach anyone to see it as the locals see it» (1995: 109).
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a la autopercepción y visión del Otro, y también en la relación con el espacio, constituyen esferas que deben ser analizadas desde perspectivas que tengan en cuenta esas particularidades, y por eso, resultarán diferentes. Es evidente que compartirán también muchas otras características, pero la idea de trabajar esta narrativa desde la perspectiva de la narrativa de viajes no implica olvidar que las especificidades de las culturas de origen y de llegada inevitablemente encuentran lugar dentro de la narrativa. Interesan los movimientos masivos migratorios hacia la metrópoli que se suceden a partir de la segunda mitad del siglo XX, y que continúan en nuestros días, y la producción literaria que se constituye a partir de esa experiencia colectiva. De esta forma, se salva la problemática de continuar leyendo siempre el mismo canon aunque las perspectivas teóricas cambien.
La decisión de adscribir explícitamente este trabajo a la literatura comparada como disciplina académica enlaza muy bien con las consideraciones de Linda Hutcheon acerca de la cuestión. Si un trabajo de estas características puede aspirar a alguna clase de justificación, ésta tendrá que ver con la idea de que también creemos que la literatura comparada es «inherently contrarian»8. Si la literatura comparada a través de la costumbre de autointerrogarse, es la disciplina que siempre está pendiente del cambio y abierta a volver a pensar los presupuestos, es aquí donde inscribiremos nuestro trabajo. Es en este estado de la cuestión, que considera que la literatura comparada cumple una función dentro del ámbito académico, donde la pertinencia de arriesgar una posibilidad para la interpretación y análisis de la Weltliteratur parece ineludible. Esto es en tanto que es necesario todavía utilizar las herramientas del amo para deconstruir su edificio académico, durante tantas décadas centrado en una versión sesgada del significado de Welt- en la palabra alemana. E ineludible también en un contexto mucho más amplio de relación de la cultura occidental con el Otro, que ahora, como siempre, vuelve.
El presente trabajo intenta construir una articulación teórica que permita dar una respuesta posible a la pregunta sobre cómo hacer, que aparece recurrentemente entre las cuestiones que deben ser definidas dentro del comparatismo (Moretti, 2000: 65; Tötösy, 1997: 223; Greene, 2006: 221; Saussy, 2006: 22). En primer lugar, siguiendo las propuestas de Eric Auerbach en su artículo «Filologia de la Weltliteratur» de 1952, nos interesa definir el relato del viaje migratorio como epifenómeno que permite partir de un objeto relativamente concreto para dedicarse a ese infinito estudio de la literatura mundial. Así, Auerbach se extiende en la explicación de cómo es posible, comenzando por un punto de partida que irradia en significación e implicaciones, aspirar a tratar un objeto extenso. Para él, una buena obra crítica, «no és una gran acumulació de
NOTAS
8 | “To be contrarian is to oppose or reject popular opinion, something comparatists have done quite regularly” Hutcheon, L. (2006) p. 224.
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molt, sinó una irradiació a partir de molt poc. (…) Només quan es troba un fenomen marcadament delimitat, mesurable i central com a punt de partença serà possible la realització dels plans» (1952: 124). Con esta ambiciosa pretensión proponemos el estudio del relato del viaje migratorio como punto de partida para el estudio de la literatura universal en el marco del siglo XXI. Es nuestro propósito demostrar someramente en el desarrollo de este trabajo, y a través de posteriores aplicaciones, que el relato de viaje migratorio puede funcionar como punto de partida para el análisis de una serie de variables que preocupan a la teoría de la literatura en los últimos años. No pretende agotar esta propuesta las posibilidades, sino simplemente auto-fundamentarse en su necesidad y pertinencia dentro del marco y problemática planteados.
En segundo lugar, también es importante adelantarse a las críticas posibles respecto de la imposibilidad de un estudio de estas características. Siguiendo las propuestas de Franco Moretti (2000: 68) nos embarcamos en este desarrollo con el convencimiento de que confiar en el trabajo de los colegas de la academia permite dedicarse a objetos de estudio tan amplios. Se escriben cada vez más ensayos (en relación a décadas pasadas) sobre literatura de la migración en el ámbito comparatista, pero pocos artículos se dedican a buscar la tematización de la migración en la producción que analizan: en la mayoría de los casos, se trata de estudios de autores, de nacionalidades, de textos en concreto9, que enmarcan bajo la etiqueta de la diáspora, o, más en general, lo poscolonial. Creemos que a partir de esos trabajos es posible aunar las conclusiones de ellos con nuestro estudio, de manera tal que constituyan una nueva conceptualización de la migración dentro de la literatura.
4. Hospitalidad planetaria
Con respecto a la cuestión de desde qué lugar es posible incorporar al canon occidental la literatura producida desde la periferia, creemos que es posible situar el estudio de la literatura de la migración en una encrucijada enriquecedora. Por una parte, iniciando la perspectiva de estudio de la literatura desde una concepción posnacional —si no a-nacional— que esta clase de literatura favorece, pero que podríamos pensar extensible a toda la literatura. Si bien es usual en la crítica poscolonial rechazar la utilización metodológica de las literaturas no-occidentales como ejemplo de otras formas posibles de pensar la literatura (Spivak, 2003), creemos que en realidad vale la pena hacer el intento de no caer en más y más constituciones planetarias de literaturas nacionales para proceder a su estudio. Asociando las características particulares en la conformación de esta clase de literaturas, que
NOTAS
9 | Ver, por ejemplo, las recopilaciones de Russel King y de Irene Andres-Suárez, en la bibliografía.
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difícilmente se parezcan a las de la literatura occidental según el canon establecido, con las nuevas condiciones del mundo globalizado, es posible intentar el desarrollo de un nuevo paradigma de estudio de la literatura universal, sin olvidar las dificultades de este término, pero valiéndose de ellas. Reconocer las dificultades de la tarea de la comparatística siempre ha sido una de las características definitorias de esta disciplina (Farinelli [1925]; Greene, [1994]; Moretti [2000]; Gnisci [2002]; Saussy [2006]).
Por otra parte, el estudio de literatura de la migración abre la entrada a la producción literaria no-occidental desde un lugar donde la Otredad no es total, sino parcial. Desde ese hueco que configura la escritura desde un lugar de “dentro-pero-fuera” es posible comenzar a horadar un espacio que integre sin borrar las diferencias. La propuesta de Spivak, que apunta a una definición de la planetariedad, puede resultar útil (2003. 74). Para ella no es problemático el hecho de que puede haber elementos de un texto que sean ajenos en tanto especie de alteridad: esa es la característica de un planeta sobreescrito al globo, donde lo ominoso (unheimlich) es parte integrante de la construcción de sentido. Evidentemente, el alcance político que una perspectiva como esta tendría no se nos escapa. Significa un cambio de percepción de la migración como fenómeno marginal, hacia uno estructural de la cultura. Si las pretensiones de universalidad surgen como inquietud europea —si no francesa—, entonces bien se haría en reconocer esta clase de aportes a la comprensión entre los pueblos, objetivo vapuleado por una parte de la crítica, pero que no puede a nuestro entender dejarse de lado. Entonces, hacemos propias las palabras de Armando Gnisci:
¿no es la literatura el discurso común que las culturas intercambian entre sí para traducirse todas ellas recíprocamente y para que las traduzcamos dentro de nosotros y entre nosotros, para traducir y desplazar continuamente hacia el futuro —y no solo hacia los museos del pasado— todo lo humano, con todas sus historias y todas sus formas simbólicas? (2002: 12).
También permite pensar que una incorporación de lo extraño a la cultura puede ser más fácil que una incorporación del extranjero a la sociedad. No está claro qué debería suceder primero. Pero como objetivo idealista de este trabajo podemos postular la voluntad de que a través de, en primer lugar, un reconocimiento de la producción del Otro que vive entre nosotros, y, en segundo lugar, una reformulación de las categorías utilizadas hasta ahora, y que en gran medida lo excluyen, pueda fomentarse la aceptación e incorporación de los forasteros en una nueva sociedad que incluya a todos. Retomamos para esto también el uso que hace Gnisci del concepto de hospitalidad. Al centrar el análisis en la literatura del relato migratorio, podemos pensar en una doble hospitalidad: tanto
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en un sentido literal, de aceptación de la llegada y presencia del Otro en casa, como en uno más metafórico que es el que reivindica Gnisci para la literatura comparada: «comparar significa pues estudiar y trabajar juntos en el respeto de las diferencias para crear una nueva dimensión comunicativa: la de la hospitalidad recíproca» (1996: 190).
Es por esta voluntad de incorporación no fagocitadora, no asimilatoria, de la producción de lo que tradicionalmente es visto como Otro, para lo que se reivindica la figura del extranjero, sin necesariamente forzarlo a permanecer extranjero. La doble hospitalidad se relacionará con el intento de hacer legible el encuentro con el Otro, desde un lugar que reconoce a todas las culturas como extranjeras.
Si bien este marco teórico permite analizar el lugar del relato de viaje migratorio dentro del estudio de la literatura comparada en cualquier lugar del mundo, subyace a todo el planteamiento la voluntad de señalar lo que de eurocentrismo pervive en esta disciplina humanística. A pesar de los progresos respecto del pasado que esta disciplina ha alcanzado, una necesidad de estudio de la literatura mundial pervive como objetivo básicamente europeo-occidental, que no deja de considerar las producciones no-occidentales como anexos a una muy seria y establecida tradición, única y occidental. Como bien señala Gnisci, «La ‘literatura universal’ […] sigue siendo un sueño del Siglo de las Luces y el Romanticismo. Hoy trabajamos más bien en una disciplina literaria mundial» (1996:190); esto es: no se trata de pretender universalismo de una materia que no se puede controlar, como lo es la producción literaria, sino de que las formas de acceso a esa materia sean lo más universales posibles. Como sueño, continúa siendo de la Razón. Pero no hay nada que nos haga rechazar esa base racional a la hora de establecer los marcos de una teoría. En un marco empírico de relación con la disciplina, Gnisci recuerda «la aprobación de los intelectuales del mundo entero a la literatura comparada» (1996: 191), y desde esa constatación es que proponemos que la búsqueda de universalidad se concentre no sólo en el encuentro de la academia frente a un horizonte común, sino también en la manifestaciones empíricas-textuales de dicho encuentro frente a lo que tenemos en común: y la narrativa del viaje migratorio funciona como objeto de este acercamiento, literal y figurado.
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Bibliografía
ANDRES-SUÁREZ, I., (ed.) Migración y literatura en el mundo hispánico, Madrid: Verbum, 2004.AUERBACH, E., «Filologia de la Weltliteratur», en L’Espill, 21, 2005, págs. 117-126. AUGÉ, M., Los no lugares: espacios de anonimato: una antropología de la sobremodernidad, Barcelona: Gedisa, 1993BERNHEIMER, C. (ed.), Comparative Literature in the Age of Multiculturalism, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1995.BHABHA, H., Nation and Narration, London & New York: Routledge, 1990 BHABHA, H., The Location of Culture. London & New York: Routledge, 2004.BRENNAN, T., «The national longing for form» en BHABHA, H., Nation and Narration, London & New York: Routledge, 1990. BOEHMER, E., Migrant Metaphors. Colonial and Postcolonial Literatures, Oxford & New York: OUP, 1995. BRUNEL, P. y Ives CHEVREL (eds.), Compendio de literatura comparada, México: Siglo XXI, 1994. CHOW, R., «In the Name of Comparative Literature», en BERNHEIMER, C., Comparative Literature in the Age of Multiculturalism, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1995. 107-116, 1995. FARINELLI, A., Petrarca, Manzoni, Leopardi. Il sogno di una letteratura ‘mondiale’. Torí: Fratellli Bocca ed., 1925. GUILLÉN, C., Entre lo uno y lo diverso, Barcelona: Crítica, 1985.GNISCI, A., «La literatura comparada como disciplina de descolonización» en VEGA, M.J., La literatura comparada: principios y métodos, Madrid: Gredos, 1998, págs. 188-194. GNISCI, A., Introducción a la literatura comparada, Barcelona: Crítica, 2002.GREENE, R., «Not Works, but Networks. Colonial Worlds in Comparative Literature» en SAUSSY, H., Comparative Literature in an Age of Globalization, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 2006, págs. 212-223. HARGREAVES, A., «Perceptions of Place among Writers of Algerian Immigrant Origin in France» en KING, R. Writing Across Worlds. Literature and Migration, London and New York: Routledge, 1995, págs. 89-100. HUTCHEON, L., «Comparative Literature: Congenitally Contrarian», en SAUSSY, H., Comparative Literature in an Age of Globalization, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 2006, págs. 224-229. ISRAEL, N., Outlandish. Writing Between Exile and Diaspora, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000.KAPLAN, C., Questions of Travel: Postmodern Discourses of Displacement, Durham: N.C., Duke University Press, 1996. KING, R., J. CONNELL Y P. WHITE. (eds.), Writing Across Worlds. Literature and Migration, London and New York: Routledge, 1995.KRISTEVA, J., Extranjeros para nosotros mismos, Barcelona: Plaza&Janes, 1991.LAMBERT, J., «En busca de mapas mundiales de las literaturas», en BLOCH DE BEHAR (ed.), Términos de Comparación, Montevideo: ANL, 1989.MARIÑO, M., M. de la O OLIVA (coord.), El viaje en la literatura occidental, Valladolid: Universidad de Valladolid, Secretariado de Publicaciones e Intercambio Editorial, 2004.MARIÑO, M., M. de la O OLIVA (coord.), El viaje concluido. Poética del regreso. Valladolid: Universidad de Valladolid, Secretariado de Publicaciones e Intercambio Editorial, 2006.
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MERTZ-BAUMGARTEN, B., «Imágenes del exilio y de la migración en la literatura latinoamericana en Canadá», en ANDRES-SUÁREZ, I., 2004, págs. 280-294.MILHAUD, O. (2006) «Post-Francophonie?», EspacesTemps.net, [31/08/08], http://espacestemps.net/document2077.html.MORETTI, F. «Conjeturas sobre la literatura mundial» en New Left Review, 1, 2000, págs. 65-76. NUCERA, D., «Los viajes y la literatura», en GNISCI, A., Introducción a la literatura comparada, Barcelona: Crítica, 2002, págs. 241-289.PETRIC, J., «Sunday Too Far Away: Images of emigrant existence in the literatures of Slovenes in the United States, Canada and Australia», en KING, R., 1995, págs. 162-171. REMAK, H.H.H. «La literatura comparada: definición y función», en VEGA, M.J., La literatura comparada: principios y métodos, Madrid: Gredos, 1998, págs. 89-99.SAUSSY, H. (ed.), Comparative Literature in an Age of Globalization, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 2006.SIMMEL, G.) «Digressió sobre el foraster», en Sociologia: Investigació sobre les formes de socialització, Barcelona: Edicions 62, 1988, 318-324.SPIVAK, G.C., Death of a Discipline, New York: Columbia UP, 2003.TÖTÖSY DE ZEPETNEK, S., «La literatura comparada y la aproximación sistémica a la literatura y la cultura», en VEGA, M.J. La literatura comparada: principios y métodos, Madrid: Gredos, 1998, págs. 215-229.VEGA, M.J. y N. CARBONELL, La literatura comparada: principios y métodos, Madrid: Gredos, 1998.WELLEK, R., «La crisis de la literatura comparada», en VEGA, M.J, La literatura comparada: principios y métodos, Madrid: Gredos, 1998, págs. 79-88.
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Recommended citation || HUNGWE, Elda; HUNGWE, Chipo (2010): “Interrogating Notions of Nationhood, Nation and Globalisation in Postcolonial Africa: A Textual Analysis of Four African Novels” [online article], 452ºF. Electronic journal of theory of literature and comparative literature, 2, 30-47 [Consulted on: dd / mm / yy], < http://www.452f.com/index.php/en/elda-hungwe--chipo-hungwe.html >.Illustration || Mireia MartínArticle || Received on: 09/09/2009 | International Advisory Board’s suitability: 13/11/2009 | Published on: 01/2010License || Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 License.
INTERROGATING NOTIONS OF NATIONHOOD, NATION AND GLOBALISATION IN POSTCOLONIAL AFRICA: A TEXTUAL ANALYSIS OF FOUR AFRICAN NOVELS
Elda HungweLecturer in the Department of English and CommunicationsChipo HungweLecturer in the Department of Human Resource MangementMidlands State University
452ºF
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Abstract || Through the analysis of Pepetela’s Mayombe, Ngugi’s Petals of Blood, Achebe’s Anthills of the Savannah and A Man of the People, this article interrogates concepts of nationhood and nation in postcolonial Africa within the framework of the postcolonial theory. Postcolonial theory defies grand narratives such as the nation and nationhood, hence deconstructs such narratives as they are problematic. This study shows problems associated with definitions of a nation in which some members are sidelined. Also explored is the idea of nationalism and its importance in forming the nation. It is revealed that nationhood is problematic in post independent Africa even though nationalism served a critical role during decolonisation because variations are noted as differences in gender and ethnicity disturb nation building. Globalisation is also threatening, challenging and undermining the existence of nations.
Key-words || Pepetela | Mayombe | Ngugi | Petals of Blood | Achebe | Anthills of the Savannah | A Man of the People | Ethnicity | Gender | Globalisation | Nationhood | Nationalism | Postcoloniality.
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0. Introduction
Ever since nations came on the scene and national identities began to be promoted as the prime focus of collective identification they have been associated with controversy and frequent upheaval as their limits have been questioned. When nation building was at its height, the meaning and purpose of nationhood was taken more or less for granted and nations were treated as providing a fixed context within which social processes could be examined and analysed. It was as if social relations occurred naturally within the boundaries of nations while political and diplomatic relations happened between them. An attempt to critically study the idea of nationhood is very important as clearly evidenced by the upsurge of nationalistic feeling and action and the continuing instability and political reorganization. New national divisions are appearing and questions of national identity seem to be taking a new relevance in the context of debates about ethnicity and new forms of political representation emerge both above and below the national level. It is within this view that it becomes imperative to interrogate the concept of nation/nationhood. This research employs textual criticism, a method applied to written source materials as objects of analysis (Jankowski and Jeven, 1991: 62).
This research is delimited to the colonial and postcolonial era. The colonial period is reflected in Pepetela’s Mayombe which shows the economic marginalization, political subjugation as well as the reactions of the colonized people as they resist colonial rule. We note problems of the nation as it seeks to accommodate the individual and the ethnic groups that want to pursue their cultures without being imposed. Achebe’s Anthills of the Savanna reveals how nationhood appears a specifically male prerogative. Conceptions of nationhood under globalization are put to question given the emergency of new multi-cultural and transnational identities which supersede the old national loyalties. This is highlighted in Ngugi’s Petals of Blood and Achebe’s A Man of The People.
0.1 Background of the Study and Literature Review
The nature of nationhood and national identity is clearly close to the heart of modern African societies because of the territorial demarcations made by European imperial forces during colonialism in the 1880s and 1890s. Industrialized Europe looked at Africa for the supply of raw materials; they also saw it as a possible market for their manufactured goods. Africa was also colonized as part of what Taylor (1984) called the struggle for supremacy in Europe. This was competition for control of European territories among European powers. Another reason why Europeans colonized Africa was that,
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as white, they had to ‘civilize’ Africans. Parson (1998) highlights that by 1920 most of the states in the South, Central and East Africa had become colonies of direct rule. In West Africa there was indirect colonial rule, with some of their mining and farming areas exploited by capitalist companies. There was also the development and spread of European formal education in its disciplinary division and hierarchical organization providing the social as well as professional skills for the would-be post colonial elites. This education was provided only so far as to satisfy the colonialist need for local low level functionaries or to satisfy missionaries’ consciences about their civilizing mission. However, a nationalist consciousness was evolved, which led to the formation of various national movements within Africa to fight against colonialism. This saw the liberation struggle which finally led to the independence of many African nations and states. The idea of nationhood was fostered in the struggle that won the liberation as African people identified themselves as a physical and psychological entity which existed in the form of a geographical location where cohesion subsisted amongst members who felt a sense of belonging, patriotism and pride.
There are two contrasting schools of thought that explain the development and origin of the nation, as revealed in Day and Thompson (2004). The two schools are the modernist and ethnicist. Modernists see the nation and nationalism as phenomena whose roots do not extend back beyond a period associated with the major socio-economic process of modernity such as industrialization, capitalism, the rise of the modern state and major related political changes, (Gellner, 1983). In contrast, ethnicists hold that nationalism has its roots in pre-modern ethnic identities. Antony Smith (1991) maintains that while nations may be modern their origins are not, but can be traced to earlier ethnie (named human populations with shared ancestry myths, history and culture having an association with a specific territory and a sense of solidarity). For Smith, the maxim is that the forces described by modernists transform these ethnie without destroying them.
Anderson (1991) argues that membership of a nation requires people to carryout an act of imagination through which they identify with others whom they will never actually meet or even see. This is possible under certain conditions with the recent arrival of print media, capable of uniting people across large stretches of time and space. Anderson describes how a population able to read the same newspapers or enjoying the same novels in the same language is at the same time capable of grasping “those who appear within them as inhabiting the same social world sharing a ‘deep horizontal’ comradeship” (1991: 16). Anderson (1983) cites sovereignty as another concept of nationhood. He examines especially the formation of nation states and nations in the Americas where each nation is
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conceptualized as a sovereign power within its particular sphere of influences.
Regarding specific discourses of nationhood, Calhoun (1997) identifies ten distinctive properties. None of them are indispensable but together they form a pattern of interrelated concepts and assumptions that confer reality upon nations and people.
They include boundaries, indivisibility, sovereignty, legitimacy conferred by conformity with the interests of the people, popular mobilization and participation, direct individual membership, common culture, historic depth, common descent and territoriality. (4-5)
The discourse of nationalism helps determine the form in which nations are conceived. For example, according to Anderson (1991), they are thought of as bounded, sovereign and horizontally uniform regardless of the actual inequality and exploitation that may prevail in each. Concepts of nationhood shall be interrogated largely in the vein of the postcolonial theory. As a literary theory or critical approach, according to Ashcroft et al (1995), post colonial theory is an engagement with and contestation of colonialism’s discourses, power structures and social hierarchies. The theory of postcoloniality defies the grand narratives or any clear definitions such as nation, nationhood, nationality and so on. The postcolonial theory is applied to describe colonial discourses’ analysis to determine situations and experiences of the subaltern groups whether in the first or third world. The theory also interrogates knowledge constructions of the West and calls for a rethinking of the very terms by which this knowledge has been constructed by the West. The nation and nationalism are problematic in post independence even though nationalism served a critical role during decolonization.
1. Aims of the Study
The aims of this study are to establish the relevance of nationhood/nation in as far as nation building is concerned; also, to validate the conceptualization of nationhood/nation in the era of globalization and to locate the position of women in the nation and to justify their importance in nation building.
1.1 Towards the Construction of a Nation – An Analysis of Pepetela’s Mayombe (1983)
Angola is abundant with natural resources; it has rich oil deposits and timber. The huge mineral deposits were the prime reason for the struggle for military, territorial, commercial and political control of this land. Van De Waals (1993) reveals that by the end of the
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nineteenth century, Angola was recognized in international circles as part of Portugal’s colonial empire. Independent kingdoms of the interior were therefore subjugated as Portuguese farmers settled. Shortage of labor restrained economic development thus forced labor became an integral part of the Portuguese policy. As part of the colonial package, the Portuguese developed a policy as assimilation which was also used by the French. Assimilation as a colonial administration policy encouraged the destruction of the African socio-eco-political structures, that is, it urged the total obliteration of anything African only to be supplanted with the metropolitan structures. The major aim of assimilation was to engender a black Frenchmen or black Portuguese. Tidy and Leeming (2005) assert that French assimilation went as far as treating French colonies as an extension of France. In reality, assimilation was the rejection of all that embodied the African. However, the Portuguese did not extend the privileges of assimilation to all but only targeted the elite, a small clique of intellectuals who ironically were to discern the hypocrisy of the Portuguese policy. This led to the development of nationalist consciousness which culminated in the armed struggle against colonial forces. The People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), according to Van Der Waals, stressed that Portuguese colonialism could only be defeated by an all out struggle waged by a unified front of anti-imperialist forces in Angola. This required that the Angolan people mobilized and fought on all fronts in order to weaken Portuguese imperialism to make Angola an independent country.
It is within this brief background that Pepetela (1983), a former guerrilla in Angola, writes from experience of the armed revolution as he fights to liberate his nation. He does not want to be identified from a racial point of view. He chose his war name to show his identification with the objectives of the Angolan revolution. The guerrillas are part of the MPLA liberation movement and the enemy is the International Police for the Defense of the State (PIDE) of colonial. Pepetela was a scholar who believed in the Marxists ideology. He was inclined towards the peasants and workers. The white colonial masters had monopolized the means of production and reduced the native Africans into wage earning labourers. The relationship between these two classes was both a racial and exploitative one.
The idea of a nation has enabled postcolonial societies to invent a self image throughout which they could act to liberate themselves from imperialist’s oppression. Wallerstain (Haralambos and Holborn: 2005) argues that colonialists led to the division of Africa into sovereign states. These states often contain diverse groups of people, for example, in Mayombe there are diverse groups of people like Kikongo, Kimbundu, Fiote and Umbundu. Nationalism is therefore recognized for its important psychological dimension of bringing people together. Calhoun (1997: 99) describes the social construction
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of nations where he cites that nations exist only when their members understand themselves through the discursive framework of national identity. They are commonly forged in the struggle carried out by some members of the nation in the making to get others to recognize its genuine nation-ness. For example, the MPLA in Mayombe to a greater extent succeeded to win the people. It scored a number of victories in terms of mobilization, political consciousness, courage and civilian support, which is the duty of the Commissar, Joao. We realize that the strength of the mass or the collective is greater than the individual parts. We note the co-ordination between guerrillas and the civilians who would provide guerrillas with information. ‘Fearless’ actually acknowledges the working class, joining the struggle as an indicator that they are winning. In the creation of a nation, national identity is very important. In Mayombe this is realized through the conscientisation of the mass by the Commissar.
Portrayed in Mayombe is a diverse mix of people who consider themselves a nation. There are different ethnic groups, the Kikongo, Kimbundu and Umbundu and it is the nationalistic ideology which serves as emotional glue. Thierme (2003) views nationalism as an ideology which affirms the autonomy of the nation state and is usually represented by political movements that seek to achieve national unity or, in this case, from colonialism, independence from colonial rule. For most African states under colonial rule, like Angola portrayed in Mayombe, nationalism becomes an important tool for gaining independence from imperialists and external rule.
Appaiah (1992) asserts that identity is a product of history and that every human identity is constructed by society and is historical. Mayombe, however, reveals that sharing the same history of colonialism is not the same as sharing the same identity. In the text, it becomes clear that there is no one identity for a people as we meet freedom fighters (the MPLA). The novel discusses the tensions within this national liberation movement which included people from all ethnic groups in Angola, Kikongo in the North, Kimbundu in the centre, Umbundu in the South and some who are detribalized. What loosely unites these freedom fighters in Mayombe is the nationalistic ideology, the need for freedom for the liberation of Angola.
From the beginning, ethnic differences which characterize the freedom fighters threaten the struggle for the independence of Angola. It is a struggle rocked by suspicion of each other and hate. The Operation’s Chief, together with New World, Ekuikui and Miracle, all suspect Struggle of being a sell-out. Also, they do not trust the Commander, Fearless as he is Kikongo and they are Kimbundu. The command itself is divided by tribalism and ambition. Thus, in this national struggle, according to Basil Davidson (1992), the struggle to transform colonial territories, the wealth of ethnic cultures is found to
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be both distracting and hard to absorb, hence the fall back into the colonial mentality of regarding it as tribalism. Tribalism is portrayed as a dangerous yet realistic ideology which threatens the success of nationalistic consciousness. For example, the Commander asked for volunteers to look for Muatianvua when he did not show up after the retreat. No one volunteered because he (Muatianvua) was detribalized.
Nationalism becomes problematic as an artificial construct. This is reflected by Theory, a mulatto who is an embodiment of hybridity. His voice in Mayombe confronts essentialism, hence the nation state becomes a political construct which ignores the ethnic diversity in Africa. There is no homogeneous African identity. The question that arises is “Can these contentious voices be harmonized?” Tarmer (2000) asserts that the nation is sustained as well through both reactive and proactive measures. Nationalistic ideologies can serve as “emotional glue” when there is no threat from outside or when threat does not appear imminent through regular exercises of solidarity which became accepted by members of a nation as natural.
The other problem highlighted in Mayombe with regards to the creation of a nation and nationalism is the diversity of missions. The guerrillas tend to embark on personal missions in the name of a nation. The nationalistic ideology claims that all guerrillas are fighting for liberation, one therefore tends to question “Whose liberation?” Everyone has his personal interests. For example, the Operation’s Chief is fighting in Cabinda so that his own territory would have few enemies. Theory’s mission is to find acceptance in a world where racial hybrids are not recognized and the mission of the guerrillas is to establish peace, independence and social equity in Angola. They therefore designed means and methods to attain their goal which included the armed struggle.
Mayombe also hints on the question of belonging especially towards the construction of a nation. Classical theorists of nationalism reify a nation as a unified and culturally homogeneous entity formed in Smith’s (1998) case around an ethnic core. This is being subjected to growing criticism by social theorists who stress that the nation is always subject to contestation especially about who belongs to it. Theory brings in this dimension. His commitment to the struggle is not so much of a developed inner consciousness; it is a result of an external driving force. He first defines himself by where he comes from to legitimize his cause. He is acknowledging that he is a colored person and as such he is suffering an identity crisis, he does not know where to belongs to, thus he says: “I carry in me the irreconcilable and that is my driving force” (Pepetela, 1983: 1). His mission is to find acceptance in a world where racial hybrids are not recognized. His method is to join the guerrillas. Theory is
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challenging the myth of racism especially in as far as nation building is concerned. This element destroys the essential sameness of the people and by fighting on the lacks’ side, Theory is proving the point that color difference does not matter. He is demystifying race to prove that what must be regarded as a parameter of national identity is not race; identity must be equal to shared consciousness. He identifies with Gabela, a place where he comes from which is a material reality which credits him hundred percent citizenship of Angola.
The problem is that all guerrillas do not look at this shared consciousness. He therefore is prepared to endure physical and spiritual pain and even death, fighting for Angola and its inhabitants hence his refusal to return to the base to recover his injured knee. He has made a choice to abandon his family in order to prove his identity. Theory therefore demystifies the concept of race in the nation. The main thrust is that while it is ideal to live in social groups, it should be remembered that human beings are complex even as individuals.
The aspect of regarding a nation as homogeneous brings in connotations of equality and this conceals important differences amongst people as reflected in the novel. Pepetela’s argument is that there is need to transcend ethnic boundaries of the homogeneous nature of the definition of a nation from a western point of view. At the same time, Mayombe stresses the idea of a nation as being important in the fight against colonialism. The idea of a nation has been adopted as foci of resistance to colonialism by most African people. People were taken to be one as they fought during the liberation struggle, but even as they fought, differences continued to emerge.
The picture of a nation portrayed at the end demonstrates the value of the syncretism of the collective which is brought about by Fearless’s death. He is buried together with Struggle in the same pit, which reflects that a commander and a soldier are one in a revolution. The death of Fearless leads to the development of a nationalist consciousness that transcends barriers of narrow tribalism and individualism which ultimately result in the formation of a nation where individuals participate as a collective.
Miller (Day and Thompson, 1995: 6) considers nations to be created and sustained by active processes of thought and interchange among relevant body of people. Hence a nation is a form of community whose values and identity are the subject of ongoing negotiation and reflection. Such practices (nationalism) are designed to operate, to bring together large numbers of people into a new kind of consciousness and collective identity. The discourse of nationalism conclusively helps determine the form in which nations are conceived. It is within this vein that Brubaker (Day and Thompson, 2004: 11) suggests to start to think less in terms of how nations develop and
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instead concentrate on the various ways the nation as a category is involved, institutionalized and more generally used as a cognitive frame.
1.2 Panacea to Africa’s Political Challenges: Dephallicising the Nation in Achebe’s Anthills of the Savannah
Pepetela’s account makes nationalism appear an exclusively male pre-occupation whereas women’s lives are said to centre elsewhere. The liberation movement fighting in Mayombe consists of men while females are seen to play minor roles like teaching. Nationhood in this case appears as a specifically male prerogative since it is being associated with terms like liberation, colonialism and nationalism which are masculine, as it is associated with violence, penetration, invasion, and it is the male guerrilla that is seen to protect the (feminine) nation. Achebe’s (1987) Anthills of the Savannah dephallicises the nation and reflects the extent to which this is manifest in postcolonial Africa. Achebe reflects how these masculine aspects promote corruption, selfishness and greed which give birth to issues of bad governance, denial of rights as well as military coups which are violent. Achebe is therefore disregarding this concept of a nation in Anthills of the Savannah.
The novel is set in a fictional West African state called Kangan, which is ruled by dictatorial president with a military background. He rules the country with a tight grip and a rather corrupt government and there appears to be no parliament. Masculinities of postcolonial Africa were largely a mimic of their colonial masters. Sam rules with an iron fist and tramples on everyone in his cabinet but it becomes ironic when he is soft and jelly when dealing with a white female journalist.
Nationalist movements rarely take women’s situation as their point of departure. On the contrary, nationalism often suppresses women’s concerns or puts them aside until the more important issues of the nation’s fate are decided. Hence Enlore (Molande, 2004: 44) concludes that nationalism typically springs from “masculinised memory, masculinised humiliation and masculinised hope.” Achebe therefore is challenging the masculinised nation which fails as it is always associated with coups and political unrest.
Beatrice in Anthills of the Savannah, therefore, openly challenges male chauvinism when she says “that every woman wants a man to complete her is a piece of male chauvinism bullshit I had completely rejected before I knew there was anything like the Women’s Lib” (Achebe, 1987: 88).
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Ikem also questions the oppression of women. He seeks to offer background information against the oppression of women and he attacks chauvinistic ideas that women are inferior. He acknowledges women especially in as far as nation building is concerned. Beatrice is a woman that evolves as a symbol of development from childhood. She is also a symbol of hope in terms of the political situation in Kangan hence making the apt naming in vernacular image seem valid for the emancipation of women in society. Amaechina, Elewa’s child, becomes a symbol of hope in the advance of the political situation in Kangan and in women as the possible hope in the reigning political status quo in the Kangan government.
Achebe’s Anthills of the Savannah eventually re-valorises women. Beatrice inhabits the postcolonial world of Kangan as a Senior Assistant Secretary in the Ministry of Finance and the only person in the service with first class honours degree in English. She therefore represents a small minority of women in a lopsided system in which African men received a well rounded education while, like in the mid-nineteenth century, African women received only utilitarian cosmetic skills in domestic science centres. Having transcended these barriers and the prevailing patriarchal European conception of women’s purely domestic life, Beatrice earns respect from her male counterparts and joins the revolutionary elite combating the oppression inflicted by a military dictatorship.
Achebe’s view of women is also reflected through the names Nwanyibuife (“A female is also something”) and Amaechina (“May the path never close”). Achebe’s vision is that females are equal stakeholders in the nation as males; therefore, they should be viewed as interested parties and responsible participants in the road to self redemption. Achebe advocates for the inclusion of females in the nation. When they have been given their rightful place then the road to self redemption and recovery may never close.
Anthills of the Savannah shows that women will be forerunners in the journey towards recovery but with the youths, workers, peasants as trusted lieutenants. The military will come though at a lower level. All these people represent various social groups showing Achebe’s social vision of populist inclusiveness that is the inclusion of all social class in matters of the state with the female on the forefront in the road to freedom. Beatrice fractures the post independent masculinity which is not influenced by feminine attitude. The feminine narrative represented by Beatrice comes in as a counter narrative, she stands up to Sam, the President and refuses to be used and dominated. She also appears to be one of the forces who can stand up against the government. The feminine principle therefore comes in to mend the damage done by the failure of this ultra-masculine nation. Order is being restored by women; hence ferminity is important in building
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the nation. Achebe therefore hints that the masculine nation is not the ideal.
Morokvasic (Day and Thompson, 2004) concedes that women often embody the nation, and that they are bearers of its honour and love. In nationalist discourse a woman is either the mother of the nation, or the sex object. She is either a protector and regenerator of the collective, or a possession of the collective. These symbolic images have been used by the media in getting the nation ready to face the enemy. The nation is gendered therefore at its very core and masculinity was the foundation of the nation. Emphasis is placed upon women’s reproductive role in the formation of the nation and national consciousness. On the other hand, this is a biological contribution; women are the mother of the nation who produces its next generation. Constructions of nationhood usually involve specific notions of both manhood and womanhood. In this case gender is imbedded in the very meaning of nation, what is to be national, how members of a nation should behave. Achebe’s sentiments are seen to differ and conflict through Beatrice when she opens Ikem’s eyes by telling him that his politics and his knowledge “… has no clear role for women in his political thinking and he doesn’t seem able to understand it” (Achebe, 1987: 91). This is also highlighted in Ngugi’s (1997) female character Wanja in Petals of Blood and Wariinga in Devil of the Cross (1982), who are playing active roles in their nation’s histories by resisting being pushed or tempted into accepting subservient, degrading or decorative roles.
Equipped with education, resilience and the will to survive, females are placing no limitation on their capabilities and Achebe expresses the urgent need for strong female voices in African societies. He truly believes that “as the world crushes around Man’s ears, Woman in her supremacy will decent and sweep the shards together” (Achebe: 89).
1.3 Globalization - a threat to the Nation/Nationhood: An interrogation of Ngugi’s Petals of Blood and Achebe’s A Man of the People.
The two novelists, Achebe and Ngugi, interrogate the nation and acknowledge that all certainties about it should now be suspected. The global sensibilities of all the major witnesses remain muted and submerged in the novelist’s need to imagine the nation as geographic and culturally integrated space. The two authors confront globalization as a threat to the nation’s integrity since nationalism places a nation at the centre of its concerns and seeks to promote national autonomy, national unity and national identity (Smith, 2001). Emenyonu (2006) contends that the nation still exists in consciousness as stored memories that may shape people’s responses to the new space.
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Globalization makes political borders increasingly irrelevant as it transcends mental as well as physical barriers. Harvey’s (1989) notion of time-space compression has become influential in making sense of globalization. For Harvey, the world shrinks as a consequence of technological innovations enabling people and commodities to travel more quickly than hitherto, and reducing distance as an obstacle to communication. These technological advances facilitate the increased interconnectedness that constitutes a core component of discussions of globalization. For some, the age of nation-state is already passing. Held (Day and Thompson, 1994) argues that while national governments remain significant actors, they are no longer the principal form of governance or authority. For example, a wide range of transnational actors now play important roles in global politics including multi-national corporations, global social movements and transnational bodies as the World Trade Organization and the United Nations. However, Holton (1998) holds that the appeal of nationhood and the idea of the nation-state are far from diminishing referring to the robustness and persistence of national identity and nation-focused sentiments. In doing so, he shows how globalization and nationalism often understood as mutually oppositional are not necessarily so. Thus, members of diasporan population may perceive themselves as belonging to a global community retaining links with their national homeland, while also holding citizenship of their adopted community. Furthermore, Vhutuza and Ngoshi (2008) contend that nationalism will continue to exist as long as mankind lives, and forms associations to question injustices in societies. This is supported by Smith (1998) who also contends that the loss of sovereignty does not necessarily entail the withering away of nationalism. Although this is threatened by globalization people keep identifying at national levels through for example, national days as Independence Day in Zimbabwe. There are also solid political reasons why the nation state continues to be a key actor in establishing the economic, political and social conditions necessary for economic growth and for attracting foreign capital. Therefore the appeal of nationhood is far from diminishing due to the robustness and persistence of national identity and nation-focused sentiments.
The old Ilmorog in Petals of Blood is destroyed by “progress”. Ngugi places the four characters, Munira, Abdullah, Wanja and Karega in remote llmorog now inhabited only by those too old, the young and feeble. A few llmorog’s older residents such as Wanja’s grandmother, Nyakinyua, offer residual memories of the village’s former glory. She laments the old llmorog whereas Mzigo, Chui and Kimeria are referred to as having
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built llmorog from a tiny nineteenth century village reminiscent of the days of Krapf and Rebman into a modern industrial town that even generations born after Gagarin and Armstrong will be proud to visit… (Ngugi: 5)
When a persistent drought threatens the very survival of the village’s residents Karega suggests a delegation travel to Nairobi to appeal for assistance from their Member of Parliament. Ngugi uses the delegation’s reception in Nairobi to reveal the hypocrisy of various elite-run institutions in postcolonial Kenya. After the pivotal llmorog delegation village to the national capital, Petals of Blood relates the destruction wrought to the old village by progress. The village is soon visited by increasing intrusion from the city, a church, a police station, the African economic bank and eventually the Trans Africa highway. The new IImorog becomes a better town, complete with all urban vices, led by the most despicable of selfish exploiters such as Kimeria, Mzingo and Chui. Petals of Blood is written after forces of colonialism have been defeated in Kenya.
Chui betrays his people all of a sudden; he does not want to learn anything African such as African history, and African literature. But for anything, there has to be a centre, from which to study, experiences differ so there is no homogeneity especially in as far as culture is concerned. Ngugi therefore attacks universalism and wants African unique elements to be identified and not to be clouded by globalization or universalism. Ngugi appropriates that there is a black experience and blacks have to be in control of their own affairs. Politics, business and education are the major factors that strangle llmorog because they are imbued with ideological complexities that elude most of the characters at first.
When Wanja allows herself to be attracted by Western values, she becomes a prostitute only to acquire beauty, dignity and wholesome by returning to be a peasant at the end. Nyakunyua is the memory bank of the people, the repository of her people’s history and her memory goes back to the time of the first resistance against colonialism. She is the link with the orator of the past, thus informs the young generation. The old informs the young as they are memory banks of history, so even in the face of globalization they are able to face and challenge it because they remain connected to their past. She even teaches the people of llmorog how to brew Theng’eta an inspirational drink within the culture so that people remain connected to their past and together they make up a collective experience. The aspect of history becomes a memory bank of the people and people draw lessons and it provides link and anchorage which people can forge ahead into the future. Thus we have in Petals of Blood communal voices coming together to narrate their experiences through different voices like Wanja, Munira and Karega.
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The bourgeoisie represent the reactionary forces set in to kill the people’s initiatives; for example MP Nderi turns Theng’eta into a commercial brew getting the sole license to produce it himself. The transnational highway also passes through llmorog thus providing a pathway of exploitation. Fanon (1963) discusses the unpreparedness of the educated class, the lack of practical links between them and the masses of the people. For example, MP Nderi rarely interacts with his constituency as MP. The national middle class are said to be in a predicament as they try to replace the bourgeoisie of the mother country. Instead of focusing on production and development of their constituency, they are concentrated in the capital accumulating wealth. Chief Nanga and Nderi are never in touch with their people but are popular for their wealth, big spacious houses, expensive cars and expensive lifestyles. Their psychology is that of the business man. MP Nanga for example, wants the road that passes through his village to be tarred because he had purchased ten buses. Therefore the bourgeoisie becomes the tool of capitalism and fail to be fruitful in their nation.
Globalization exploits, denigrates and humiliates Africa in the same way slavery and colonialism did. This is reflected by Ngugi in Petals of Blood where a road that had once been a railway line joining llmorog to Runaini carrying wood, charcoal and wattle barks from llmorog forests had eaten the forest and after accomplishing their tasks the two rails were removed and the ground became a road. Foreign companies therefore exhaust resources and leave when they find no more use, thus humiliating and denigrating Africa.
Transnational companies have become powerful organizations which try to control the global economy while nation states feel compelled to offer a competitive environment to attract investment. In A Man of the People, the government had maintained to promote local industry and the Minister of Foreign Trade announced a twenty percent rise in import duties on certain types of textile goods but the firm of the British Amalgamated took steps to bring in three shiploads of textiles (Achebe, 1966: 99). Thus, globalization has used one chief weapon to incorporate the Third World into the global world through neo-liberal policies.
McLuhan (1960) argues that the world market is expanding to exclude localism and nationalism and that people’s consciousness has been globalised. In A Man of the People the elite put on expensive robes made from European wool material with tags written “100% wool made in England” (Achebe: 1966: 64). The youth wore “Italian type shoes and tight trousers and girls wore lipstick and hair stretched with hot iron” (Achebe: 94). There is also consumption of global food like coca-cola and hamburgers. The experience of colonial domination
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shows that in the effort to perpetuate exploitation, it also provokes and develops cultural alienation of a part of the population either by assimilation of the indigenous people or by creating a social gap between the indigenous elite and the popular masses. As a result of the divisions within society it happens that a considerable part of the population notably assimilates the colonizer’s morality and considers itself culturally superior to its own people and looks down upon their cultural values. This is consolidated by increase in the social privileges of the alienated group. MP Nderi in A Man of the People enjoys these privileges. Ministers’ residences are very huge with seven bedrooms and seven bathrooms. His children attend a foreign school and can hardly speak their local African Language. Nderi represents the corruption and greed of Kenya’s political, economic and social elite who, after the struggle for freedom from the British rule have not returned wealth of the land to its people but rather perpetrates the social injustice and economic inequality; features of colonial aggression.
Globalization can also be charged of promising empty shells. Ruigrok and van Tulder (1995) argue that many governments and global financial institutions like the World Bank and IMF as well as transnational companies claim that globalization will ultimately improve the lives of people all over the world. They argue that globalization is the best thing that could happen to a developing country and that opening up trade and markets as part of globalization will lead to prosperity everywhere. It promises a better tomorrow and harmony between the people of the world who will all benefit from greater economic efficiency and increased world in the long run. These assumptions are contradicted by the evidence in Petals of Blood where in the guise of development, peasants had been lured into taking loans to fence off their land and buying imported fertilizer. However, the majority failed to pay off their loans resulting in confiscation of their pieces of land which were later sold off leaving the peasants landless, thus failure to benefit or even improve in the face of globalization.
The effects of globalization especially on the elite are emphasized when Odili says that:
a man who has just come in from the rain and dried his body and put on dry clothes is more reluctant to go out again than another who has been indoors the whole time. The trouble with our new nation as l saw it then… was that none of us had been indoors long enough to be able to say to heel with it. We had all been in the rain together until yesterday (Ngugi: 37).
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He goes on to talk about how a handful of his group of people become the smart and the lucky and how they had scrambled to the one shelter their former rulers left and taken it over. The above metaphor is very powerful and the point is that a person who goes from having nothing like Nanga, to having everything is going to be more reluctant to go back to having nothing, compared to someone that has had everything the whole time, thus making him more greedy to gain power and more defensive against giving up his power. Odili emphasizes that the new nation was never indoors but together in the rain and they desperately needed to experience little shelter. This shelter was a manifestation of globalization which encourages only a handful to benefit at the hands of the majority.
2. Conclusion
This article advances the view that the term nation is infested with acute weaknesses which stem from the definition itself. In Mayombe, it is emphasized that common imaginations can tie people together and nationalism is shown to have played a major role in fostering nationhood. The study reveals that nationhood is being threatened and undermined as the world becomes a global village that makes political borders irrelevant. Sovereignty is threatened as national governments become insignificant as they are no longer the principal form of authority. This paper also maintains that the discourse of a nation and nationhood which purport to engage everyone in a nation in the same way with the same degree of intensity does not fully reflect this equity as variations and differences are noted on the axis of gender where nations are mainly gendered.
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Works Cited
ACHEBE, C. (1966) A Man of the People. Harare, Baobab books. ACHEBE, C. (1987) Anthills of the Savannah. Johannesburg, Heinemann Educational Publishers.ANDERSON, B. (1991) Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Original Spread of Nationalism. London - New York, Verso. ASHCROFT, B., GRIFFITHS, G., TIFFIN H. (ed) (1995) The Post Colonial Studies Reader. London, Routledge. DAVIDSON, B, (1992) The Blackman’s Burden. Africa and the Curse of the Nation State, London, James Currey.DAY, G . and THOMPSON, A. (2004) Theorizing Nationalism. New York, Pulgrave Macmillan.EMENYONU, E. (ed.) (2006) New Directions in African Literature. Oxford, James Currey Ltd.FANON, F. (1963) The Wretched of the Earth. London, Penguin Books. GELLNER, E. (1993) Nations and Nationalism, Ithaca, Cornell University Press.HOLTON R, (1998) “Globalization and the Nation State” in International Journal of Comparative Sociology, 33 (1-2), 81-100.MOLANDE, B. (2004) “Politics of Rewriting: What Did Achebe Really Do?” in Journal of Humanities No.18, 38-54.MC LUHAN, M. (1994) Understanding the Media: The Extensions of Man, London, Routledge. NGUGI Wa Thiong’o (1997) Petals of Blood. Johannesburg, Heinemann Publishers. PEPETELA (1983) Mayombe, Harare, Zimbabwe Publishing House.SMITH, A.D. (1998) Nationalism and Modernism. London, Routledge.THIERME J, (2003) Postcolonial Studies. New York, Oxford University Press. VAN DE WAALS, W.S (1993) Portugal’s War in Angola 1961-1974. Rivona, Ashanti PublishingVHUTUZA E and Ngoshi, H (2008) “Nationalism or Supranationalism in the 21st Century?” in African Integration Review Vol. 2, No.1 January 2008, African Union Commission.
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Recommended citation || RINHAUG, Aino (2010): “My Name Is Legion Literature and Genealogy in António Lobo Antunes” [online article], 452ºF. Electronic journal of theory of literature and comparative literature, 2, 48-61 [Consulted on: dd / mm / yy], < http://www.452f.com/index.php/en/aino-rinhaug.html >.Illustration || Caterina Cerdá Article || Received on: 09/10/2009 | International Advisory Board’s suitability: 02/12/2009 | Published on: 01/2010License || Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 License.
MY NAME IS LEGION LITERATURE AND GENEALOGY IN ANTÓNIO LOBO ANTUNES
Aino RinhaugPost-Doctoral Research Fellow (RCN)University of Oslo | IGRS School of Advanced Studies
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Abstract || The present contribution seeks to examine the topic of “national identity and literature” by focusing on how a collective – family or nation – is constituted by a number of “power relations.” These “power relations”, in turn, are produced, or created by the collective as a whole and could be said to represent the frontiers of the group at any given time. When these considerations are brought into a work of fiction, it becomes clearer that the relations in question are of a discursive nature. Discourse is power and, as such, disciplinary of both of the collective as well as of each individual within the group. As an example of this kind of discourse, the analysis focuses on the novel, O meu nome é Legião, by Portuguese author, António Lobo Antunes.
Key-words || António Lobo Antunes | O meu nome é Legião | National identity | Family theory | Power relations | Discourse | Autopoiesis | Genealogy.
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Vou inventando infâncias. A minha já a esgotei. António Lobo Antunes
0. Introduction
In light of how today’s worldly climate, including all disciplines of inquiry, is largely governed by postmodern “undecidables” (Connor 1997: 29), the importance attached to the question of “identity” and “nation” becomes all the more evident. Or, the two concepts seem as intricately connected as they are indeed incongruent counterparts. The present essay seeks to take into consideration how both identity and nation come to play a significant part in the constitution of contemporary literature. Moreover, in the face of an increasing sense of historical discontinuity, literature is forced to engage with a bewildering conception of self, belonging and the role of writing. If the quest for “national identity” entails a negotiation across borders of all kinds, then the same pursuit could be seen as directing the writing of literature beyond established genre frontiers, say, for example of post-colonialism. The assumption is, furthermore, that contemporary literature is pushing further into the muddy waters of postmodernism toward that which seems to refute a “name” or definition. In other words, these ongoing explorations of borders take the negotiations over the signification of national identity into a new territory. My investigation will relate these preliminary reflections to the question of “voice,” “space” and “narration” in order to see how new genealogies (hence borders), or family constellations are created. If a “family” is understood as a representative fragment of a “nation,” then “identity” is broadly conceived as subjectivity belonging to a line of historical and discursive – hence genealogical – material. Supporting the inquiry into the connection between national identity and contemporary fiction, references will be made to the novel O Meu Nome é Legião (2007) by Portuguese author, António Lobo Antunes.
1. In between the margin and the centre
The novel is written in the same way as other recent publications by Lobo Antunes, that is, as a conjunction of narrative voices, each speaking from his or her point of view as concerns a particular experience or event. In the case of O Meu Nome…, the narration revolves around a changing order, or, say, the fall of an authority. The opening pages are written as a police “report” (“relatório”), documenting a criminal incident, which involves a group of young boys, all inhabitants of the disorderly social quarter “Bairro 1st of May.” As such, the investigation into and disclosure of the unlawful state of the site in the north of Lisbon could be seen as an exposure, first of how relations between people are formed based on the
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relation they have to the site; in other words, of the power exercised by the site over its inhabitants; and secondly, of the extent to which it is possible to speak (and act) as an individual as opposed to as a collective whole. Overall, these considerations relate to the question of belonging, which remains unresolved. As for the Bairro, the site comes to represent an autonomous territory, a world in miniature, set in a piece of fiction that seeks to penetrate into the question of what disciplines, but also resists, the creation of a self on site. The quarter of exiles becomes, thus, the centre of narration, where the conjunction of individual storylines unfolds and new genealogies are drawn up, perhaps even a genealogy of literature itself. These remarks amount to a recognition of how writing comes to connect the exiled, or marginalised with the centre, or rather, how it is necessary to rethink both the margin as well as the centre as indicators of belonging.
1.1. A postmodern Legião: in exile
In regard to the question of exile vs. belonging, the novel takes its title from the Bible. A story both of exorcism and salvation, we are told how Jesus meets the Gerasene demoniac Legion, whose spirit is unclean, because he is possessed by a legion of demonic voices. In Mark’s version of the story, we read:
And they came to the other side of the sea, to the region of the Gerasenes. And when Jesus got out of the boat, suddenly there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit, who was living among the tombs, and no one could restrain him any longer, not even with a chain, for he’d been bound with fetters and chains many times, but the chains were torn apart by him and the fetters smashed, and no one was strong enough to tame him. And every night and day among the tombs and on the mountains he was screaming and gashing himself with stones (Newheart 2004: xix)1.
Jesus saves the ill-possessed man, who comes to spend the rest of his life retelling of how his saviour called upon the demonic spirits, who then took refuge in a herd of pigs and later drowned. In the novel by Lobo Antunes, it could be said that the Bairro speaks as an “unclean” collective whole, inhabited, as it is, by an entire legion of voices that are all exiled by society. However, instead of going into hiding, chained and fettered, the Bairro, by being under constant surveillance by the law, or Police, is subjected to a “disciplinary” regime, or, to speak with Foucault, a disciplinary control that was originally applied to marginalise the “leper” from the rest of society. In Discipline and Punish, Foucault writes:
NOTES
1 | Lobo Antunes refers to the same story by quoting Luke 8: 26-28 at the beginning of the novel.
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The constant division between the normal and the abnormal, to which every individual is subjected, brings us back to our own time, by applying the binary branding of exile of the leper to quite different objects; the existence of a whole set of techniques and institutions for measuring, supervising and correcting the abnormal brings into play the disciplinary mechanisms to which the fear of the plague gave rise (Foucault,1991: 199).
Effectively, the relation between the leper exile and the contemporary Legion becomes reinforced in the novel. In the case of the Biblical Legion, God, through Jesus, exercises his power over Man by healing the sick. The latter is, then, reinstalled into the order of the people. In regards to the role of the site, it is worth noting that the healing of Legion takes place in Gentile territory (Newheart, 2004: 38): “[T]he unclean spirit has brought the man into unclean places” (42). Brought into a contemporary context, the expulsion of the leper from society and the exercise of power by a supreme authority resurface in the theory of punishment and discipline in Foucault’s reflections on panopticism.
Referring to Jeremy Bentham’s “inspection house,” or Panopticon (1787), Foucault observes how the construction allows, for example prisoners, to be surveyed without being able to see the surveyor. Every person is kept in spatial unities and the guards, in turn, can “see constantly and recognize immediately” each individual with the consequence that visibility becomes a trap and power is exercised automatically (200-201). Contrary to what happened to the biblical Legion hiding amongst the tombs, the aim of the Bentham’s disciplinary construction, as referred to by Foucault, was to ensure that “[t]he crowd, a compact mass, a locus of multiple exchanges, individualities merging together, a collective effect, is abolished and replaced by a collection of separated individualities” (201)2. Also, the Panopticon was a laboratory of power, “it could be used as a machine to carry out experiments, to alter behaviour, to train or correct individuals” (203). These individual bodies in space, it must be noted, are the opposite of a singular, supreme power; it is the “whole lower region” of the panoptic domain “of irregular bodies, with their details, their multiple movements, their heterogeneous forces, their spatial relations” (208), and what is required in terms of disciplinary analysis of this heterogeneous group, are:
[m]echanisms that analyse distributions, gaps, series, combinations, and which use instruments that render visible, record, differentiate and compare: a physics of a relational and multiple power, which has its maximum intensity not in the person of the king, but in the bodies that can be individualized by these relations (208).
According to these observations, the Panopticon, as a social body,
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2 | J. Bentham, Works, ed. Bowring, IV, 1843.
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indicates as its object, “relations of discipline” (208) rather than the presence of a sovereign power. If, as Foucault writes, Bentham dreamt of creating a society that would be “penetrated through and through” by a network of disciplinary mechanisms, then the Panopticon provided a formula for that arrangement (209)3.
By taking a long leap from the role of the Panopticon in contemporary society to the question of national identity and literature, it is obvious that society, as a panoptic domain, has become increasingly more unruly and difficult to keep in check or analyse. Disciplinary, inter-personal relations have become hugely more complex, as has the question of the individual, identity and nation. Today, the combinatory possibilities between individuals within the collective whole seem infinite and visibility alone cannot ensure any form of discipline and order, largely because order itself has become relative. Indeed, the impression arises that order has become as relative as the discourses that seek to maintain it. Could it be, thus, that the form of panopticism today can only be defined according to the operating discursive relations of contemporary society? Holstein and Gubrium, debating the notion of “narrative identity in a postmodern world” (2000) seem to hold such a view. Referring to Foucault, they write:
Across the various institutional realms, newly emergent discourses formed subjectivities of their own. Rather than the individual self being the center of experience through time immemorial, Foucault argues that the idea of a centered presence is itself a discursive formation, part of a historical set of language games, if you will, that articulate the discourse of a present subjectivity on several fronts (Holstein, Gubrium 2000: 79).
And further:
This contemporary panopticism is a massive set of language games we engage in virtually every day. Their various terms locate and discursively ground the construction of the empirical self. This ending for the story of the self directs us to the local incitements of seemingly endless personal narratives. These are not grand narratives of the self. To be sure; instead, they are accounts that borrow from diversely situated and formulated language games to convey who and what we are in our private spheres and very ‘own’ inner lives (80).
As might be derived from these observations, postmodern panopticism as a practice of discourse is closely related to the concept of the collective whole as a composite social body. The assumption held in the present examination is, therefore, that this discursive, disciplinary, but also resistant and even “revolutionary” relation between individuals can be played out creatively, as literature. Furthermore, within the “institution,” or “state” of literature the idea of national identity can be performed as a creative practice, whose complex genealogy is found – as mentioned earlier – in the “social” territory between the centre and the margins.
NOTES
3 | In Discipline and Punish (1991) Foucault gives an historical account of the evolution of disciplinary institutions, including the organisation of the police apparatus, which became co-extensive of the state in the eighteenth-century. See pp. 218-228. Bentham, Works, ed. Bowring, IV, 1843.
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2. On site: the postmodern family and genealogy
The assumption is, that on site, discursive relations take place and create a “social body,” whose complexity in terms of meaning and identity derives both from the site as well as from each participant in the field. Quoting Deleuze’s view on Foucauldian power suffices to make the density of the site problem more than obvious. Taken from a seminar section called ‘A New Cartographer’, he writes: “The thing called power is characterized by immanence of field without transcendent unification, continuity of line without global centralization, and contiguity of parts without distinct totalization: it is a social space” (Deleuze, 1988: 27)4. As Gregg Lambert observes, the crucial thing to draw from this description is that “social space itself [is] a multiplicity of relations (i.e., immanence, continuity, contiguity) that are not already structured into a hierarchy or pyramid” (Lambert, 2008: 141). This observation, opposing that of a “higher” authority, renders the idea of power and dominance more difficult, as power “does not flow in one direction only, as ‘from above’, but also ‘from below’, since dominated subjects also produce the reality of the dominator-function as a moment of transcendent unification” (141). Also, as is further noted, it is important to keep in mind that power is not something that is “added on” to the social field, but something “deeply rooted in the social nexus” (Foucault, 1994: 343). This, in turn, will affect our view on power, history and genealogy, which in light of the present topic and novel, becomes evident. For Lambert, Foucault’s theory of power is genealogical rather than historical, since “only a genealogical method must account for sudden deviations or accidents that might befall the genus (form)” (145). In other words, there is no inner logic to the development of forms, which exist as a multitude of interconnecting events (Dodd, 1999: 90). Lobo Antunes’ novel, however, demonstrates that in literature as an event and as a language game, the notion of “national identity” is put in question by a continuous production and usage of discursive (“genealogical”) material. More precisely, in the case of literature as a “site” of power in its own right, we have to do with a form of an ongoing negotiation between the historical and the a-historical from the way in which the order of a “genealogical model” continues to be disrupted by the extension of the discursive mode. Furthermore, literature, as the a-historical model of power, is constantly in the process of becoming historical by the fact that the discursive participants feed on, or are maintained by, their own genealogical and historical material of the past. Consequently, the individual storylines, which constitute the heterogeneous collective site of power relations, is also a site of memory, and the latter is brought back to the present, or actualised, by the participants, productive of their own singularity as subjectivities.
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4 | Quoted in Lambert (2008: 141).
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3. A legion of selves: “For we are many”
In order to demonstrate the above considerations, I will now turn to the novel O meu nome é Legião for a closer analysis. As mentioned earlier, the novel, as the major part of Lobo Antunes’ work, demonstrates how the conjunction of narrative voices creates a collective whole that speaks as “many in one.” Returning to the question of power relations, the striking feature of the novel is that these voices speak from a position that no longer belongs to any kind of fixed order. Deprived of any authority, the representatives of the law are powerless in the face of the Bairro, which seems to exist according to its own laws. Here, on the one hand, the voices speak as anonymous nomadic figures, discernible only by colour or other physical traits5. On the other hand, the discourse is a continuous exploration of the past, or of the question of who and what “we” are in terms of selves and sites. The novel seems to emphasise that when the “old” order has failed6, there is no real difference between representatives of the law (Police) and the exiled inhabitants of the Bairro in terms of authority; nor is there any discursive difference between voices from the past and those of the present. Hence, the genealogical is aligned with the historical material. When each of the living voices remembers voices from the past, whether these belong to family members or ex-lovers, every voice and every individual story line is joined together in the production of the literary work. As such, the constellation of narrative voices can be seen as similar to a “family,” or broadly speaking, a “nation,” whose “frontiers” are determined by the various operations taking place within the entity.
3.1. Statements, order words and bodies
In terms of composition, it has already been noted that the opening chapter is written as a police report, hence formally composed according to convention, but intersected by the personal memories of the narrator:
escuto um oco de gruta no interior de mim ou seja pingos vagarosos e raros que deduzo pertencerem a episódios da época há tanto tempo morta em que me emocionava, o meu chefe a estranhar-Tem as pálpebras vermelhas você e o pisa-papéis de uma banda para a outra a atanzanar-me, defendo-me calculando quantos palitos no restaurant de Ermesinde ou a imaginar a minha filha no mesmo banco que eu a observar os prédios igualmente misturando e separando dedos, talvez prove um dos bolos, talvez pingos também, dava oito décimos do ordenado para saber o que pensa em mim se é que pensa em mim, não acredito que gaste tempo comigo, em pequena ria-se a dormir, gatinhava para trás, espalhava a mão na cara-Fui-me embora (Antunes 2007:35).
NOTES
5 | Cf. “[D]e acordo com a ordem habitual ou seja o chamado Capitão de 16 (dezasseis) anos mestiço, o chamado Miúdo de 12 (doze) anos mestiço, o chamado Ruço de 19 (dezanove) anos branco e o chamado Galã de 14 (catorze) anos mestiço na dianteira e os restantes quatro, o chamado Guerrilheiro de 17 (dezassete) anos mestiço, o chamado Cão de 15 (quinze) anos mestiço , o chamado Gordo de 18 (dezoito) anos preto e o Hiena de 13 (treze) anos mestiço assim apelidado em consequência de uma malformação no rosto [...].” In Antunes (2007: 14).
6 | The policeman in the beginning of the novel expresses the connection between a social and a bodily sense of “disorder”. The fall of the regime is described with references to a physical deterioration: “o que este país decaiu com a democracia senhores, a falta de respeito, o desgoverno, os pretos, as minhas víceras até que trabalhavam com eficiência, oleadas, tranquilas e por favour não me venham com o argumento que a idade é outra porque não é a idade é o salve-se quem puder que se transmite aos órgãos, aí estão eles cada qual para o seu lado a funcionarem sozinhos que bem sinto as supra-renais e o pâncreas egoístas, ferozes a atormentarem-me o verniz com as unhas sob o aparador do estômago […].” (p. 37).
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The narrating policeman relates, thus, to two temporal lines, that is, to voices both from the past (“pingos”) as well as the present (“pálpebras vermelhas”) with the result that the memories of his daughter seem more present than the actual daughter. Similar to what is the case with his parents (“(-Desculpe se a contrário mãe mas o que herdei do meu pai?)”) (20), she is absent from his life. Each family member is, moreover, in exile from one another, yet connected by way of discursive memory (“(pronto confesso tenho vergonha do meu pai)”) (29). Also, the narrator suspects that his exile is not intentional, but rather a result of an inexplicable feature which makes others withdraw from him: “perdoem-me se exagero, mas visita-me a suspeita de existir qualquer coisa em mim, no aspecto, na maneira de exprimir-me, no cheiro, que afasta as pessoas, o meu chefe para não ir mais longe nunca me estende a mão” (26). From his exiled position, the ”drops” from the past which he carries within become the sole connection between the self and the world to the extent that they – discursively – tie him to the place and to the present and, as such, even to his daughter: ”há alturas em que me ocorre que qualquer coisa entre nós, um laçozinho ténue, uma espécie de saudade, patetices no género e engano, laço algum, ela uma gruta também onde os pingos e os líquenes secavam, espaço vazio e sem ecos, pedras mortas, silêncio [...]” (50).
As a repetition, or extension of the first storyline, the same kind of disrupted family story is echoed in the narratives of the inhabitants of the Bairro, for example in the voice of a woman:
Nasci aqui, sempre morei aqui, os meus pais e o meu filho faleceram aqui e portanto sou daqui e não saio daqui mesmo que o meu marido continue a insistir que os corvos se foram e os defuntos deixaram de perguntar por nós no baldio onde os enterramos às escondidas a seguir ao que sobeja de uma capela de quinta [...] (169).
Here, the ”Bairro” as the site of origin and death, fulfills the role of a home. The woman’s voice is ”rooted” in the place as she can also ”hear” other voices from within: ”são outras vozes que oiço, finados de antes do meu nascimento num português de pretos porque somos pretos e não temos um lugar que nos aceite salvo figueiras bravas e espinhos [...]” (173). In this case, the question of belonging, exile and self obtains a further meaning from the fact that the sense of self is determined hence disciplined by the discourse of race and gender. The Bairro is the site of exiles, of different temporalities and genealogies that are unfixed, and family stories are in danger of dissolving into rejection or forgetfulness. For example, the woman rejects to acknowledge her son: ”não me comparo com o meu filho porque não tive filho, tive cacos a ferirem-me por dentro e um choro que as velhas embrulharam em panos [...]” (177). The familial liaison remains a sense of bodily pain and estrangement (”era um
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desconhecido que recebi como um desconhecido”) (180):
depois do falecimento do meu pai a minha mãe a espreitar os corvos sem espreitar fosse o que fosse porque o Bairro lhe acabava nos limites do corpo, para além da pele não existe nada e o que existe no interior da pele não me rala, não sou fora de mim e o que sou em mim não o sinto, não senti os meus filhos, cresceram-me no sangue sem me pertencerem, foram-se embora, adeus, a minha filha primeira, quase branca (294).
Now, if these statements can be seen as representative of the joining-separating communications of exiles, it becomes clearer how the question of belonging and separation is problematic in the context of identity and narrative. The statements are “bodily statements” in the sense that they express and discursively determine the body (“branco,” “preto,” “mestiço”) within a regime of power relations and with reference to Deleuze and Guattari, the novel is an example of how language is primarily social and consists of order-words, expressed by speech acts that are linked to a “social obligation” and not to a communication of identity (Deleuze, Guattari, 2004: 87). It is, in other words, a matter of repetition and redundancy rather than information and signification and both signification as well as subjectification depend on the “nature and transmission of order-words in a given social field” (88). Furthermore, the “impersonal collective” determines, or assigns, “individuality and their shifting distributions within discourse” (88). Deleuze and Guattari go on to emphasise that the speech acts are attributed to bodies (in a broad sense) of a given society (89) and the order-words have a transformational power on bodies, as for example in regard to the question of race and gender. As Lambert notes, “black” and “white” as attributes” is an incorporeal transformation that is applied directly to bodies and is inserted into the subject’s actions and passions. In short, it subjects the body to an ‘order’ (Lambert, 58). In the voice of a female mestiço:
Que coisa é mulher? Talvez a palavra secreta que qualquer dia direiQue coisa é mulher?[…]não me vou embora deste Bairro porque não sei se existo desde que estou sozinha […](qual o motivo que não entendo de não partir daqui?)[…](há quanto tempo não sou branca eu?) (95-97).
These considerations beg further inquiry into the particular role played by speech acts and order-words in the novel, where a determination of a discursive “order” seems problematic. In order to look more closely at the relation between order-words, genealogy and identity, it will be fruitful to turn briefly to systems and family theory.
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3.1.1. Postmodern familial constellation: autopoiesis
How the discursive power relations in the novel act upon each other in a productive sense can be examined by looking at the Bairro, or collective, as a “social system”: On the one hand, we have seen that a regime of order-words determines – at least temporarily – subjectification and individuality by assigning a place within an order. On the other hand, this place is a relative position and when the order dissolves new orders, along with new order-words, need to be established. The assumption is, therefore, that the material for the production of the new orders and order-words is to be found in the reminiscences of the self. Moreover, the individual lines of memory reshuffle the relations within the Bairro as a site of power, and, consequently, re-discipline the order. This, in turn, demonstrates that the Bairro, as a “system,” is engaged in a continuous negotiation across borders (temporal, spatial, objective, subjective), i.e. between establishing itself as a closed vs. open system of production/creation and rejection of identity. Referring to “families” as social systems, Mary Joan Gerson observes that, if a closed system is governed by the law of entropy, it will deteriorate into undifferentiated chaos (Gerson, 1996: 22), whilst “open” systems are organic and will “move toward a higher and higher degree of complexity because information is exchanged with the external environment in such a way as to maintain ‘a steady state’ or equilibrium” (22).
In the case of the “family relations” in the novel – and hence in the Bairro – it becomes evident that the collective is both tending towards entropic chaos as well as towards establishing itself as a “steady state.” Its complexity – deriving from its discursive nature – ensures that the collective is maintained and reproduced by the constant exchange of order-words that create, but also destroy orders that in turn reconnect. For example, the assignments of race and gender are a way of “naming” the self, but, through the intervention of memory (i.e., history), that fixation, or “naming” is destabilised by a different order, which is what emanates from within the self. As a result, we see that it is the self who negotiates his or her inner “vocabulary” with those coming from the outside (site) and the novel demonstrates on the one hand that to be “seen” is to adjust to a set of order-words and to a relative regime of statements; but also, on the other hand, it is made explicit that by introducing an individual story- and timeline, that position, or adjustment, is severely put in question. The bodies seem to reject or oppose the statements from within and as a result, the novel becomes a linguistic, discursive battleground. As Deleuze observes: “power is that ‘other thing’ (a liquid being) that appears both on the side of statements and on the level of bodies. It is that which is felt (a relation of force that appears in the vicinity of another
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body and causes the relation to power); at the same time, power has a definite sense that is bound up with linguistic sense” (Lambert, 2008: 149).
The novel, in other words, displays a “life cycle” of the narrative as a continuous line of error and deviations from the norm (Lambert, 2008: 165). Language is bound to “fail” and disappoint the self and at best it is a means by which new frontiers are constantly being created and erased. As Foucault writes: “I don’t want to say that the state isn’t important; what I want to say is that relations of power, and hence the analysis that must be made of them, necessarily extend beyond the limits of the state…” (Foucault, 1994: 123). Discipline of language, furthermore, is a game, an application of power, but it is constantly met with resistance and will, as a consequence, become powerless. The last pages of the novel by Lobo Antunes, shows what happens when the demonic voices are exorcised, or “disciplined” by an “order” after the fixed Order has failed. The section shows with sharp irony, that language as power can only discipline itself; it shows only itself, not selves.
4. Conclusion: A literary legion
Towards the end of the novel, we return to the voice of the Police, now in exile, in fact, an inhabitant of the desolated Bairro. His reflections are no longer in line with the order of the police report, and he is astonished by the fact that he can remember anything at all from the time in which he believed in the “order” (337, 354). Now, his focus is on the narrating discourse itself: “(expressão quase poética, a beleza que as frases ganham quando as deixamos à solta) […]” (345), and even the memories have become independent as discourse: “(ora aí está uma memória clara, quem não se maravilha com as idiossincrasias da mente?)” (345). Similarly, the last chapter is in the voice of one of the boys of the Bairro, relating to the meeting with the law. He has spent seven months at the so-called Institution (364): “Puseram-me na oficina do carpinteiro e na escola” (365). And the narrative mirrors the “learned” rhetoric of an institutionalised disciplinary order, whose aim is to include the self in a language: “Suponhamos dois automóveis a cinquenta quilómetros um do outro. O primeiro automóvel numa esquina que designaremos por A como água e o Segundo automóvel noutra esquina que designaremos por B como bota” (368). Or:
Água e bota não são para escrever. Só para ter a certeza que não confundem A e B com outras letras. Não o A evidentemente. Vogal cheia. Fácil. Totalmente aberta mas o B traiçoeiro. Susceptível de ser entendido como D ou P ou Q ou T. Cuidado com o B. Continuemos (372).
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Later, the voice of the boy (“mestiço”) is interrupted by, or even aligned with, that of the police, which brings us back to the order of the speech act only:
(retomámos o ditado é o último parágrafo)o mestiço a levantar um taco vírgula a abrir um saco de lona (eu uma semantinha que sai pela janela e definitivamente perco)a abrir um saco de lona não sei se vírgula e a retirar do saco uma espingarda vírgula cartuchos vírgula(não consigo dizer isto devagar perdoem têm de correr ao meu lado)[…](acabaram-se as virgules é só correr senhores)como a semente me abandonou a mim ou seja me abandonei a mim mesmo, vos abandonou a vocês e desapareceu no silêncio de que o mundo é feito, acabou-se a minha mulher, acabou-se o Instituto, acabaram-se as aulas (379).
Here, in terms of narrative structure and composition, we have an example of how the discourse of the police “returns” to the beginning; how all the voices, or speech acts involved in the narrative have come to constitute a different “order” within the novel as a whole. At the end of the “relatório,” the voices are merged and the police, the self, is Legião, the Bairro, for he is many and his power derives from the fact that he is inhabited by a number of changing orders or genealogies, dominated by some, dominating others. As such, Lobo Antunes demonstrates that to write a piece of contemporary fiction, becomes a meta-fictional exercise, where the writing process becomes visible and turns towards showing itself as a discipline, an institution, or a state. As such, we are all institutionalised participants, yet individuals, engaged in the making of the work and the establishment of its frontiers, and eventually, this discursive activity becomes an ongoing exercise in re-determining the limits of selves and of the collective whole.
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Works Cited
ANTUNES, António (2007): O Meu Nome é Legião, Lisbon: Publicações Dom Quijote.CONNOR, Steven (1997): Postmodernist Culture: An Introduction to Theories of the Contemporary, Oxford: Blackwell.DELEUZE, Gilles (1988): Foucault, trans. Sean Hand. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.DELEUZE, Gilles and Félix (2004): A Thousand Plateaus, trans. Brian Massumi. London and New York: Continuum.DODD, Nigel (1999): Social Theory and Modernity, Oxford: Blackwell.FOUCAULT, Michel (1991): Discipline and Punish. The Birth of the Prison, trans. Alan Sheridan. London: Penguin.FOUCAULT, Michel (1994): Power, trans. R. Hurley. New York: The New Press.GERSON, Mary Joan (1996): The Embedded Self. A Psychoanalytic Guide to Family Therapy, Hillsdale NJ: The Analytic Press. HOLSTEIN, James A. and Jaber F. Gubrium (2000): The Self We Live By: Narrative Identity in a Postmodern World, New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press. LAMBERT, Gregg (2008): Who’s Afraid of Deleuze and Guattari? New York: Continuum. NEWHEART, Michael Willett (2004): “My Name is Legion.” The Story and Soul of the Gerasene Demoniac, Collegeville, Minnesota: Liturgical Press.
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Recommended citation || GUEVARA, Alberto (2010): “Re-enacting the nation: Unsettling Narratives in the El Güegüense Theatre of Nicaragua” [online article], 452ºF. Electronic journal of theory of literature and comparative literature, 2, 62-78 [Consulted on: dd / mm / yy], < http://www.452f.com/index.php/en/alberto-guevara.html >.Illustration || Elena MacíasArticle || Received on: 09/10/2009 | International Advisory Board’s suitability: 25/11/2009 | Published on: 01/2010License || Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 License.
RE-ENACTING THE NATION: UNSETTLING NARRATIVES IN THE EL GÜEGÜENSE THEATRE OF NICARAGUAAlberto GuevaraAssistant Professor | Fine Arts Cultural StudiesYork University
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Abstract || Nicaragua’s oldest known theatre play, El Güegüense, is one of the most recognizable and symbolic cultural references in this country. Through its social and cultural narratives, located inside and outside the theatre/drama, the play has become an important site for Nicaraguan identity negotiations. Some Nicaraguans take the play’s performance as the means for evoking and communicating memories, knowledge, personhood, and religiosity through embodied performed public acts. This article traces local contemporary practices of the play, in the form of its annual performance in the town of Diriamba, and compares these with elite Nicaraguan literary and intellectual understandings of the El Güegüense script. It is argued that the embodied experiences of the play’s performers disrupt the homogenized, nationalist narrative of a Nicaraguan “Mestizo” identity.
Key-words || El Güegüense theatre | Theatre and nationalism | Performance | Mestizo Identity | Nicaragua.
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0. Introduction
For centuries, every year in South-western Nicaragua a handful of (non-professional) groups performed El Güegüense play during folkloric festivals and other celebrations. The narratives of the play deal with the conflict and the contradictions between the colonizers (Spanish authorities) and the colonized (Mestizo-Indigenous people). The Crown’s coffers are empty, and the rulers demand more from the poverty stricken population. The play´s script, the translation made by Daniel Brinton (1969) in the late 1800’s, begins as the Spanish governor, Tastuanes, greets his constable, the Alguacil Mayor. They comment on the insolvent state of the Royal council and the Governor blames this situation on a tax-evading, travelling Mestizo merchant, named Güegüense. He orders that nobody should be allowed to enter or leave the province without his permission. He requests that El Güegüense be brought to him to respond to some charges. When the Alguacil confronts El Güegüense, the latter constantly twists the Alguacil’s words so as to insult him. In the end, El Güegüense winds up tricking the governor into dancing the bawdy “Macho Ratón”. As a result the governor is appreciative of the Güegüense for the pleasurable time and enjoyment the dance has given him.
The El Güegüense play has become one of the most recognisable symbols and cultural references in the country. While widely understood as a denunciation of corruption and abuse of power in the post-contact period (Cuadra 1969, Arellano 1969, Dávila Bolaños 1974, Field 1999, Castillo, 1997), the play has achieved this status of national symbol as a result of the “Mestizo” Nicaraguan identity with which it is associated. Written in both Spanish and Nahuatl the El Güegüense is a fusion play. Besides being written in two languages it is also codified in two cultures and two social classes. The play emerges at a meeting place of two or more cultural worldviews within the context of colonialism.
The dominant view of the play as the prototype of Mestizo Nicaragua is linked to a national ideology of ethnic homogeneity. Elements of Meztizaje (both Spanish and Indigenous) in the El Güegüense appealed to many intellectuals in early Twentieth Century Nicaragua who, mobilizing to gain national/political appeal, sought cultural symbols that could lend themselves to narratives of national unity (Field 1999). Pablo Antonio Cuadra, a leading Twentieth Century Nicaraguan intellectual, for example, proposes the Mestizo character of the Nicaraguan man in association with the play’s main character of El Güegüense. He posits that being Nicaraguan is the result of a cultural shock, a fusion, and a duality. Throughout his work he searches for the tools to narrate a Mestizo culture that would help produce and feed the notion of a Nicaraguan literature (Cuadra,
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1969: 9).
It is my position that a politics of cultural homogeneity in such narratives of the play exclude other views, identities and positions that are in apparent interaction and negotiation in the play’s yearly performances in Diriamba. Elite intellectuals and their narratives tend to ignore the play’s performers whose active participation construct and reconstruct many meanings about the play in its performances. The aim of this paper is then to re-enact a critical response from the perspective of local performers of the play, whose embodied understandings contradict this nationalistic narrative of homogeneity.
In the year 2000-2001 after intensive preliminary archival research on El Güegüense theatre, I joined an El Güegüense group in Western Nicaragua in the town of Diriamba. Through participant-observation I took part in the activities of this group through preparations, rehearsals, and performances of the play. I participated in the lives of the town’s people, the lives of the actors, and organizers of the Saint Sebastian fiestas, in which the play has an important role. In this paper I present this negotiation that took place within the production of the play. What does it mean to the various social and cultural constituencies in contemporary Nicaragua to participate in the preparation and performance of the play? What is the importance in highlighting the differences and contradictions between the El Güegüense drama text (discourses of the play by the Nicaraguan elite intellectuals) and its performance text (the performance of the play by locals) in the understanding of social relations and national identity in Diriamba and in Nicaragua as a whole?
The following analysis of El Güegüense will be organized in three little sections. Sections 1 and 2 will examine the dominant elite discourse surrounding the script of El Güegüense. I will highlight how this discourse is perpetuated by members of the local elite in the context of El Güegüense’s annual production in the town of Diriamba. By highlighting the role of the play in nation building through the efforts of Nicaraguan elite intellectuals (Field), I propose to make visible the social and cultural contestations occurring in contemporary Nicaragua in relation to this cultural production, not only at the level of literature and symbolism, but also at the level of the enactment of embodied experiences as a social forms of action.
To further illustrate the importance of the play for local performers, in part 3 the paper will identify or frame the theatrical process as an important social and cultural landscape where some Nicaraguans evoke and communicate memories, knowledge, personhood, and religiosity through embodied public acts (Taylor). The El Güegüense
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performance is thus a site (real and imaginary/creative) where some Nicaraguans learn and propose a culture (its history, its political reservations and its social vicissitudes) through the participation with others in contingent and subjective constructions of its many narratives. People participate in the production and reproduction of knowledge by performing it (Taylor).
1. El Güegüense and National Building: a Question of National Identity
In “The Grimace of Macho Raton” (1999), Les W. Field challenges a post-Sandinista national conception of identity. Drawing on the works and words of artisans and artisanas, Indian and Mestizo, he criticizes the national ideology of ethnic homogeneity. Field considers new forms of social movements in Nicaragua as alternative voices to those posited by elite Nicaraguan intellectuals. For Field, elite intellectuals’ appropriations of the drama of El Güegüense construe it as an allegory of mestizo national identity in which mestizaje is a product of a national majority. These elite intellectual narratives about El Güegüense are challenged by Field from without the play’s own performance narratives, from the perspective of other cultural sites: stories by artisans and artisanas, essays by “local intellectuals” and an ethnographic reconstruction of these artisans’ life stories. Field uses the text of the play as a metaphor for diversity in changing identities of Western Nicaragua.
Field’s analysis is informed, among others, by Aijaz Ahmad’s work on identity that distinguishes “‘retrograde and progressive forms of nationalism with reference to particular histories...’” (Field, 1999: 41). For Field, Ahmad’s analysis helps to differentiate the role “played by elite intellectuals in demarcating and enforcing hegemonic knowledge among Nicaraguan elites” (41). This hegemonic knowledge is concerned with “class, ethnic, and national identities from the cultural politics of Sandinista Nicaragua (1980’s), and how El Güegüense has been used in both discourses before, during and since the revolutionary period to construct and maintain a nationalist project” (Field, 1999: 41). Field discerns that El Güegüense is at the centre of these narratives. He focuses on Nicaraguan Twentieth Century authors such as Pablo Antonio Cuadra, Pérez Estrada, Jorge Eduardo Arellano, José Coronel Urtecho, who best characterize “the way literature and its discourses about El Güegüense in particular, build national culture and identity” (42), and also examines some counter narratives.
In order to understand how El Güegüense became intertwined in a national identity discourse, the context for the emergence of these
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elite intellectual readings of the play must be examined. Those elite authors who defined El Güegüense as a national play were primarily drawn from the social Nicaraguan elite of Leon and Granada, the liberal and conservative capital of the country. It had been their national political project (both national parties) to design a national identity catapulted by an essentialising and homogenizing Mestizo character. They took for granted conclusive conjectures about the character of Nicaraguan Indigenous peoples. Their view was that the Nicaraguan identity “was and has been [...] inherently and overwhelmingly mestizo” (Field 1999, 44).
The intellectuals’ comprehension of indigenous identity as static and “always tragic and doomed” (Field 1999: 44) denied Indians the possibility of dynamism after the Spaniards arrived. Change of any substantive nature spelled death for indigenous cultural identities. By contrast Nicaraguan intellectuals ascribed cultural and technological dynamism to the mestizo elite whose identity they viewed as still in formation, and dynamic, still acquiring traits and generating new and unique ones, and irreversibly linked to the emergence of Nicaraguan “true” national identity (44).
In his nationally praised book “El nicaragüense” (1969), Cuadra proposes the mestizo character of the Nicaraguan man and associates this national character with El Güegüense. He posits that being Nicaraguan is the result of a cultural shock, a fusion, and a duality. Throughout his work he searches for the tools to narrate a mestizo culture that would help produce and feed the notion of a Nicaraguan literature (Cuadra, 1969: 9). Through a number of small essays, he explores the origins of a “Nicaraguan duality”, which he links to the meeting of Indians and Europeans. He associates the features of El Güegüense character (burlesque, satirical, and vagabond) with a prototypical and stereotypical Nicaraguan national character, an essentialized Nicaraguan: “I have come to the conclusion that this play is alive, not because of irrationality and traditionalism, but because it’s main character is a character that the people in Nicaragua carry in their blood” (73). The El Güegüense or Macho Ratón, Cuadra posits, is the first character of the Nicaraguan imagination. He proposes that the play’s appearance marked the emergence of a “perfect” Mestizaje in Nicaragua (74).
According to Cuadra, the El Güegüense character comes to the play from our indigenous past and from the people: “He is probably an old character from the Indigenous theatre”, he explains, “He came to the new theatre to become bilingual, once he started acting, he became mestizo” (my translation). He is, Cuadra insists, the first Mestizo character of Nicaraguan literature. El Güegüense marked the disappearance of the Indigenous and the appearance of the Mestizo in Nicaragua.
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Another member of Vanguardia circle, Pérez Estrada, supported Cuadra’s position. He exalts the El Güegüense in literary qualifications that confers the play a symbol of static Nicaraguan Mestizo world. He also embellishes the attributes of a theatre with a national character in the context of Spanish-language literature. Pérez Estrada, for instance, claims that, the play’s existence meant that for Nicaraguans there “is nothing to envy from the best Castilian writers” (Field, 1999: 56). His claim, therefore, purports that there is a conclusive hispanified, mestizo nature of the play (56). This view is still predominant in the country today; El Güegüense character is considered the national symbol of Nicaragua. The image of the Macho-Ratón or El Güegüense, its wooden mask and its dancing figure adorns many official and non-official Nicaraguan offices, public buildings, and the character is discussed in popular literature as well.
The historical, social and cultural elements of the play have become valuable not only for their association with Pre-Columbian or Spanish performances, but because they are references to a “national character”. As a symbol of “Nicaraguannes” the El Güegüense play and its main character marked the departure to a new “national” location of reference in history, politics, and culture in Nicaragua. Everyday conversations and language constructions are also very much influenced by this national symbol. For Doctor Gallardo (not his real name), the sponsor of the play purported during my research, the play “tells about our Nicaraguanness. It tells the world who we are as Nicaraguans”.
For me, Doctor Gallardo is the continuation of this elite, nationalistic and colonialist narrative that confers El Güegüense performance a homogenous, passive quality. As illustrated in the following passage, presented from interviews and interventions during rehearsals, Doctor Gallardo has a clear position about the role of the play and his own role in the festivities. It is clear that his understandings of the politics behind the play reflect elite, homogenising nationalistic attitudes that are exclusionary. Thus he exercises this power of inclusion and exclusion through an elitist discourse that is reflected in the actual control of the play. As a Lawyer, cultural writer, and the sponsor of the play he is always ready to proclaim himself, with little or no reservation, as the rescuer of Nicaraguan culture. With his luxurious house as backdrop, Doctor Gallardo points out that, it has been a struggle for him to preserve El Güegüense, from obliviousness because “ordinary people do not appreciate El Güegüense”. When it comes to cultural imperatives, he states, “ordinary people are absent-minded. I invite them to participate in the revival of their own history, their own past. What do they do? They ignore the call. They come drunk. They question my intentions”.
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It is apparent that the construction of a Nicaraguan National identity for these intellectuals was, and still is, propelled by the need for self-legitimation. After the birth of Nicaraguan independence (1836) Nicaraguan intelligentsia needed a national character. For a national elite, El Güegüense character as its cultural Mestizo symbol meant the maintenance of elite politics. El Güegüense stands for a national culture that legitimizes colonial authority by trying to erase indigenous identity in the process1.
2. Beyond an Allegory of discontent: Cultural loss and social memor
Field’s work discussed in the previous section, makes strong and long needed contributions to the study of Nicaraguan nationalism and indigenous people’s challenges to it; however, his analysis of the play remains, for this paper’s perspective, on the outside. In other words, the challenges he presents to nationalizing or homogenizing discourses of the El Güegüense script are located outside the narratives of the performance of the play. The play’s force is thus restricted to an allegory of discontent as alternatives to national discourses are sought outside the play.
My proposal here thus claims the theatre of El Güegüense as the principal social site for identity negotiation in Western Nicaragua. Homogenizing elite intellectual discourses of identity and its contestation inhabit the play. The play’s literary narratives legitimate the national project of cultural homogenization however these narratives do not go unquestioned in the many rhetorical forms taken within the context of the performance, the process of producing and invoking the play2. For recognizing an alternative dimension to current understandings of the El Güegüense, I consider the role of the performance of the play itself. In the current effort, El Güegüense becomes more than a tool for the Nicaraguan elite-homogenizing project. The play represents the scatological enactment of distinction and opposition, of compliance, and also of defiance. I consider its performance as the social site where some ordinary Nicaraguan citizens evoke bodies of power (Comaroff 1995), engendering community solidarity, transmitting cultural and social memory, conveying history, creating personal relationships with their religious idol Saint Sebastian, thus negotiating their identities. As Doña María, a local El Güegüense enthusiast, put it: “We don’t need to read about the Gueguense in books, everything is in our heads”. Her sense of identity in relation to the nation is linked to the memories and knowledge of the play. It is the El Güegüense’s theatrical and rhetorical irony that catapults the performance of the play to its own
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1 | Carlos Manteca, a Nicaraguan linguist has expressed a different view of El Gueguense’s dramatic script also. For him it represents “a very long-term accretion of oral, textual, and performance-based transformations, all of which remain within the manuscripts at hand” (Mantica in Field 1999, 59). What is important in Mantica’s analysis is that he takes time to include several points of view found in the language of the script itself. This position is very similar to Fields’s in that it is based on the narratives of the El Gueguense’s script more than its performance. There are intellectual literary counter narratives to this mestizo perfect world envisaged by the Vanguardia movement, but none has gained the popular support of the above. The prominent folklorist Dr. Davila Bolanos espoused the view that the El Gueguense is about indigenous protest. He claimed that an outraged Indian might have written the play (1974). Given the ongoing popularity of El Gueguense as national identity marker among the elite, many dismissed this counter narrative as left wing propaganda.
2 | Many Nicaraguans invoke the story of El Gueguense today. For example, during past national and municipal elections, the media has commented on the public deception of politicians and political parties. Some members of the population have expressed publicly their intention to vote for some political party or politician and when it comes time to vote they cast their ballot for some other political party or another candidate. This is what happened during the 1990 Sandinistas electoral defeat. This phenomenon has gotten to be known in Nicaragua as the El Gueguense effect, citing the mendacious deceiving
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game-experience. This sense of the play is at odds with elite notions of the El Güegüense we have discussed before as they emphasise a less top down understanding of being Nicaraguan through the enactment of the play.
The masked characters in El Güegüense use verbal discourse, but also communicate their subversive message through dance, music, gesture, and postures. Masks are essential in the staging of the story, and most characters wear one. The play’s popular performance in Diriamba employs laughter, absurdity, and the farcical to tease out the absurdities of power structures for the public to see out in the open. The gestures of the El Güegüense indicating that he cannot hear the orders of the authorities make people laugh but perhaps can also make audiences think about their own ways of defiance: “Pues, hábleme recio, que, como soy viejo y sordo no oigo lo que me dicen...” (“Speak up, because, you know, I am deaf and old, I can’t hear what you are saying...”). (Line 80 in Brinton, 1968, 23). It is not surprising that this element of revealed intention is kept in the performance, during the festivities, where the dialogue is reduced to a few lines. Thus, the theatre performance in the festival appears as the place where rulers and ruled negotiate a kind of “emancipation” where “[T]he behaviour, gesture, and discourse of a person are freed from the authority of all hierarchical positions...” (Bakhtin: 123).
The performers of El Güegüense come mainly from the working class of Diriamba. They are manual laborers, trade people and small artisans. Involvement in the staging of the play can have different motivators as the participants range in age (from 7 to 70 years old). For some, the annual play of El Güegüense is an opportunity to apply their expertise in traditional culture. One of my key informants, Don Cristóbal, was exemplary of his older generation, in being unable to read or write, but extraordinary in his knowledge of El Güegüense. Not only could he describe its various performances in past decades, but he could also flawlessly recite the play’s many lines. For others such as Don Jesús, an elderly man and one of the main performers, participating in the staging of the play is one of the most important events of the year, as he put it:
El Güegüense is a big thing (he gestures with his trembling hands). My desire to help in the celebration of Saint Sebastian and to put on an El Güegüense play is always here (touching his chest). Not with money, of course, I am very poor. I do it for love and for respect to Saint Sebastian. It’s like when one is a little kid. When one is part of a child game, one feels part of something big.
Whether experienced as a social/cultural space for education, the transmission of values and memories or as a religious avenue, the performers of El Güegüense I have encountered, including their
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nature of the theatre character of El Gueguense.
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audiences, construct meaning and value around their performance and participation in this annual performance.
Fifty years ago or more non-literate and poorer members of the community took pride in sponsoring or performing El Güegüense. When I arrived in Diriamba in the fall of 2000, performers of El Güegüense were experiencing a sense of loss. They felt that they were losing control of this important social/cultural space (the preparation, direction and staging of the play) because of their precarious economic situation. As Don Cristóbal, the knowledgeable elder explained,
Things have changed nowadays. Most Mayordomos (sponsors of the fiestas) and Padrinos (sponsors of the play) assisted it in the past, as it should be. I mean they provided support for the play, things like food; nacatamalitos, platanitos, rosquillitas (local food). Everyone was well fed and happy. The Mayordomo and Padrino were not allowed to take money from the dancers because both the sponsors and the dancers had a vow with the saint. The dancers had to provide their own adornments and costumes, and the sponsors had to pay for the musicians. It was understood. We all have our personal reasons to participate. Everyone has a different relationship with the play.
This intervention by Don Cristóbal is more than just a nostalgic trip into an essentialized social and cultural past. For Don Cristóbal it is the realization that El Güegüense play, as a popular site for an entire community has all but died; understandably this notion has become a disturbing fact. He realises that the politics behind the appropriation of this important aspect of his life obeys to a larger structure of power. Don Cristóbal has constructed his persona in relation to the play around the festivities of Saint Sebastian. But times are changing and even popular expressions such as El Güegüense have also become highly comodified. The awareness of this participant on the fact that only economic and political elite townspeople are capable of putting on this annual performance is a reality that goes beyond the staging of the play. The politics behind the organization of all aspects of the fiesta are linked to the politics of running the town. Many elite people such as the sponsor of the play during my research gained notoriety by financing the festivities (as Mayordomo of the fiestas). These prominent citizens may or may not run for political office in the future.
Ignored in previous and current elite and academic interpretations of El Güegüense in Nicaragua are social, cultural, political, and economic conjunctures of South Western Nicaragua. I believe it is pertinent in the study of Nicaraguan cultural and social identity to identify El Güegüense’s theatrical process in its relation with local performers as an important social/cultural landscape for Nicaraguan identity.
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Many of the main protagonists in the staging of the play during my research have been involved in El Güegüense for years. Doctor Gallardo, Don Cristóbal, Don Jesús and Doña María, represent the social and cultural contradictions manifested in the production of the play. All of the participants stand for different point of views in relation to what the social and cultural site of El Güegüense represents. For example, Doctor Gallardo’s vision of his role in the production is predicated on the assumption that the play’s importance rests on its merits as a cultural symbol of “Nicaraguanness”. Echoing elite politics originated in elite nationalist aspirations, Doctor Gallardo tries to edify a local project that is informed by the national politics of class, hybridity and mestizaje. He believes that “ordinary people do not appreciate El Güegüense”. This is so according to doctor Gallardo because “when it comes to cultural imperatives they (ordinary people) are absent-minded”.
The local performers of the play (Don Jesús, Don Cristóbal) and Doña María (a helper), on the other hand, construct a personal, social and cultural identity through the play predicated in a physicalized embodiment of Nicaraguan memory (subjective and collective memory) that renders the play and its communicative interactions a reservoir for important local knowledge. These performance practices are taken from a “repertoire of marginalised traditions” (Taylor 2003: 208). Don Jesús was eloquent about the meaning of the performance while enacting it for his family and myself. The joy he projected in the dance was contagious.
You dance this music slowly. The music leads you slowly, like this, like this. Some songs are faster (he picks up his tempo). The songs of the Machos (mules) are fastest. The characters from inside the circle are smooth, gracious with their bodies. Slowly like this. One doesn’t need to jump, let the hips do their job, like this, like this. (Everybody in the room starts to follow him). Yes like that. With your right hand playing the chischill (rattle). Like that, slowly.
The embodied, active knowledge of local participants such as Don Jesús, Don Cristóbal and Doña María resist the written, homogenized, passive knowledge of the national elite (Doctor Gallardo) Their knowledge is in movement, open ended, dialogical and performative. Through their embodied acts the participants make new political arguments transmit memory and forge new cultural and social identities.
3. Producing and Reproducing Knowledge by Performing It
Diane Taylor in her recent work asks “How does […] performance
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transmit cultural memory and identity?” and “Would a hemispheric perspective expand the restrictive scenarios and paradigms set in motion by centuries of colonialism?” (Taylor 2003: xvi). By examining several performances such as activism and theatrical work in South America, a Latino TV personality in the US, and other performances in North America, Taylor exemplifies how people participate in the production and reproduction of knowledge by performing it.
In the culturally and socially constructed world of performance, the past, the present, the future, the “real” and the imagined become common referents for performers and audiences. Taylor tackles the relationship between performances and their wider context from the acknowledgement that performances as actions, enacting what is constantly changing, are by definition ephemeral and fleeting. The process of understanding, then, is a continuous cycle, intersubjectivity between whole (global) and part (local), which can never be completed. In short, performance can be a form that comes closest to the conditions under which we could understand our own experience, and by extension a collective experience. For Taylor, El Indio Amazónico, one of the performers she dissects, constructs a cultural identity in a physicalized embodiment of memory (a subjective, collective memory) of America through his healing sessions as his performances. These performances become excavations or comments of a past history (understood from a particular social/cultural positionality) and its contexts. Thus, this enactment represents also a dialogue between personal and collective experiences and global contexts (colonialism, imperialism, class struggles, etc). The enactment of performance becomes a re-negotiation of a transmitted knowledge into an alternative idealised present. This physicalized interaction through performance becomes possible through the encounter between social agents and history.
One important aspect in Taylor’s analysis of performance that I consider very useful for my own examination of El Güegüense in Nicaragua is the intimacy she brings to broad Latin/a American issues. For Taylor, performance is more than an object of study; it functions as an episteme, a way of knowing. Thus performance is “that which disappears, or that which persists, transmitted through a nonarchival system of knowledge…” (2003: xvii). The archive is not necessarily opposite to the repertoire or a neutral by standard of history, but a method of transmitting selective histories, colonialism, racism, Western ideologies. The question is “whose histories?” For Taylor not only do performances trace their contexts of emergence (colonialism, neo-colonialism, imperialism, racism, and marginality), but these embodied acts also make new political arguments, transmit memory, and forge cultural identities. The embodied knowledge of local performance resists the written knowledge of the archive.
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Within this performance framework, I consider that analyzing the rhetorical and located situation of the script of the play of El Güegüense (elite discourse) against the context of contemporary’s performances of the play is necessary to understand Nicaraguan identity and its negotiations. The embodied knowledge of the play yields insights into the different ways of being in a Nicaraguan citizen. Ethnographically speaking, the performers and other informants I met in Diriamba have a very important contribution to make with regards to this discussion. They have a particular relationship with the play, which they contextualize within the Saint Sebastian. The negotiations that occur in this context are not only about whose voices are articulated during the preparation and performance of the play, but also about social/cultural appropriation. Whom does the play rightfully belong to? As Don Cristobal puts it: “When I was a sponsor of the play I accommodated everyone. I was not rich, I did it modestly of course, but it was a real communal experience. Even today people tell me that I was fair with everything. I fed everyone and didn’t complain”.
As rhetorical and embodied experiences of the El Güegüense these are social interventions. As performance practices, whether drawn from an age-old repertoire or marginalized traditions, the El Güegüense performances “allow for immediate response to current political problems” (208). These are acts considered ephemeral, disappearing as they happen: dance, gestures, singing, etc. These embodied performances “enact embodied memory” in order to stage objects, attitudes, and issues that articulate historical, collective, individual, and political positions. Even though such performances can be construed as rhetorical devices their importance lies in their possibility of rendering the invisible into visibility (i.e. social relations of inequality, neo-colonialism, injustice, etc.).
As observer of the cultural and the social we invoke the local episteme to critique Western ideologies and paradigms, but we seldom reveal the at once fleshy and abstract mechanics of how these are subverted and/or transformed. I thus feel the need to move away from the sometimes seemingly limiting particularity of embodied acts to their role in the constitution of global power relations and vice versa. In the following intervention by one of the local performers of the El Güegüense we can appreciate identity negotiations around the production of the play. The sense of importance of the play was expressed very forcefully by two of my main informants, Don Jesús and his wife Doña María, in several of my encounters and conversations.
Doña María hurriedly goes to Don Jesús excited. “Get up Jesus, get up, that’s why you went to get drunk again? Quickly get up he is coming. He is outside”. Don Jesús’ response is monotonous “What?”. “Pero hombre, the man is coming. Do you want him to see you like
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that?” Doña María tells him. “Okay, okay, I’m fine (He stumbles towards the working table). Oops, where is he? (Everybody at the table looks at him with disdain. A combination of gunpowder and alcohol odor invades the air). “Okay. I’m up. Where is he?” He retorts. I enter the small place and ask if this is the house of Don Jesús the man who dances the El Güegüense. The room is very dark, and we hear only voices. “¡Hola! Is this the house of Don Jesus, the man who dances El Güegüense?” I say. Total silence. Doña María comes to the door with a candle. “Yes, yes entre. Es usted el muchacho que quiere aprender a bailar?” she says as she illuminates my face. We both smile. “Gracias, yes I’m the one who wants to learn to dance El Güegüense”. I declare. “It’s easy; it’ll take you no time at all. You are young”. Don Jesús says, his voice coming from a corner of the room where he is sitting on the bed. “Yes, come here. I will give you some light. He went for a drink or two. This man is ruined” Doña María whispers to me. Don Jesús who at this point is trying to appear sober makes an extra effort to maintain his composure “Come on in sit here next to me. I’m glad you came to visit. I’ll tell you...” He pauses for a second and continuous.
At the beginning I was young, and even though I don’t know how to read and write my memory never fails me. I had to learn the lines, my wife would read them to me, and I would memorize them. While performing my part I’ve come to be aware of my lines very carefully. I take my turn as we proceed dancing. You’ve to be aware and very attentive when your turn comes, even though it’s very noisy. There are seven characters trying to speak. The heavy roles are El Güegüense, The Governor, Don Forsico, Don Ambrosio, and The Alguacil. There is also music going on.
Don Jesús’ family continues going about their daily routines as they pay attention to his performance. He gets up and assumes a dramatized position: Hands extended, and chin upright. He starts to move up and down, his voice drops some lines in a native language. “Pues sí cana amigo capitan alguacil, somocague nistipanpa, Sres. Principales, sones, mudanzas, velancicos, necana, y palperesia D. Forsico timaguas y verdad, tin hermosura, tin bellezas tumiles mo Cabildo Real...” He grabs a plastic bag and takes out some loose pages, which he shows to me. “This is the only thing left, the rats ate it”. Doña María intervenes. “Everything is in our heads. Before, there used to be two Güegüense performances per festival. There were competitions between the performances. Once our family won for putting on the best one. My mother was a very good Madrina (literally, godmother). She sponsored the dance for many years. Lack of money forced her to stop. The music is very expensive. 1000 to 2000 Cordobas per festival. My husband (she looks at Don Jesus) tried to put it on some years ago but it was impossible. The economic situation has taken the Güegüense from us”. Don Jesús gets up from the bed and walks towards the doors.
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There are seven songs in the play. Actually there are fourteen but they only play half for the performance in the festival. You have to learn them from someone. They are passed on. (He starts to dance to a non-existing music) You dance this music slowly. The music leads you, slowly, like this, like this. Some songs are faster (he picks up his tempo). The songs of the Machos (mules) are faster. The characters from inside the circle are smooth, gracious with their bodies. Slowly like this. One doesn’t need to jump, let the hips do their job, like this, like this. (Everybody in the room starts to follow him). Yes like that. With your right hand playing the chischill (rattle). Like that, slowly.
The candlelights start to go off one by one until only one is left dimly illuminating Don Jesús dancing. His moving body disappears into the darkness of the room.
One of the main concerns that became apparent during my research in Diriamba was the fact that locals involved in the play had an overwhelming sense of loss with respect to the disappearance or decline of the performance. For many generations the play has been, besides an avenue where disenfranchised people fulfil religious vows, a source of family pride, respect and solidarity. As the play becomes less and less a community affair and becomes more and more subjected to the political priorities of the local elite, people have become frustrated. Don Jesús, the main performer in the play, Doña María, his wife and helper, and Don Cristóbal, the director of the play, reflected that frustration in the way they interacted with the play and its sponsor. Under these circumstances of inclusion and exclusion in the very social fabric of a community, the role of the El Güegüense as a social and cultural site becomes even more important in the understanding of social groups in Nicaragua.
4. Conclusion: Unsettling narratives
The relationship between power structures, culture, and identity negotiations (government, media, art, intellectuals) yields a certain cultural field (narratives and its consequences). This cultural field is manifested as interventions into the production and circulation of “cultural material”, arts, institutions, and the like (Allor and Gagnon, 1996: 8). The articulation of a public discourse, like a play, a speech, is centered on many elements that make visible the relationship between the aesthetic, the political and the social (Ibid). When there is a certain government or elite vision of a national identity articulated through the cultural field (for example the El Güegüense play), the cultural field itself becomes a site for contestation of those imposed
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discourses. However, sometimes such a site may not be available to people to construct alternative contestations.
In our Nicaraguan case, for example, the performance of El Güegüense (preparations, rehearsals and aftermath) contradicts the official narratives that confer the play the image of the perfect Nicaraguan type. The performance deals, even in its short version, with defiance to power characterized in the nationalizing narratives. It is about discontent with the situations of absurd power. This absurd power is still present in Nicaragua today, in the form of an unjust and corrupt government. The performance of El Güegüense is the verbal and non-verbal expression of that discontent articulated by those involved in the performance. The play is thus the rich environment for cultural, social, and political contestation from lower classes and marginalized groups. The local performers such as Don Cristóbal, Don Jesús and Doña María manifest this in the contested authorship of El Güegüense and in their idiosyncratic, religious, personal, historical and experiential knowledge and memory of the performance.
The El Güegüense performance within the context of the San Sebastian Festivities has, besides the role of fulfilling religious vows for the participants, thus its own disrupting narratives. During the Saint Sebastian festival, the rehearsals and performances disrupt and expose the contradictions of a narrative of order and power, homogeneity and rationality. The performance stands for questioning the morality and ethics of the government (government taxes, imposition of will) in the drama. This disruption allows an opening up of a space where those hidden tensions and contradictions become apparent to the actors and their audiences today. The performance forces these contradictions out into the open for everybody to see every year. Through the performance’s discourses, the participants collectively and individually expose elite discourses that have a lot to do with the everyday reality of the participants.
The relationship between elite and popular narratives of the El Güegüense play in a socialized and politicized Nicaraguan context (elites versus popular classes, local identity versus national identity) has revealed the different manifestations of power structures in post-colonial situations. As one of the most important Nicaraguan cultural, historical, and political artefacts for two different social groups of Nicaraguans, the play remains important even in its absence. The year of my research the play was pulled out of the Saint Sebastian festival at the last minute by the sponsor, Dr Gallardo. In the absence of this cultural and social performative site (the El Güegüense performance) people attempt to keep their relationship with this important part of their life by recurring to history, memory, and the everyday trying to understand their sense of loss (Taylor 2003).
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Works Cited
ALLOR, Martin and GAGNON, Michelle, (1996), “Singular Universalities. Quebecois Articulations of the Culturel”, Public, 14, pp. 6-23.ARELLANO, Jorge Eduardo, (1969), El Movimiento de Vanguardia de Nicaragua: Gérmenes, Desarrollo, Significado, 1927-1932, Imprenta Novedades, Managua.BAKHTIN, Mijail, (1986), Speech Genres and Other late Essays, Austin University Press, Austin, .BEEZLEY, Williams H.; MARTIN, Cherryl English and FRENCH, William E., (1994), Rituals of Rule, Rituals of Resistance: Public Celebrations and Popular Culture in Mexico, SR Books, Wilmington.BRINTON, Daniel G., The Gueguense: A Comedy Ballet in the Nahuatl-Spanish Dialect of Nicaragua, (1969), AMS Press, New York, .CLIFFORD, James, (1986), “Introduction: Partial Truth” in CLIFFORD, James and MARCUS, George (ed), Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography, 1-26,: University of California Press, Berkeley, pp. 1-26.COMAROFF, Jean, (1995), “Body of Power Spirit and Resistance” in The Culture and History of a South African People, pp. 194-263. CUADRA, Pablo Antonio, (1974) El nicaragüense, Ediciones Cultura Hispánica, Madrid, 1969.DÁVILA BOLAÑOS, Alejandro, El Güegüense o Macho-Ratón: Drama Épico Indígena, Tipografía Géminis, Estelí.DESJARLAIS, Robert, (1992), Body and Emotion: The Aesthetics of illness and Healing in the Nepal Himalayas, University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia. FIELD, Les W., (1999), The Grimace of Macho Raton: Artisans, identity and Nation in Late Twentieth Century Western Nicaragua, Duke University Press. HERZFELD, Michael, (2001), Anthropology: Theoretical Practice in Culture and Society, Blackwell, Oxford.JACKSON, Michael, (1996), “Introduction. Phenomenology, Radical Empiricism, and Anthropological Critique” in JACKSON, Michael (ed.), Things as They Are, New Directions in Phenomenological Anthropology, Indiana University Press, Bloomington and Indianapolis, pp. 1-50.RABINOW, Paul, (1996), “Representations Are Social Facts: Modernity and Post-Modernity” in James Clifford and George Marcus (eds) Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography, University of California Press, Berkeley, pp 161-234.TAYLOR, Diana, (2003), The Archive and the Repertoire: performing cultural memory in the Americas, Duke University Press, Durham. VALLE CASTILLO, Julio, (1997), “El Güegüense: obra y personaje del barroco” in El Nuevo Amanecer Cultural, number 868, Managua. MANTICA, Carlos, (1994), El habla nicaragüense, Editorial Hispamer, Managua.
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Citação recomendada || DE MEDEIROS MARCATO, Raquel (2009): “Gênero comercial em evidência: O filme Cidade de Deus manipula a rea-lidade?” [artigo on-line], 452ºF. Revista eletrônica de teoría de la literatura y literatura comparada, 2, 80-95 [Data de consulta: dd/mm/aa], < http://www.452f.com/index.php/pt/raquel-de-medeiros-marcato.html >.Ilustração || Xavier MarínArtigo || Recebido: 09/10/2009 | Apto Comitê científico: 14/12/2009 | Publicado: 01/2010Licença || Licença Reconhecimento - Não comercial – Vedada a Criação de Obras Derivadas 3.0 de Creative Commons.
GÊNERO COMERCIAL EM EVIDÊNCIA: O FILME CIDADE DE DEUS MANIPULA A REALIDADE?Raquel de Medeiros MarcatoDoutoranda en Literatura Comparada Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona
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Resumo || Este artigo pretende analisar a hipótese de manipulação da realidade narrada no filme Cidade de Deus (2002), uma favela localizada na região oeste do Rio de Janeiro. A partir desta proposta discursiva, o ensaio pretende contextualizar a maneira pela qual a trama foi enfocada, questionando a suposta aproximação e adaptação ao gênero gangsteriano, despertando a sensação de uma “história fabricada” dentro de um contexto real: o universo favela, exótico à bilheteria internacional.
Palavras chave || Cidade de Deus | Cinema | Gangster | Manipulação | Realidade | Ficção | Gênero | Estereótipo.
Abstract || This article aims to share with your readers an insight based study of a film based on the reality of the slum in a west of Rio de Janeiro that serves as a pretext for the director and writers of City of God (2002), we pose a central plot through this approach and adaptation alleged gangster genre, from a caricato format, creating a new discursive cliché. This approach emphasizes the film a “fabricated story” supported in an alleged real context, located in the world of the slum, exotic scenery to capture the attention of the international box office through extreme violence and lives that were spent in marginality and crime, perhaps unintentionally is building a biased stereotype?
Key-words || City of God | Cinema | Gangster | Handling | Reality | Fiction | Gender | Stereotype.
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0. INTRODUÇÃO
Em 2002 foi lançado, no circuito cinematográfico brasileiro, o filme Cidade de Deus dirigido pelo diretor Fernando Meirelles, o qual se inspirou no romance homônimo de Paulo Lins (1997) de mesmo nome. Com um recorde de bilheteria, 3,2 milhões de pessoas foram aos cinemas assistir ao longa-metragem, o qual não tardou em conquistar o êxito internacional, como prova disso a sua indicação ao Oscar em 2004. O conteúdo fílmico narra histórias de crianças e jovens que se envolvem na marginalidade e no tráfico de drogas na favela Cidade de Deus, inaugurada em 1960 na cidade do Rio de Janeiro.
O filme, em sua narrativa e seqüências de imagens, nos transmite uma aparência real que choca, que faz arder os olhos e nos faz reflexionar sobre a sua existência. As cenas constituídas através de uma estética brutalista nos relatam um estilo de vida «subumano», o qual nos permeia e fixa em nosso imaginário, porém de forma real ou ficcional? De acordo com os comentários do diretor Fernando Meirelles, ao ser questionado sobre como as pessoas veriam a Cidade de Deus após seu filme, comentou: «[...] a gente não inventou aquela história. É como um espelho: a culpa não é do reflexo, é da realidade que está sendo refletida». (Paulo Lins apud MoretzSohn, 2002:3). De acordo com a sua defesa e ao contrastar com o ponto de vista de Núñez, a qual afirma que: «El cine no puede entenderse como un mero soporte técnico-material para la vehiculización de una representación, en tanto que discurso, aparato ideológico, no es un espejo, un reflejo de la realidad, un instrumento pasivo o neutral de reproducción» (2005:24) nos resulta um interesse específico em analisar se o discurso proposto no filme apresenta uma manipulação da realidade através de um formato comercial, clichê e caricato.
1. FAVELA: DISCURSOS E ESTEREÓTIPOS
Como se sabe, a favela não é de exclusividade do Brasil, como comprova Mike Davis em seu livro Planeta Favela1, e nem pertence apenas à comunidade que a compõe, uma vez que a promoção da diferença asfalto x favela se faz diariamente. Através dos noticiários, dos jornais, das revistas e dos produtos culturais, principalmente, do cinema e da literatura, uma grande parte do mundo passa a ter acesso a esta realidade, a qual é narrada, representada, relatada de forma tendenciosa ao transmitir a idéia de moradores excluídos, marginais, agressivos, traficantes, ociosos, negros e perigosos. Estes estereótipos passam a contribuir com a representação da identidade brasileira, especificamente, das favelas. Desta forma, contribui com a formação de um imaginário coletivo, tranformando
NOTAS
1 | Segundo Davis, «existem provavelmente mais de 200 mil favelas, cuja população varia de algumas centenas a mais de 1 milhão de pessoas em cada uma delas. Sozinhas, as cinco grandes metrópoles do sul da Ásia (Karachi, Mumbai, Délhi, Calcutá e Daca) contêm cerca de 15 mil comunidades faveladas distintas, cuja população total excede os 20 milhões de habitantes» (2006:37).
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assim em senso comum.
Pensar o cinema como meio produtor de discursos que produzem efeitos sobre o social é de extrema importância e responsabilidade, já que a persuasão que dele pode plasmar no campo imaginário coletivo pode (re) afirmar ou negar um pré-conceito, um pré-julgamento ou até mesmo reforçar um colonialismo que ainda pode estar latente na conduta social brasileira.
A partir dos anos sessenta, com o cinema novo, o cenário da pobreza, era utilizado como forma de denuncia social, liderado pelo prestigioso cineasta Glauber Rocha, de protesto contra o não dito, o não exibido, o não conhecido. Diante de uma época de censura o cinema era vivido como delator social do caos existente, principalmente na revoltante época da ditadura. Durante os seguintes anos o cinema nacional sofreu uma queda brusca, passando a registrar momentos de quase ausência de produção pela escassez de leis de incentivo cultural. Como nos comenta Oricchio, em 2000, ano marcado pela fase da retomada do cinema brasileiro, ao contar com o apoio da Ancine, nova agência reguladora na área cinematográfica, e com a lei de incentivo fiscal, registrou um novo fôlego e incremento para o reinício do cinema nacional.
O cinema da retomada polemiza a mesma denuncia social que antes, a qual já é sabida, porém, atualmente, concentra-se maior atenção em seus efeitos estéticos, sem antecedentes, como a exemplo concreto deste estudo, a impactante Cidade de Deus.
É inquestionável a qualidade técnica do trabalho de Meirelles composto por uma obra harmoniosa desde as imagens até a trilha sonora. Tudo flui bem, oferece adrenalina e adeus à inércia. O elenco é primoroso, defendido pelos próprios moradores das favelas, ou seja, atores desconhecidos, o que resultou em uma interessante inovação no conjunto da obra, revelando um alto nível de interpretação cinematográfica e imensa naturalidade ao «encarnar» os personagens dentro de um contexto duro e cruel. As falas foram todas adaptadas à linguagem local, diálogos cheios de gírias e de malícias, uma veracidade impactante. O filme transcorre ao longo de três décadas, começa na de sessenta e termina em princípios de oitenta, e em todas elas se presencia um elaborado trabalho cênico, reluzente no espaço físico de aparência grotesca, na caracterização dos personagens, na imagem videoclipe, nos incontáveis flashback, no enquadramento irregular da câmera e na ideologia defendida em cada época. Tornamos testemunhas da destruição humana em prol da ambição pelo poder, por vingança, ou até mesmo por ausência de motivo.
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O estilo de vida abordado em Cidade de Deus, supracitado como «subumano», explica-se pela precariedade do espaço físico, pela natureza que a cada cena vai cedendo lugar a tijolos quebrados, a vidros rachados, às manchas de sangue entre as estreitas ruelas que interligam o mercado financeiro da favela, ou seja, as bocas de fumo, as quais sustentam o narcotráfico. Além disso, a perspectiva de vida, a qual se deteriora com o passar do tempo, encurta-se e se desfaz entre o mandatário e o subalterno, entre o poder e a escassa renúncia, entre o individualismo e a falta de coletividade, entre o medo e o quase nulo otimismo, entre o beco sem luz e a vida sem saída, entre o tráfico e a polícia, entre o suborno e a cumplicidade, ou seja, entre a Guerra e a Guerra.
A estética, baseada no espetáculo da violência, apenas assumi o papel de delatora, destituída de mediações, contextualizações e posicionamento crítico. Assim sendo, questiona-se: o filme foi realizado para atingir qual público? O excesso de violência que visa agredir ao espectador, a idealização de um gueto, ademais negro, aludindo aos «sujeitos à parte», recordando-nos aos guetos afro- americanos, a natureza do protagonista, mafioso, presenciado nos filmes de gangsters, incorrendo na ascensão e queda do bandido, a saga da máfia, o famoso triângulo amoroso que separa os dois amigos inseparáveis e a presença do único sobrevivente, aquele que nos pode contar a história, pode, sem dúvida, constituir um perfil de história mais atrativa, muito semelhante aos filmes norte americanos, com mais chances internacionais. Entretanto, não se torna mais uma história «fabricada»?
Em pesquisa realizada em 2008, pelo Instituto Brasileiro de Pesquisa Social2, com os moradores das favelas do Rio de Janeiro, constatou-se no quesito imagem das favelas as seguintes estatísticas: para os entrevistados, a imagem social das favelas é «completamente distorcida». A favela não é «reduto de marginais» para 85.1% dos entrevistados e não é lugar de «negro e pobre» para 93.1%. Para 65.4% dos entrevistados a cobertura que a imprensa faz dos acontecimentos na favela é sensacionalista, pois distorce os fatos e usa de preconceitos. Diante do exposto, nos leva a aproximarmos, ainda mais, sobre a possibilidade de manipulação da realidade operado no filme Cidade de Deus. Ao fazer um recorte da realidade para esquematizar o discurso fílmico, quem o produz já está se posicionando de acordo com seus critérios e objetivos.
O esforço em alcançar uma verossimilhança com tantas legitimações e impressões de realidade pode fazer com que o espectador crie uma imagem deturpada de uma suposta origem e reduto da violência que assola cotidianamente a cidade. O sociólogo Octavio Ianni, reflete como essa descontextualização produz efeitos nocivos e duradouros no modo como, no Brasil, são percebidos os problemas sociais:
NOTAS
2 | A pesquisa em referência engloba vários quesitos. Aborda a infra-estrutura, o tráfico de drogas, a imagem social da periferia, ou seja, as condições de vida dos moradores da favela. Disponível em: http://www.cufa.org.br/in.php?id=materias/mat315.
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Muito tempo depois, praticamente um século após a abolição da Escravatura, ainda ressoa no pensamento social brasileiro a suspeita de que a vítima é a culpada. Há estudos de que a «miséria», a «pobreza» e a «ignorância» parecem estados de natureza, ou da responsabilidade do miserável, pobre, analfabeto. Não há empenho visível em revelar a trama das relações que produzem as desigualdades sociais (1997:97).
2. GÊNERO COMERCIAL EM EVIDÊNCIA – GANGSTER –
A aproximação do filme ao gênero de gangster nos amplia o modo de leitura discursiva sobre a película e nos proporciona desalinhavar a hipótese de verossimilhança defendida e aproximar-nos ao caráter manipulativo através de uma história «fabricada» dentro de estruturas reconhecidas.
La representación de la violencia tampoco puede manifestarse de manera realista. La contundencia sonora de las metralletas, la sequedad de los cortes en un montaje ajeno a la retórica discursiva, la carencia completa de emociones en la ejecución de esa violencia, la ausencia de todo rasgo de espectacularidad… provocan una sacudida que no deja espacio para la reflexión y que persigue antes el escalofrío (thrill) que la caracterización. (Heredero, 1996:189).
O cine de gangster trata de um discurso sobre o choque entre a nova ordem social capitalista com a oposição delitiva que exercem frente a ela os marginados pelo sistema. Historicamente falando, o gangster precede ao crack de Wall Street e é apadrinhado pela prosperidade econômica e desenvolvimento capitalista dos anos vinte, já no cinema o gangster sucede a quebra da bolsa e é um filho da depressão logo redimido pela regeneração do New Deal dos anos trinta. «El gangster de la ficción hunde sus raíces en esta dicotomía y expresa, por ello, una contradicción mucho más profunda todavía, que afecta de lleno a una corriente importante, casi medular, del pensamiento americano». (Shadoian apud Heredero, 1996:145). O pensamento motriz da América como terra fértil de oportunidades e ao mesmo tempo como sociedade igualitária e democrática se vê submersa a uma contradição ideológica: «la bondad de la lucha por el triunfo y la maldad implícita en el hecho de sobresalir sobre el resto de los ciudadanos, el elogio del individualismo y el reproche al deseo de distinción sobre los demás». (Heredero,1996:145). En film, os gangsters do cinema desempenham esta metáfora que expressa o problema central da mitologia americana, ou seja, «el conflicto entre la ley y el libre albedrío, entre la inocencia y la corrupción, entre las reglas de la conveniencia civil y el universo de los sin ley». (Divisa, 2007:233)
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Películas como Hampa dorada (1931), El enemigo público (1931) o Scarface (1932) —a las que tomaremos aquí como los títulos más representativos del modelo— no sólo describen de manera análoga y, sobre todo, muy estilizada el ascenso y caída social de sus protagonistas, sino que los elementos narrativos y moldes argumentales que sostienen dicha trayectoria (cuya conexión con la realidad no puede ser, a pesar de todo, más que efímera y episódica) guardan una gran similitud entre ellos hasta el punto de parecer casi siempre los mismos, como si la realidad fuese unívoca y los hampones de la calle tan esquemáticos como los que presentan estas ficciones (Heredero, 1996:157).
De acordo com Heredero, desde a década de trinta, já se observa como a construção e as reproduções das características gangsteriana geram arquétipos e narrativas de fácil identificação. O primeiro ponto em questão, a ascensão e a caída dos gangsters, é de fácil constatação em Cidade de Deus. Extremamente evidenciado na trajetória de Zé Pequeno, o qual atinge o apogeu econômico e mandatário, construído ao longo da película e de maneira mais acelerada, exibido ao final do filme, a sua queda quando é extorquido pela policia ficando pobre. Aproveitando desta informação sobre a temporalidade narrativa assistida em Cidade de Deus, abre-se espaço para a constatação de outro fio condutor que endossa a adaptação ao gênero «La ascención es lenta y trabajosa (aunque se cuente con ritmo rápido), genera mucha actividad por parte del sujeto y ocupa la mayor parte del espacio narrativo. La caída es rápida, contundente y casi precipitada; no se necesitan muchos fotogramas para representarla» (Heredero, 1996:175).
O transcurso do gangster transcorre exclusivamente, segundo Heredero, quase sempre dentro do universo delitivo, ou seja, conflitos entre grupos rivais para realizar ajustes de contas e dificilmente reflete o entorno social em que prolifera essa contra-sociedade criminal. Características também comprovadas na película ao observar a predominância, quase que exclusiva, entre os enfrentamentos e a ausência de reflexão sobre a origem do caos.
A natureza do gangster segundo Shadoian citado por Heredero, «no sufre culpabilidad ni tiene segundos pensamientos porque no hay disociación entre lo que pretende ser y lo que realmente es» (1996:6) De acordo com o perfil psicológico interpretado por Zé Pequeno comprova-se uma ausência de culpabilidade diante de suas atrocidades, é um indivíduo totalmente carente de convicções morais, sociais e políticas, a sua ambição por querer ser o líder da favela se comprova até o final do filme sem lugar a retrocesso. «Los trazos de crueldad, infantilismo, coquetería o patología patológica se refuerzan desde la mímica de los rostros y destacan en relieve sobre un fondo grisáceo, compuesto por figuras secundarias que siempre se muestran mucho más comedidas que los protagonistas en su expresividad facial» (1996: 186). Tanto em Dadinho quanto
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em Zé Pequeno percebe-se um excesso interpretativo de tom agressivo e cruel que destaca dos demais. Já no campo emocional, freqüentemente, são personagens que apresentam carências afetivas, também comprovadas no perfil de Pequeno quando este é rechaçado pela namorada de Galinha e quando presencia Bené presenteando a Buscapé com uma máquina fotográfica. Outro pilar que também abarca o esquema narrativo exibido pelo cine de gangster e endossado por Cidade de Deus é a conexão rápida e concisa das diferentes cenas filmadas, a velocidade e a capacidade de síntese de uma estrutura seqüencial cortada e fechada onde um plano engloba o anterior, cultivando um caráter seco, áspero e tripidante. A narrativa em off também é um recurso muito popular encontrado no gênero de cine negro a exemplo: em Perdición (1944) e Detour (1945), uma vez que «en las películas, sirve a varios propósitos... sitúa al espectador en la mente del protagonista, para que pueda experimentar de forma más íntima la angustia del personaje» (Silver; Ursini: 2004:20). Através da narrativa em off de Buscapé comprova-se este recurso de aproximação e vínculo com o expectador.
O recurso flashback e os pontos de vista identificados pela câmera, assomam-se ao gênero e se repete em Cidade de Deus em diversas ocasiões. O filme inicia com facas sendo amoladas ao som de uma batucada. Em um canto estão presas algumas galinhas que aos poucos vão sendo mortas e depenadas. Porém uma delas consegue se soltar e foge. Ao acompanhar a trajetória dela que escapa rapidamente da degola mergulhamos na seqüência seguinte, a qual antecede o final do filme em formato de flashback e ponto de partida para toda a história: através de um giro da câmera para um lado e outro feito a partir do personagem Buscapé, apresenta-se uma gangue de jovens e crianças com armas nas mãos em oposição a um grupo de policiais, imagem semelhante às clássicas cenas de duelo e com uma clara metáfora presente, pois, temos os «dois lados da moeda»: bandidos versus policias.
Como afirma Heredero, na composição do gênero sempre terá lugar à opção de redenção pela influência que exerce sobre o bandido a mulher amada. Constatado na trajetória de Bené e Cabelereira, os quais repugnam a vida de malandro em prol do amor de Angélica e Berenice, respectivamente, e a presença marcante do personagem amigo, companheiro inseparável do gangster, cuja a morte ou rompimento com a quadrilha como a exemplo em Hampa Dorada, antecipa a do chefe, em nosso contexto, papel vivenciado por Bené. Já a morte do gangster, quase sempre, obedece a um final: «la muerte, bien a manos de la policía o acribillado por alguna banda rival» (Divisa, 2007:279). Desta forma se vivencia o desfecho de Zé Pequeno, ou seja, é morto pela quadrilha rival: os meninos da Caixa Baixa.
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Já a utilização de jornais, meio de comunicação informativo, guarda seu protagonismo dentro deste formato fílmico uma vez que «es un elemento utilizado para potenciar la progresión narrativa (con valor sintético añandido) y para reforzar, desde fuera, el efecto de verosimilitud que se busca en el interior de la historia». (Heredero, 1996:179). Fato recorrente na película e marcado pelo elo existente entre a profissão de Buscapé (o qual começa fotografando o crime) e seu vínculo empregatício: o jornal.
O sentimento de dualismo entre o campo e a cidade também tem lugar cativo no gênero conforme expõe Heredero, como a exemplo em El último refugio (1941). O campo trás de forma romantizada os valores «incontaminados» e o lado urbano propicia a corrupção deste. Em Cidade de Deus verifica-se a mesma dualidade, porém representada entre o asfalto e a favela. Aqui a projeção da corrupção está vinculada à favela já que o asfalto ganha um papel romantizado, de pureza e ordem social.
A mitologia norte-americana do êxito, do triunfo pessoal, o mito self made man (‘homem feito por si mesmo’), a luta por se afirmar como indivíduo retrata o sonho americano arquétipo. Esta mitologia vivenciada na fase de prosperidade econômica dos anos vinte cairá como conseqüência da depressão. A luta por conquistar o triunfo e as conseqüências do fracasso em alcançá-lo são os vetores que organizam muitas destas ficções. Nas palavras de Heredero:
las tensiones extremas generadas por ambos procesos, las heridas sociales y personales, económicas o morales, que llevan consigo se revelan, entonces, como la contrapartida de la confianza ilusoria en la posibilidad ilimitada de ascenso social y de los estímulos culturales que aquella sociedad prodiga en torno al combate por el éxito individual (1996:159).
Diante disso, torna-se impossível não presenciar no processo de ascensão do gangster a mitologia assinada pelo capitalismo, ou seja, as praticas corriqueiras como a concorrência desmedida, a eliminação dos mais fracos, a ostentação e o luxo como símbolos do poder, o culto ao dinheiro e etc. Fazendo uma ponte com o filme em estudo, assimila-se fortemente este mito do self made man na figura do gangster e também no personagem de Buscapé, sutilmente trabalhada, o qual se converte em fotógrafo, carreira a qual está predisposta à «fama artística».
2.1. CIDADE DE DEUS E SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE – DISCURSO CARICATO -
Baseando-se em um exemplo de produção cinematográfica
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atual, no intuito de demonstrar a recorrência em adaptar a uma linguagem comercial, neste caso, entretanto, sem sugerir a presença exclusiva do gênero gangster, mas, sobretudo, em resgatar a similaridade do tema e discurso em torno das favelas, encontra-se no formato do filme Slumdog Millonaire (Quer ser um milionário?, 2008), dirigido pelo britânico Danny Boyle, baseado no livro Q and A de Vikas Swarup, lançado em 2005, semelhantes correlações com Cidade de Deus. O filme está situado em Mumbai (Índia), trazendo à luz a realidade das favelas. A história discorre em torno de dois irmãos Jamal e Salim, o concurso Quem quer ser milionário? e os mafiosos urbanos. Com o enfoque na infinita pobreza das favelas, caracterizada nas péssimas condições de infra- estrutura e carência total financeira, demonstrado em uma das cenas onde jamal utiliza um banheiro improvisado e se mistura com seu próprio excremento e nas seguintes cenas onde Jamal, Salim e Lakita dormem junto ao lixo em uma cabana também improvisada e buscam alimento no abundante lixo periférico, nota-se um tom diferenciado no recorte cinematográfico feito por Meirelles em Cidade de Deus. Enquanto que no filme de Meirelles se omite as ausências em prol ao «espetáculo» da violência, em Slumdog a violência assistida vem das ausências mostradas. Porém, independente da abordagem do contexto se presencia o esquema gangsteriano. Iniciarei pelo paralelo entre Jamal e Salim e Bené e Zé Pequeno. Salim apresenta o mesmo perfil de gangster que Zé Pequeno, percorre o caminho do mal, é ambicioso e almeja o poder, o dinheiro a qualquer preço. A figura caricata dos gangsters advém dos meninos de rua que tentam sobrepor à mediocridade e à pobreza que os rodeiam e através da ambição, da vaidade, do afã pelo poder, deslizam pela cara oculta do delito, como expõe Heredero.
Entretanto, Jamal percorre o caminho do bem e se opõe às maldades e violências como Bené, apesar de este ser cúmplice de Zé Pequeno, não cometia assassinatos, era amigo da galera e suavizava a maldade do companheiro. Até uma fase do filme Jamal era amigo inseparável de seu irmão, estavam sempre juntos, inclusive planejando alguns assaltos «infantis» em prol de comida. Já a personagem de Latika, bonita e atrativa, funciona como motivo de rompimento entre os irmãos, um discurso clichê, também presente no gênero. E por Latika, Salim apresenta um momento, no final do filme, de arrependimento, de redenção, e a liberta para ir ao encontro de seu irmão. A mitologia norteamericana do éxito também está presente em ambos protagonistas. Um no caminho do mal, porém ávido pelo triunfo pessoal e o outro no caminho do bem, através de um conto de fadas em se tornar milionário através de um concurso, também alcança a sua conquista e reforça o mito self made man americano, evidenciando assim como Buscapé em ter sobrevivido à opção em rechaçar a vida fácil do crime, e o mito do happy ending (‘final feliz’) em ambos os filmes. O dualismo espacial também se faz
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recorrente, de uma lado a favela, a miséria, e de outro a realidade urbana, a riqueza, neste caso, evidenciada na casa do mafioso para quem Salim trabalha. Aqui encuadra a origem da corrupção oriunda na sociedade urbana a qual genera a distorção no sistema social e tras como consequência o desiquilibrio e a constituição de marginais. A ascensão e queda do gangster é de fácil reconhecimento e o tempo narrativo para construir sua trajetória é muito similar a de Cidade de Deus, ou seja, ascensão lenta e queda rápida, seguida de morte.
3. O MANIPULADO: UM CONTEXTO ÀS AVESSAS
A sensação mais inverossímil que se passa e creio ser a mais denunciativa no ato de observar a desfiguração dos fatos é a de alimentar uma imagem de que a favela se resume a bandido, à violência, à ignorância e ao narcotráfico. Além deste equívoco há outro de grande relevância que é o de atrelar esta imagem não a uma ideologia de cunho humanístico, de reflexão discursiva, mas, sobretudo, em fixar uma ideologia social de cunho «glamourizado» em torno do espetáculo das armas, dos tiros, da obsessão pela ascensão, da sagacidade do líder, do culto ao dinheiro, da individualidade desmedida, dos confrontos intermináveis e da cocaína em abundância. Através da estética privilegiada retrata uma opção de vida, exatamente opcional, que seduz e emplaca uma atrativa oportunidade para se obter o poder, o respeito, a fama, o desinteresse pelo trabalho e a absoluta aceitação de que a vida é descartável diminuindo a sensibilidade emotiva do espectador em prol da adrenalina sensorial despertada. A vida de bandido se converte em carreira de status social. Ao espetacularizar a pobreza e a marginalidade, o filme perde seu impacto como crítica social, embora sirva como elemento de catarse para uma classe média que prefere ir ao cinema para ver na tela grande o «verdadeiro Brasil» enquanto deixa para as classes baixas as imagens de um «falso Brasil». Um clichê discursivo, vazio de sentidos históricos3 e com empenho em reforçar a fronteira que distancia e protege o «nós asfalto» do «outro favela» o que, conseqüentemente, pode criar um clima favorável para cooptar novos adeptos diante da fragilidade do tecido social. O que poderia ser uma oportunidade para uma reflexão social, tornou-se uma exuberância estética com interesse comercial internacional4.
O interesse em converter-se em traficante, marginal, incluindo crianças e adultos, não apresenta uma base explicativa, tampouco se chega a um motivo contundente, uma vez que, nenhum tipo de ausência é abordado no filme, ou seja, de moradia, de educação, de alimentação, de sistema de saúde. O estilo de vida elucidado na película se torna agressivo e desumano em contato com a realidade.
NOTAS
3 | Faço referência à forma pela qual o tema favela nos foi abordado, ou seja, destituído de contexto histórico. Foi-nos apresentado como um filho órfão, o que pode nos conduzir a uma simplificação equivocada e distorcida da realidade.
4 | Enfatizo o interesse internacional já que «o maior avanço de Cidade de Deus está nas parcerias internacionais de co-produção [...]. Em 2001, ainda em fase de roteiro, Cidade de Deus conseguiu a co-produção da Miramax, nos Estados Unidos, e do Studio Canal, na França.[...] Tais parcerias, realizadas pela primeira vez com empresas fortes e de grande penetração internacional, abriram portas importantes para o cinema brasileiro, garantindo com antecedência o lançamento em países estrangeiros e facilitando a circulação dos filmes por festivais e mercados. Da mesma forma, essa aposta antecipada representa uma importante confiança de qualidade do produto final. Até então, os filmes da retomada só foram negociados após estarem prontos[...]. http://www.centrocultural.sp.gov.br/revista_dart/pdfs/revista%20dart%2012.pdf
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Na própria Cidade de Deus a comunidade conta com 80 instituições, dentro de vários ramos: a dança, o teatro, a música, a literatura, o artesanato, entre outras, ou seja, é um meio urbano como qualquer outro, com centro comercial, com escolas, com centros de lazer, com bancos, com supermercados, em proporções mais precárias, porém presentes. O dia a dia deles é comum a vida dos brasileiros, trabalham, estudam e se divertem, levando em conta o recurso de cada um. Como demonstra na pesquisa 42% dos moradores da favela, quase que 50%, acreditam viver nas mesmas condições sociais que o asfalto. De acordo com o filme, tudo isso é inexistente e praticamente toda a favela é traficante, com baixo nível escolar e praticamente sem nenhuma expectativa de vida ou sonhos a conquistar. Contrastando com os dados estatísticos a grande maioria das crianças tem acesso à escola (83,4%), embora de baixa qualidade, porém o que aprendem garante seu desenvolvimento no trabalho (para 54,8% dos entrevistados). Na película, a maioria das crianças dedicam suas vidas ao tráfico e portam armas, porém não se torna explícito ser por uma opção de sobrevivência, mas sim por interpretarem, de forma natural, que esta é a carreira profissional inerente ao meio para atingir o poder, o êxito.
A presença da família foi totalmente solapada da tela do cinema, nos da a entender que a maioria surge da «terra». Não há questionamento sobre a necessidade ou a ausência dos pais ou de pessoas queridas. Demonstram serem pessoas incapazes de travar um diálogo saudável, não existe outro assunto que não seja o mundo do crime. São desprovidos de conteúdo moral, intelectual, espiritual e social. São humanos? Fixaram uma etiqueta ao redor desta comunidade que nos falta uma nomenclatura apropriada a fim de defini-los.
No que tange ao narcotráfico5, ou seja, de uma forma geral, a origem da violência, o motivo desestabilizador para o surgimento desta, não tem lugar no filme. Da forma que nos apresenta nos sugere que seja um produto fabricado naquele meio, ou seja, a droga é plantada e colhida ali assim como todo o tipo de violência. O externo, ou seja, a sociedade está excluída de qualquer responsabilidade e protagonismo sobre o tema, já que a sua «pureza social» foi defendida através de suas lindas praias, da galera bonita e de raça branca e dos lindos pores-do-sol. Outro ponto de forte dissenso é o tópico referente à projeção da idéia de «mundo à parte» com seus «seres à parte». De acordo com a pesquisa, evidencia-se que quase 70% dos moradores das favelas se sentem integrados à sociedade quando que no filme a história passa quase que exclusivamente dentro dos muros da favela, concretizando um mundo exótico ao olhar externo. Na pesquisa não se evidencia esta falta de conexão com o meio, não há este muro entre o asfalto e a favela, este bloqueio é criado de fora para dentro, principalmente por aqueles que possuem nas mãos
NOTAS
5 | O narcotráfico foi identificado como um produto interno da favela, desconsiderando-se os poderosos e influentes protagonistas atuantes nesse meio, ou seja, «o asfalto». De acordo com Zaluar, em seu livro: Cem anos de favela, nos relata: «A entrada dos cartéis colombianos e das máfias ligados ao narcotráfico, particularmente o da cocaína, trouxe para o país as mais modernas armas de fogo, que foram distribuídas entre os jovens traficantes e “aviões”, envolvendo uma rede de intermediários que inclui desde logo policiais e “matutos”, ou seja, os que trazem as drogas de outros estados ou países e que as vendem em grandes quantidades (“ a peso” e não em papelotes)» (UNDCP apud Zaluar, 1999:210).
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a possibilidade de desmistificar tal construção. Refiro-me à mídia, a qual «padroniza» e «condiciona» a elaboração de um pensamento, de uma convicção, ou até mesmo, de uma ideologia, através dos noticiários ou produtos culturais, podendo reforçar, desta forma, este imaginário periférico, cometendo um ato de violência com este povo já tão violentado moralmente.
A narrativa do filme desconsidera de todos os modos o passado da nação Brasileira, a qual foi «vítima» de um processo de colonização intenso e devastador, principalmente, nas conseqüências sociais deixadas. E sobre elas me adentro no que se refere à raça negra6. Uma identidade que esteve presa às mazelas de todos os tipos de preconceitos e amarguras, e hoje, todavia, segue sendo projetada sob a imagem organizada em forma de gueto.
Percebe-se, através das coincidências observadas (na adaptação ao gênero de gangster), que a obra não está baseada em um formato de história ingênua, ou seja, descompromissada com a bilheteria expectadora. Há interesses comerciais bem visíveis, com uma indústria por detrás ávida por atingir o sucesso internacional, abordagem sobre a qual não faço críticas, pois não se pode fazer apologia ao filantropismo, uma vez que, os custos precisam ser pagos e estamos diante de um produto comercializável. Apenas o evidencio como alicerce influenciador no caráter manipulativo em questão. Assim sendo, tratar o tema, favela, com menos efeito estético e com mais conteúdo argumentativo, interessaria ao olhar estrangeiro?
As coincidências elencadas na adaptação ao gênero comercial —gangster—proporcionam uma aproximação muito mais da ficção do que da realidade. Ao visualizar os arquétipos caricatos do gênero sustentado na narrativa de Cidade de Deus, os quais desde a década de trinta já são utilizados, perde-se a convicção realista defendida na obra e passamos a assistir mais uma história «confeccionada». O que se afirma como realidade e isso não se pode omitir é o tema da violência e do narcotráfico associados às favelas. Isso é realidade no mundo, não apenas em Cidade de Deus. Diante deste tema, de importante e notória realidade, sugere-se haver sido utilizado como um discurso real para «diluir», «disfarçar» e «incorporar» o formato do gênero comercial na concepção do filme. Ao assistir à trajetória narrativa da película através de suas imagens impactantes e escalofriantes, a suposta realidade evidenciada através do acúmulo de violência projetada, paralisa ao expectador, o que o faz endossar a autenticidade da história tendo como referência verídica o conteúdo jornalístico que assola o país diariamente vendendo a mesma manchete: favela, reduto de marginais e de narcotráfico. Entretanto, tendo em consideração, que essa referência «verídica» tampouco está isenta de sensacionalismo e especulação midiática,
NOTAS
6 | Enfim, em 1850 registra o fim do tráfico de escravos e em 1888 o fim da escravidão através a lei Áurea. O negro sobreviveu ao fim da escravidão e chegou aos nossos dias sendo encapsulados e «animalizados”» dentro de formatos discursivos que se assemelham aos «guetos» sob o codinome favela.
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cabe aqui igual reflexão sobre a realidade e a possibilidade de manipulação do tema em questão.
A idéia em desenvolver a história fechada dentro dos muros da favela, remonta a ideologia de caráter internacional, uma vez que, este cotidiano, o qual se torna exótico à mirada estrangeira, endossada pela curiosidade e ignorância alheia por desconhecimento, poderia alavancar, substancialmente, o interesse pelo consumo do filme.
Após esta análise faz mister acrescentar que, em minha restrita opinião, a delicadeza sobre a temática requeria outro tipo de abordagem pela facilidade com que a ficção se mescla com a realidade protegida sob a chancela: Cidade de Deus (uma comunidade verídica) e, sobretudo, representada pelos próprios moradores das favelas explorando a linguagem construída neste meio social. Colocar o nome do filme Cidade de Deus, diretamente faz alusão à comunidade em referência, mas também às favelas cariocas, as quais, mais uma vez, passam da posição de vítimas às de culpadas, através dos estereótipos «distorcidos», com os quais foram representados. A questão baseado em fatos reais (assinado pelo filme), causa uma idéia preliminar de aproximação à realidade, porém, no caso presente, aludindo à fonte que deu origem ao filme, o livro de Paulo Lins, o qual foi idealizado de forma imaginativa7, embora alguns personagens tenham ganhado nomes verídicos, como argumenta o autor, aproxima-se mais uma vez do caráter ficcional. Sobre o caráter «natural» do elenco, por assim defini-lo, emplaca uma verossimilhança que nos intimida na hora de questioná-la, porém o exercício manipulativo se revela no ato de «generalizar» o comportamento, as atitudes, os pensamentos apenas sobre a ótica da marginalidade envolvendo uma comunidade inteira, com salva exceção do único sobrevivente possuidor de um bom coração e cultivador de valores morais: o personagem Buscapé. Através da exceção não se pode projetar o todo, porém através do todo se projeta e defende uma ideologia —um discurso—.
Diante do exposto, creio que fica claro a intenção ficcional do filme em contraste com a forma verídica com a qual tentou-se justificar a película, defendida nas palavras de seu diretor: «[...] a gente não inventou aquela história».
Deste modo, conclui-se que o cinema é espetáculo e sempre foi, desenvolveu-se com esse fim. Nesse sentido, a representação de problemas complexos, como a questão da oposição favela e asfalto, deve ser analisada de forma cautelosa, já que os discursos identitários, reafirmados pelos discursos cinematográficos, tornam-se senso comum no imaginário coletivo, assim sendo, é importante que eles sejam questionados e desestabilizados na busca de novos significados.
NOTAS
7 | Entrevista realizada com o escritor Paulo Lins, o qual comenta o processo de criação do livro Cidade de Deus. Publicada na revista: Caros Amigos (Edição 74), em maio de 2003.
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4. UMA PALAVRA FINAL
Não poderia concluir este estudo de cunho investigativo sem pronunciar algumas palavras finais. A intenção do trabalho proposto não foi de criticar a obra de Fernando Meirelles e tampouco depreciá-la. Deixo aqui documentado minha admiração pelo filme como arte. Torna-se inquestionável o alavanque ocorrido no cinema nacional em detrimento à película. Serviu como um fôlego novo para o Brasil dentro do âmbito não só nacional, mas, sobretudo, internacional. Rompeu paradigmas e fixou a qualidade cinematográfica brasileira. No que tange ao formato do conteúdo apresentado, também deixo constatado, que para tantas outras pessoas o filme pode ter servido como discurso reflexivo dentro de algum ponto de vista específico, e, através de um viés argumentativo ou outro, tenha «desestruturado» a sensibilidade do expectador em busca de reflexões sociais.Meu interesse específico foi o de (re) interpretar a obra desmontando os estereótipos reafirmados a fim de aludir à realidade, já que, muitas vezes, me surpreendia endossando o «verossímil representado» e, em esses momentos, via-me submersa em este «imaginário coletivo» estruturado no mesmo formato cinematográfico estereotipado. Foi então, que me dei conta, do necessário que seria realizar este trabalho, principalmente para recapacitar meus olhos em torno da comunidade favela.
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REFERÊNCIAS
AUMONT, J; MARIE, M (1990). Análisis del film. Traducción: Carlos Losilla. Barcelona: Paidós.BENJAMIN, Walter (1985). A obra de arte na era da sua reprodutibilidade técnica. In: ___. Obras escolhidas: magia e técnica, arte e política. 2.ed. São Paulo: Brasiliense. CUFA, Pesquisa realizada pelo Instituto Brasileiro de Pesquisa Social. Acessada dia 15/ 7/ 2009. http://www.cufa.org.br/in.php?id=materias/mat315 . DAVIS, Mike (2006). Planeta favela. Tradução: Beatriz Medina. São Paulo: Boitempo.DIVISA RED S.A (2007). Orígenes del cine: Estados Unidos. Valladolid: Divisa.DOMÍNGUEZ, Trinidad Núñez (2005). El cine: ¿espejo de la realidad? Ayuntamiento de Madrid.FAUSTO, Boris (1995). Brasil, de colônia a democracia. Madrid: Alianza.HALL, Stuart (ed) (2001). A identidade cultural na pós-modernidade. Tradução: Tomaz Tadeu da Silva e Guacira Lopes Louro. Rio de Janeiro: DP&A.HEREDERO, F.C; SANTAMARINA, A (1996). Cine negro: maduración y crisis de la escritura clásica. Barcelona: Paidós.IANNI, Octávio (1997). A idéia de Brasil moderno. São Paulo: Brasiliense.LINS, Paulo (2002). Cidade de Deus. 2ed. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras.MORETZSOHN, Claúdia. Entre câmeras e traficantes (entrevista com F. Meirelles).06/08/2002, www.Globo.com MELLO, Cléa Corrêa de. «O desafio crítico de Cidade de Deus». Tempo Brasileiro, Rio de Janeiro, n. 141, p. 123-49, abr./jun. 2000.MOTTA, Cláudio. «Cidade de Deus reage à violência na tela». Globo Barra, Globo,28/1/2002.ORICCHIO, Zanin (2003). Cinema de novo: um balanço da retomada. São Paulo: Estação liberdade.RIBEIRO, Paulo Jorge. «Cidade de Deus na zona de contato: alguns impasses da crítica cultural contemporânea». Revista de crítica literaria latinoamericana. Lima/Hanover, n. 57, 1° semestre 2003, p. 125-139SHOHAT, E; STAM, R. (2002) Multiculturalismo, cine y medios de comunicación: Crítica del pensamiento eurocéntrico. Barcelona: Paidós.SILVER, A; URSINI, J. (ed)(2004). Cine Negro. Köln: Taschen.ZALUAR, A; MARCOS, A. (1999). Um Século de Favela. Rio de Janeiro: FGV.
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Рекомендуемая ссылка || ЛУАРСАБИШВИЛИ, Владимир (2010): “К переводу стихотворения г. Арести «defenderé la casa de mi padre»” [статья он-лайн], 452ºF. Электронный журнал о теорий литературы и сравнительной литературе, 2, 96-111 [дата консультаций: дд/мм/гг], < http://www.452f.com/index.php/ru/Vladimer-Luarsabishvili.html >.иллюстрация || Патрициа ЛопезОригинальная || статья в Гернике 2009 Nº3 | Принята: 16/06/2009 | Опубликована : 01/2010Лицензия || не коммерческая, CC-ND 3.0 от Creative Commons.
К ПЕРЕВОДУ СТИХОТВОРЕНИЯ Г. АРЕСТИ «DEFENDERÉ LA CASA DE MI PADRE»Владимир ЛуарсабишвилиПреподаватель по сравнительной литературеТбилисский государственный университет им. И. Чавчавадзе
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Резюме || В статье рассматриваются разные варианты перевода стихотворения Г. Арести ¨La casa de mi padre¨. Автор анализирует теорию и практику перевода на примере нескольких переводчиков. На примерах конкретных переводов в статье описываются переводческие взгляды К. Гамсахурдиа, М. Цветаевой, В. Набокова, Х. Борхеса и др.. В конце, автор предлагает собственный вариант перевода стихотворения Г. Арести ¨La casa de mi padre¨.
Ключевые слова || Перевод | Переводчик | Техника перевода | Арести | Зыцарь.
Abstract || In this article, several versions of the poem “My father’s house” by Gabriel Aresti are analysed. The author studies in depth the theory and the practice of translation with the example of several translators. In the article, several specific examples of diverse translations by K. Gamsakhurdia, M. Tsvetaeva, V. Nabokov, J. Borges, etc, are quoted. At the end of his work, the author suggests his own version of the russian translation of the poem by Gabriel Aresti “My father’s house”.
Key-words || Translation | Translator | Translation technique | Aresti | Zytsar.
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В журнале «Герника» помещен перевод стихотворения классика баскской поэзии XX века Габриеля Арести «Defenderé la casa de mi padre», выполненный российским баскологом Ю. Зыцарем (1). В течении девяти лет я переводил на грузинский язык стихи Густаво Адольфо Беккера, Федерико Гарсии Лорки, Хуана Рамона Хименеса, Педро Салинаса и баскских поэтов (Унамуно, Селайя, Арести) и за это время, естественно, неоднократно возникал вопрос о технике и нормах литературного перевода. Ранее я читал вышеупомянутое стихотворение Г. Арести в переводе Роберто Серрано и Романа Игнатьева (2), который, несомненно, отличается от варианта Ю. Зыцаря. Результатом прочтения обоих явился третий, мой вариант, а также настоящая статья с изложением авторского взгляда на литературный тип перевода.
Для начала предлагаю читателям ознакомиться с обоими переводами указанного стихотворения Г. Арести.
Перевод Юрия Зыцаря:
Дом моего отца у самых верхов границы я защищу от волхвов, волков, землетрясений, ростовщиков, мафии и юстиции. От всего защищу, как ни тих и ни щупл. Всю защиту ему обеспечу. Обесконечу.
Как задаток приму синяки. Потеряю скот, поля, сосняки. Дивиденды, доходы, проценты, последние центы. Всё, исключая ключи от рая,– всё потеряю. Но дом отца?.. У самого краха края род жены решит (– дня ясней), что, мол, муж-то мул, и уж муж ли, эй, и уж нужн ли ей?
Отберут у меня и оружие.
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Что ж, и тут я не запищу: просто пальцами защищу. Срежут пальцы с рук, руки срубят, уже беспалые… Друг! Не плачь ты о бедном малом. Плачь ты лучше о небывалом: удалóм, пусть и неудáлом. Я зубами заскрежещу: рук об руб ками не пущу. Пусть я мул, даже мум и му, старый пень в дыму, но и думать о доме не дам – сомну. Но тогда уж, дойдя до плеч, подберутся к душе в груди. Что же – лечь? Не-ет, минуточку подожди. В самый плача миг на палачий мир я душой замахнусь: дом отца – рушить? Стой? Куда ж ты бежишь-то, гнусь! Задушý за дýшу.
Но допустим, когда-нибудь пусть где-то в толще лет – голубой чащé, да не будет ей путь пуст, срок придет и моей душé. А за ней и потомкам, моим котёнкам. А дом отца?.. А вот он-то, как солдат после фронта, лишь смеясь над векáми, и лишь вéками щурясь вслед, ни один не обронит камень. Вот свят Свет.
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Перевод Роберто Серрано и Романа Игнатьева:
Я защищу Дом своего отца. От волков, От засухи, От ростовщиков, От правосудия Я защищу Дом Своего отца. Я потеряю скот, Огороды, Сосняки; Я потеряю Проценты, Ренты, Дивиденды, Но я защищу дом своего отца. Они отнимут у меня оружие, А я руками защищу Дом своего отца;
Мне отрубят руки, А я культями защищу Дом своего отца: Они оставят меня Без рук, Без плеч И без груди, А я душой защищу Дом своего отца. Я умру, Потеряется моя душа, Погибнет мое потомство, Но дом моего отца Останется Стоять.
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Вкратце ознакомимся с суждениями некоторых классиков перевода, с авторами, которые способствовали созданию науки о переводе. В книге Ампаро Уртадо Албира (2007) перевод рассматривается как умение, знание создания, которое
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состоит в знании обследования процесса перевода и решении переводческих сложностей, имевших место в конкретном случае. Опираясь на известное различие между знаниями пояснительным (знать как), вытекающим и действенным (оперативным), умение перевода определяется как знание, главным образом, оперативного типа и, поэтому, приобретенное в основном практикой.
Однако, для определения перевода этот автор считает возможным опереться и на другую классификацию, предложенную Jakobson в 1959 году, согласно которому существуют три вида интерпретаций словесного знака:
1. Интралингвистический перевод, или реформуляция — толкование словесных знаков при помощи других знаков того же языка; 2. Интерлингвистический перевод, или перевод — толкование словесных знаков при помощи другого языка; 3. Интерсемиотический или трансмутативный перевод — толкование словесных знаков посредством незнаковых систем.
Jakobson указывал, что интерлингвистический перевод является настоящим переводом. Этот взгляд позднее разделили и другие авторы. Например, Ljudskanov (1969) рассматривал перевод, как процесс преобразования знаков и поддержания неизменного и искал действующий алгоритм для человеческого и механического перевода; Arcaini (1986) ссылался на интерсемиотический перевод между лингвистическими и иконическими знаками и писал о словесных и иконических кодах; Steiner (1975) интерлингвистический перевод рассматривал как особенный и привилегированный тип коммуникации.
Albir ставит три вопроса: почему нужно переводить?, для чего нужно переводить? и для кого нужно переводить? По его мнению, переводить надобно вследствии существования отличающихся языков и культур; на вопрос «для чего нужно переводить», отвечает: для коммуникации, для преодоления барьера некомуникации, предназначение перевода — коммуникативное; а на третий вопрос — «для кого нужно переводить?» отвечает: для того, кто не знает язык и культуру оригинала. Переводчик не переводит для себя (за редким исключением), а цели перевода могут быть разными.
Марко Антонио Кампос в статье «Поэзия и перевод» ставит те же вопросы. По его мнению, существуют два основных повода для перевода — перевод как средство существования
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и перевод для наслаждения. Допустимо относиться к переводу и как к работе и одновременно, по своему вкусу, выбирать авторов. Он переводил для удовольствия делать открытия, по общности восприятия, в благодарность автору, который его чему-либо научил или взволновал. Для чего переводить? В первую очередь, чтобы дать возможность читателю на родном языке открыть неизвестного писателя; также, дабы вернувшись к уже переведенному, исправить лексические, рифмические неточности, негибкость перевода или излишнюю литературность. Автор советует не переводить уже переведенное, если не удастся улучшить его, или, по крайней мере, изложить новую — ощутимую и отличающуюся версию. К тому же при переводе язык обогащается в процессе бесконечной словесной трансформации. Это такой же прекрасный объект, как писанный стих или картина, или же снятый фильм (4).
Касательно переводчика, первым соображением является знание обоих языков. Тут рождаются три вопроса:
1. Должен ли переводчик знать оба языка на одном уровне? 2. Должны ли переводчик и устный переводчик иметь схожие лингвистические знания? 3. Должен ли переводчик быть теоретиком языков или же специалистом лингвистики?
По мнению Ампаро Уртадо Албира (2007), билингвизм не является условием sine qua non для переводчика (тем более, что два случая — письменный и устный перевод, отличаются друг от друга). Кроме того, переводчик, безусловно, должен владеть и внелингвистическими знаниями, например о культуре стран переводимых языков. Хотя практика показывает, что часто и этого бывает недостаточно (3).
Теперь вкратце рассмотрим традиционную классификацию перевода.
San Jerónimo различает мирской и религиозный перевод. Vives (1532) различает версии, которые учитывают лишь значение, другие — фразы и слова, и третьи — вид равновесия между сутью и словами, в которой слова добавляют смыслу мощь и изящество. Fray Luis de León (1561) различает перевод (trasladar) и провозглашение (declarar): первое является «верным и точным» и «если возможно сосчитать слова, дабы заменить их точным количеством», а второе, как «игра слов, добавляя и упраздняя по собственному желанию». Dryden (1680) предлагает различать metafrasis (перевод слово в слово), parafrasis (перевод значения) и imitation (вольность отклонения в форме и значении). Schleiermacher (1813) различает перевод
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коммерческих, литературных и научных текстов.
В поэтическом переводе выделяют свои, особенные типы. Этот вопрос изучали: Holmes (1969: 195-201, 1978: 69-82), Holmes, de Haan and Popovic (1970), Lefevere (1975), Popovic (1976), de Beaugrande (1978), Etkind (1982), Raffel (1988), Saez Hermosilla (1987) и другие (5-11).
Holmes (1988) — поэтические тексты многовалентны. Поэтический перевод это метапоэма, а переводчик — метапоэт.
Etkind (1982) — стих это «система конфликтов» (между синтаксом и метром, метром и ритмом, поэтической традицией и поэтической инновацией). Автор различает 6 типов поэтического перевода:
1. информационный (в прозе и без художественного притязания); 2. интерпретативный (связанный с историческим и эстетическим изучением); 3. указывающий (с наличием некоторых эстетических критериев, однако без выявления эстетически определенной системы);4. приблизительный (с наличием частичной эстетической системы; например, ритм без метра, ритм без рифмы и т. д.); 5. имитативный (когда переводчик является поэтом и свободно выражается); 6. рекреативный (истинный поэтический перевод, который передает стих вместе с характеристиками оригинала).
Raffel (1988) — поэтический перевод это «игра равновесия».
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Во избежание влияния, я умышленно прочел книгу переводов Г. Лорки, изданную в Москве в 1987 году (12), лишь после того, как сам перевел некоторые стихи Лорки. Я сравнил два перевода одного и того же стихотворения.
Известное стихотворение Лорки «Гитара» из «Канте Хондо» было переведено Мариной Цветаевой (Лорка: 44-45). Изучение роли великой русской поэтессы в мировой литературе не является целью настоящей статьи, ее изучали и изучают писатели и литераторы. Мы лишь подчеркнем ее переводческую технику на примере двух стихотворений. Известно, что Цветаева много переводила (Саакянц: 31) с разных языков, в том числе
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и с испанского. В «Гитаре» поэтесса совершает переводческий трюк, который у нее проскальзывает и в другом стихотворении Лорки — «А потом...» (Лорка: 46-47).
В конце стихотворения («Гитара») Цветаева переводит (намеренно не употребляем глагол «пишет»):
Так прощается с жизнью птица под угрозой змеиного жала.
Тогда как в оригинале у Лорки эти строки выглядят как:
И маленькая мертвая птица на ветке.
В данном случае налицо изменение поэтического текста. Однако, в другом стихотворении мы сталкиваемся уже не с изменением, а с дополнением и удалением оригинала:
Умолкло, заглохло, остыло, иссякло, исчезло.
Эта строфа отсутствует в стихотворении Лорки, но присутствует в его переводе. Кроме этого поэтесса заканчивает перевод стихотворения, стирая последнюю строчку, которая является самостоятельным предложением:
Пустыня — осталась.
Тогда как в оригинале после строфы «Пустыня/осталась» присутствует еще одно, последнее предложение: «Un onduloso desierto».
Тут же следует отметить, что метры испанского, русского и грузинского языка отличаются друг от друга, что осложняет сравнение оригинала с переводами. То же самое случилось и с переводами Беккера (Беккер: 1985) (с книгой, которую я прочел после трех лет публикования моих переводов в литературных газетах).
Уместно вспомнить взгляд М. Цветаевой на перевод: «Я перевожу по слуху — и по духу (вещи). Это больше, чем смысл» (Саакянц: 31). На наш взгляд, весьма субъективное мышление. Ведь откуда известно, в какую строку вложил Лорка свой «дух»? Может, в том самом последнем предложении, которое пропустила (стерла) переводчица?
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Тот же взгляд на перевод имел и грузинский писатель К. Гамсахурдиа: «Переводческая деятельность — сложнейшая работа. Переводчик не должен следовать переводимому тексту дословно. Например, когда я переводил Вертера, то пропустил некоторые места оригинала, так как они ничего не говорили грузинскому читателю. Такой принцип при переводе обязателен, так как перевод — это передача души произведения, а не букв» (Гамсахурдиа: 564-656).
«Не говорили грузинскому читателю» — не субъективизм ли это? По мнению К. Гамсахурдиа «не говорили», а по мнению другого переводчика может и «сказали бы», будь они переведены. В другом переводчике, к примеру, подразумеваю Владимира Набокова: «В причудливом мире словесных превращений существует три вида грехов. Первое и самое невинное зло — очевидные ошибки, допущенные по незнанию или непониманию. Это обычная человеческая слабость — и вполне простительная. Следующий шаг в ад делает переводчик, сознательно пропускающий те слова и абзацы, в смысл которых он не потрудился вникнуть или же те, что, по его мнению, могут показаться непонятными или неприличными смутно воображаемому читателю. Он не брезгует самым поверхностным значением слова, которое к его услугам предоставляет словарь, или жертвует ученостью ради мнимой точности: он заранее готов знать меньше автора, считая при этом, что знает больше. Третье — и самое большое — зло в цепи грехопадений настигает переводчика, когда он принимается полировать и приглаживать шедевр, гнусно приукрашивая его, подлаживаясь к вкусам и предрассудкам читателей. За это преступление надо подвергать жесточайшим пыткам, как в средние века за плагиат» (Набоков: 389).
В. Набоков был писателем глубоко индивидуального мышления. То же самое можно сказать и о М. Цветаевой, как и о некоторых других писателях, непечатаемых советской властью. Однако, тут же следует отметить, что несмотря на схожесть мышления, Набоков и Цветаева были диаметрально отличающимися личностями. Это отличие четко вырисовывается в их отношении к переводу. Leigh Kimmel опубликовал статью «Набоков как переводчик», в которой изучает эволюцию переводческой доктрины писателя (Leigh: 2001). Автор статьи выделяет две группы переводчиков: одни при переводе предпочитают сохранить целостность текста, другие переводят «душу» произведения (так, как М. Цветаева). На примере двух переводов В. Набокова автор старается выяснить эволюцию переводческой сути.
Первым переводом Kimmel рассматривает «Аню в стране чудес». Автор оригинала Льюис Кэролл играет английскими
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словами, опираясь на их множественные значения и особенно на схожесть звучания разных слов, создавая юмористический эффект. При переводе оригинала Набоков сроднил его с русским языком. Начал он с замены имени «Алисы» на «Аню» и каждый новый иностранный элемент «переводил» на русский. Таким образом, он все более отдалялся от оригинала и в результате получил перевод «говоривший что-то русскому читателю», если позаимствовать у К. Гамсахурдиа.
В отличии от рассмотренного перевода, Набоков переводил «Евгения Онегина», руководствуясь противоположными принципами. Первой задачей переводчика было сохранить целостность текста, составив для этой цели 1100 страничный комментарий. Он разумел свой перевод не как чтение литературного текста, а как руководство к русскому оригиналу для тех, кто не владеет русским языком на уровне, достаточном для прочтения произведения. Автор статьи не согласен с мнением, что Кэролл переводился для детей, а Пушкин для ученых, чем и объясняется такая смена тактики перевода. Известно, что Набоков сам менял содержания своих произведений при переводе (в случае с «Camera obscura», которую он переименовал в «Laughter in the Dark» и фактически написал заново). Согласно мнению Kimmel, возможно Набоков пришел к выводу, что лишь автор имеет право изменять содержание текста.
В связи с переделыванием чужого произведения широко известна история переводов «Рубай» Омара Хайяма Э. Фицджеральдом, но особый интерес вызывает перевод английских стихов уже на испанский язык (21,22). Согласно легенде, Борхес-сын унаследовал талант писателя от своего отца. За исключением нескольких востоковедческих текстов и новеллы «El Caudillo», Хорхе Гильермо Борхес опубликовал лишь немного стихотворений, в числе которых были три произведения, озаглавленные «Momentos» (которые напечатал престижный журнал «Nosotros» в Буэнос-Айресе в 1914 году). Позднее, Борхес-отец перевел с английкого языка «Рубаи», руководствуясь переводом Э. Фицджеральда.
Э. Фицджеральд впервые опубликовал адаптацию «Рубай» в 1859 году, всего в течение жизни вышли четыре редакции перевода. Пятая, последняя, вышла после кончины переводчика в 1889 году, включая примечания, которые Фицджеральд составил к четвертому изданию. В оригинале каждый «Рубаи» представляет собой строфу из двух стихов, каждый делится на два полустишья, составляя в сумме четыре (откуда и берет начало название ruba’i). Строки рифмуются между собой, за исключением третьей линии, которая или рифмуется, или нет.
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Переводя, Фицджеральд выбрал схему AABA.
Каждое четверостишие представляет собой отдельный стих, имея началом описательный элемент или рассказ, тогда как в последней линии заключается мораль или философский вывод. Фицджеральд соединил некоторые строфы оригинала, не следуя принятой персидской системе. Его упорядочение менялось от первого до пятого издания, которое уже содержало 101 строфу, тогда как оригинал насчитывал всего 75.
Перевод «Рубай» на испанский язык, совершенный Борхесом, минимум третий. Первый, в 1907 году, был опубликован в мадридском журнале «Renacimiento» в 1907 г. без указания переводчика. Второй перевод принадлежит перу Карлоса Мусио Пеньи, со вступительной статьей Альваро Мелиана Лафинура, а в 1922 году в журнале Рафаэля Лосано была опубликована серия «Лучшие стихи (лирика) лучших поэтов», в числе которых был Омар Хайям. Кроме того, «прямой перевод с персидского» опубликовал Вентура Гарсия Кальдерон . В 1925 году вышел перевод Адольфо Саласара, а в 1927 году Хоакина В. Гонсалеса.
К чести Борхеса нужно отметить, что это был первый перевод на испанский язык, который сохранил метр оригинала. Английский оригинал состоит из десятисложного стиха со знаком ударения на последнем слоге, который, в случае переноса на испанский язык, превращается в одиннадцатисложный. При переводе Борхес устранил рифму и чередовал парокситоны одиннадцатисложного (несущие знак ударения на предпоследнем слоге) с окситонным десятисложным стихом, так что, несмотря на различное количество фонологических слогов, все стихи подсчитываются как одиннадцатисложные согласно общепринятым метрическим нормам.
В остальном, конечно же эта работа является не переводом, а воссозданием, как и в случае с Фицджеральдом. Однако, Борхес пошел дальше Фицджеральда, удаляя часть оригинальных строф Фицджеральда, изменяя чередование оставшихся и добавляя некоторые из собственных. Выходит, что Борхес, вдохновленный переводом Фицджеральда, написал собственные «Рубай» на испанском языке, а Фицджеральд, в свою очередь, вдохновленный оригиналом Хайяма написал свои «Рубай» на английском языке.
В цитируемой нами выше статье Марко Антонио Кампос выделяет 7 типов перевода (4).
1. Перевод как творение — когда автор точно переводит иноязычного поэта, одновременно наряжая его
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собственным стилем (например, Борхес и Октавио Пас); 2. литературный перевод — жажда каждого писателя заключается в соответствии словесных объектов оригинала и перевода. Совершенный перевод поэзии невозможен; по крайней мере, расплывается или теряется музыкальность. Как читатель и переводчик автор признается в уважении и влечении к поэтическому переводу. Конечно, не имеется в виду дословный перевод, где ничего не слышно или мало что слышно, который совершает академический персонал, страдающий отсутствием слуха. Они уважают текст в дословном смысле, однако не уважают поэзию; 3. свободный перевод — разновидность перевода как творения и перевода как личного труда. Его также величают «либризмом». В этом случае, переводчик отдаляется от оригинала и погружается в мир свободных действий, до того, что стих становится родным. Можно привести пример Эдварда Фицджеральда, который в 1859 году опубликовал «Рубаи» Хайяма; 4. перевод как личный труд — автор рассматривает переведенные стихотворения как часть своего литературного наследия, в том числе, когда они включаются в текст, или же в конце собственного произведения; 5. перевод перевода — когда переводчик не владеет языком оригинала и основывается на другие языки. Примерами могут служить переводы Октавио Паса (с японского, китайского, шведского и венгерского) и Хосе Эмилия Пачеко (с польского и современного греческого); 6. перевод как современная адаптация древнего текста на том же языке — перевод Альфонсо Рейеса («Myo Cid») и Генри У. Лонгфелло («Historia de los reyes de Noruega»); 7. адаптация — дидактическая или сжатая передача оригинала.
3.
Считаю, что техника переводов Фицджеральда, Борхеса, Цветаевой и Гамсахурдиа значительно удаляет читателя от оригинала. Переведенный ими текст не только не содержит все абзацы или главы первичного текста, но также не является носителем целостности оригинала. Если в одних случах теоретически допустимым яляется замена слова или предложения, то это никак не случай с авангардской поэзией Лорки, где одно слово (оно же предложение) является носителем отличающего значения. Будучи стертым (устраненным), оно вырывает из оригинала идею, которую должен был передать переводчик.
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Рассмотрим случай дополнения авторского текста. Возможно, М. Цветаева вставила вышеупомянутый абзац в стихотворение Лорки «Гитара» для усиления несущего эффекта (идеи). Во-первых, Лорку нет надобности «усиливать» — его «сила» может заключается в стертой переводчицей поэтической форме и нечего тут «полировать и приглаживать» (Набоков). Во-вторых, вставленная строфа, по своей анатомии русская, в ней ничто не пахнет Испанией. Это логично, ведь Цветаева принадлежит к тому числу русских писателей, которые глубоко чувствовали русское слово. При желании насладиться русской поэзией, я с удовольствием перелистаю том Ходасевича, Цветаевой или Ахматовой, но не буду искать русской души в переводах Лорки, Хименеса или братьев Мачадо. Наверое это и имел в виду В. Набоков: «Но вот за перо берется подлинный поэт, одаренный и тем и другим, и между сочинением собственных стихов находит отдохновение, переводя что-нибудь из Лермонтова или Верлена. Обычно он либо не знает язык подлинника и безмятежно полагается на «подстрочник», сделанный не столь блестящим, но значительно более образованным человеком, либо, зная язык, не обладает педантичностью ученого и опытом профессионального переводчика. В этом случае чем больше его поэтический дар, тем сильнее искрящаяся рябь его красноречия замутняет гениальный подлинник. Вместо того, чтобы облечься в одежды автора, он наряжает его в собственные одежды» (Leigh: 1998).
Так каким же должен быть переводчик? В последний раз обратимся к В. Набокову: «...Теперь уже можно судить, какими качествами должен быть наделен переводчик, чтобы воссоздать идеальный текст шедевра иностранной литературы. Прежде всего он должен быть столь же талантлив, что и выбранный им автор, либо таланты их должны быть одной природы. В этом и только в этом смысле Бодлер и По или Жуковский и Шиллер идеально подходят друг другу. Во-вторых, переводчик должен прекрасно знать оба народа, оба языка, все детали авторского стиля и метода, происхождение слов и словообразование, исторические аллюзии. Здесь мы подходим к третьему важному свойству: наряду с одаренностью и образованностью он должен обладать способностью к мимикрии, действовать так, словно он и есть истинный автор, воспроизводя его манеру речи и поведения, нравы и мышление с максимальным правдоподобием» (Набоков: 395).
Конечно, Набокова вряд ли можно назвать скромным человеком: он приравнивает себя к Пушкину будучи его переводчиком. Я не считаю, что переводчик должен иметь одинаковый талант с гением, тогда бы гении сами переводили свои произведения (но
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ведь переводил Набоков свои?). Наверное, главным стремлением переводчика должна быть передача «души» произведения при максимальной сохранности формы оригинала. Пусть не все будет «гладко» на языке перевода, пусть «пахнет» оригиналом, это лишний раз пробудит в нас стремление прочесть шедевр в оригинале. Для меня, как для читателя и переводчика, перевод Р. Серрано и Р. Игнатьева гораздо ближе (не только к тексту оригинала, но и к его духу), чем перевод Ю. Зыцаря. Последний, по собственному признанию переводчика, далек от оригинала (1), но представляет безусловный интерес с точки зрения альтернативного метода перевода.
В конце хочу выразить благодарность Ю. Зыцарю и Р. Серрано и Р. Игнатьеву, переводы которых вдохновили меня написать настоящую статью и предлагаю свою версию перевода вышеупомянутого стиха Г. Арести:
Отстою отчий дом. От волков, засухи, лихоимства и правосудия отстою отчий дом.Лишусь стад, огородов, сосновых пущ, добра, доходов, долей но отстою отчий дом.Отнимут оружие, и руками отстою отчий дом; отнимут руки, и плечами отстою отчий дом; отнимут плечи, предплечья и грудь и душой отстою отчий дом.Умру. Потеряется душа моя, погибнет потомство мое, но отчий дом устоит.
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(1) Зыцарь Ю. К переводу стихотворения Г. Арести «Дом моего отца» // Герника. 2008. №7. (2) Кортасар Й. Габриель Арести (1933-1975) // Герника. 2008. № 1. (3) Hurtado Albir A. Traducción y Traductología. Introducción a la traductología. Tercera edición. Madrid: Cátedra, 2007. (4) Campos A. M. Poesía y traducción // Hieronymus. Núm. 3. (5) Holmes J. Forms of Verse Translation and the Translation of Verse Form // Babel. 15. 1969. P. 195-201.
• Describing Literary Translations: Models and Methods // Holmes J., Lambert J. and van den Broeck R. (eds.). Literature and Translation: New Perspective in Literary Studies with a Basic Bibliography of Books on Translation Studies. Louvain, Acco, 1978. P. 69-82.
• De Haan F., and Popovic A. (eds.). The nature of Translation. Essays on the Theory and Practice of Literary Translation. La Haya, Mouton, 1970.
(6) Etkind E. Un art en crise. Essai de poétique de la traduction poétique. Lausanne: l’Age d’Homme, 1982.(7) Raffel B. The art of Translating Poetry. Pittsburg, Pennsylvania State University Press, 1988. (8) Popovic A. Dictionary for the Analysis of Literary Translation. University of Alberta, 1976. (9) Lefevere A. Translating poetry. Seven strategies and a Blueprint. Amsterdam: Van Gorcum, 1975.(10) Beaugrande R. de. Factors in a theory of poetic translating. Assen: Van Gorcum, 1978. (11) Saez Hermosilla T. Percepto mental y Estructúra rítmica. Prolegómenos para una Traductología del sentido. Universidad de Extremadura, 1987. (12) Лорка Ф. Г. Избранное / Пер. с исп. Москва: «Просвещение», 1987. (13) См. 12, с. 44-45. (14) Саакянц А. Марина Цветаева // Марина Цветаева. Сочинения в двух томах. Т. I. Москва: Издательство «Художественная литература», 1988. С. 31. (15) См. 12, с. 46-47. (16) Беккер Г.А. Избранные произведения / Пер. с исп. Москва: «Художественная литература», 1985. (17) Луарсабишвили В. Переводы стихотворений Густаво Адольфо Беккера (на грузинском языке). Газета писателя. № 13 (63). 1-7 мая 2003 г. (18) Гамсахурдиа К. Перевод и чистота языка // Избранные произведения. Т. VII. Тбилиси: Издательство «Сабчота Сакартвело, 1965. С. 564-656. (19) Набоков В. Искусство перевода. Лекции по русской литературе. Москва: Издательство «Независимая Газета», 2001. (20) http://www.geocities.com/Athens/3682/nabokov2.html. Kimmel, Leigh. Nabokov as Translator. An examination of his changing doctrine of translation, 1998.(21) http://cvc.cervantes.es/trujaman/anteriores/septiembre_05/19092005.htm (22) http://cvc.cervantes.es/trujaman/anteriores/septiembre_05/30092005.htm
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Recommended citation || Pérez, Lericia (2010): “The Surrealist Collection of Objects” [online article], 452ºF. Electronic journal of theory of literature and comparative literature, 2, 112-126 [Consulted on: dd / mm / yy], < http://www.452f.com/index.php/en/leticia-perez.html >.Illustration || Javier ArceArticle || Received on: 23/04/2009 | International Advisory Board’s suitability: 09/12/2009 | Published on: 01/2010License || Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 License.
THE SURREALIST COLLECTION OF OBJECTSLeticia PérezPhD student in the Department of Comparative LiteratureState University of New York, Buffalo
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Abstract || In this article I shall discuss the Surrealist collection of objects as a form of art which arises out of mass production forces of the new era. These goods, deeply rooted in the capitalist laws of use-, exchange- and surplus-value, carry in themselves two materialist approaches which end in dialectical materialism. On the one hand, they epitomize the supreme forces of commodity fetishism ingrained in capitalist structures; on the other hand, they arouse unconscious desires which respond to the needs of the society of consumption. Thus, I will explore the act of object-collecting in the most radical Surrealist practices (dream objects, found objects, poème-objets, calligrammes, readymades and Surrealist objects) as a way to not only delve into a new art, but also to reflect on societal ongoing transformations and paradoxes.
Key-words || Collection | Commodity fetishism | Capitalism | Consumption | Commercial culture | Use-, exchange- and surplus-value | Materialism | Idealism | Surrealist objects.
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What is decisive in collecting is that the object is detached from all its original functions in order to enter into the closest conceivable relation to things of the same kind. This relation is the diametric opposite of any utility, and falls into the peculiar category of completeness. What is this “completeness”? It is a grand attempt to overcome the wholly irrational character of the object’s mere presence at hand through its integration into a new expressly devised historical system: the collection. And for the true collector, every single thing in this system becomes an encyclopedia of all knowledge of the epoch, the landscape, the industry, and the owner from which it comes. It is the deepest enchantment of the collector to enclose the particular item within a magic circle, where, as a last shudder runs through it (the shudder of being acquired), it turns to stone (Benjamin 2002, “The Collector”, pp. 204-205).
In this passage, Walter Benjamin underscores the historical character of the object, which, once divested of the commercial laws of exchange-, use- and surplus-value, becomes a part of the collection system. Thus, the item is displaced from its original locus only to be circumscribed within a new milieu which charges it with magical properties. Likewise, Surrealist objects, in reversing Hegel’s idealism into Marx’s materialism, embody the inward drives of commodity fetishism which allow for their alliance with mass production forces of the new era. Therefore, I shall discuss the dialectical character of Surrealist goods by exploring the unconscious processes of the psyche and the fetishist forms of commodification ingrained in capitalist structures. Following Benjamin’s notions in The Arcades Project (2002), Freudian and Marxist postulates on fetishism, and Rancière’s claims in The Politics of Aesthetics (2004), the aim of this article is to argue for the impact of object-collecting as a way of acquisition on the most subversive Surrealist practices: dream objects, found objects, poème-objets, calligrammes, readymades and Surrealist objects. Ultimately, these acts of collection transfigure the physical qualities of the element at hand by virtue of the dislodgement from its natural medium and its immersion into a fantastic realm, which is symptomatic of society’s contradictions.
To begin with, I would like to explicate the Surrealist tendency to collect objects in view of Rancière’s theorizations on the distribution of the sensible; that is, the delimitation of the visible and the invisible, the audible and the inaudible, the thinkable and the unthinkable, the possible and the impossible (2004, p. 12). To put it simply, Rancière appeals to forms of inclusion and exclusion in the process of acceptance of a new artistic practice. Thus, the Surrealist category of object-collecting can be conceived as a previously disregarded art, which eventually is included within the aesthetic domain by revealing what is shared by an artistic community, that is, the tension of the object as a form of commodification and as a subjective act of creation. In Rancière’s terms, the accumulation of common goods can be an expression of the beauty of the ordinary, which “becomes a trace of the true if it is torn from its obviousness in order to become
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a hieroglyph, a mythological or phantasmagoric figure” (2004, p. 34). The commodity fetish not only illustrates this enigmatic level of the true, but also enacts the antagonisms inherent in the modern era. This notion carries in itself two materialist approaches. Firstly, Marx’s theory of fetishism interprets human relations as an extension of the interplay with commodities. Secondly, Freud’s readings of fetish stand for the selection of an object which is attributed to a specific body part (Lehman 2007, p. 36). Hence, the antithesis between object and subject reveals the complexities of Surrealist works, which, by subverting the traditional mechanisms of art production, not only insist on the materiality of the aesthetic product, but also on the unconscious desires it arouses.
In order to exploit the inner and outer properties of the industrial item, the Surrealist collector, then, assumes the function of the historian, who, by appropriating events in his proximity, disrupts the spontaneous flux of history. He renders legibility to the undifferentiated mass of materials while, at the same time, he delves into their secret elements. In the same vein, the collector does violence to the article by tearing it from its natural medium and placing it within a universe of unusual significations. According to Benjamin, “the object constructed in the materialist presentation of history is itself the dialectical image. The latter is identical with the historical object; it justifies its violent expulsion from the continuum of historical process” (2002, “On the Theory of Knowledge, Theory of Progress”, p. 475). Thus, the Surrealist artifact is an enactment of the dialectical movement, in that it carries in itself its own contradiction. Whereas it emphasizes its subjective value by reacting to commodity fetishism, it is also a form of art production which responds to the needs of a new market place. As Ulrich Lehman states: “Decorative objects with Surrealist over- or undertones, such as Alberto Giacometti’s plaster works, emerged from the utopian attempt by Surrealists in the latter half of the 1930s to create new object categories that would reflect systematic contradictions and display a novel definition of the work of art” (2007, p. 23). This utopian sense accounted for by Lehman can be interpreted as the Surrealist desire to open up new artistic registers which, by overcoming the boundaries among the different disciplines and genres, reflect the antagonisms of the modern era. Whereas this innovative aestheticism acts as a vehicle for the critique of capitalist power structures, it also belongs to such a rebuked system. Hence, the emphatic character of the Surrealist artifact entails an overturn of the exacerbated 19th-century materialism, that is, a shift away from its empirical and mechanical notions to the disclosure of its alienating constituents. In that sense, the detachment of the object’s components, which originally form a unity, generate a discordant effect. This is commonly known as the reversal of Hegel’s idealism, which results in the absolute segregation of object and subject, and in the penetration into the unconscious.
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Materialist philosophy, unlike its idealist counterpart, interprets the world as matter in motion, which renders psychic processes concrete, and exists regardless and outside consciousness. Likewise, whereas idealism asserts the primacy of the enigmatic and unknowable, materialism attests to the plausibility of knowing the world and its laws (Cornforth 1952, p. 30). Hence, a profound emphasis is placed on the dialectics of the object, which correlates its external and internal nature, and the parallel between appearance and essence. This turnabout ends up in the formulation of dialectical materialism as “the fully, profoundly objective, completely materialist overall approach to the external world, the striving to comprehend the totality, the whole object–both its inner and outer aspects” (Gollobin 1986, p. 90). In this fashion, items are classified according to a desire for both unveiling the unconscious processes of the psyche and reflecting the movement of the subject into the object, which ultimately results in the reification of intellectual and creative acts (Lehman 2007, p. 24). Dalí’s progressive gradation is indicative of this exploration of the object in the domains of art. In the journal Cahiers d’Art, he proposes the following step-by-step definition:
1. The object exists outside us, without our taking part in it (anthropomorphic articles);2. The object assumes the immovable shape of desire and acts upon our contemplation (dream-state articles);3. The object is movable and such that it can be acted upon (articles operating symbolically);4. The object tends to bring about our fusion with it and makes us pursue the formation of a unity with it (hunger for an article and edible articles) (1932, p. 207).
In line with the aforesaid progression, the journal Cahiers d’Art in 1936 enumerated the following objects in order to illustrate the Surrealist experimentations with a diversity of materials: dream objects, found objects, poème-objets, readymades and Surrealist objects, among others. In this periodical as well, Breton’s article ‘Crisis of the Object’ mentions the most renowned contributions, placing special emphasis on Max Ernst’s assemblages, Man Ray’s found objects, Marcel Duchamp’s readymades and Pablo Picasso’s Surrealist objects (1936, p. 22).
These plastic creations also affect 20th-century Surrealist prose and poetry, where the paradox of the industrial era is reflected. Precisely, dream objects manifest not only the psychological operations of the mind but also the laws by which the market place is ruled. Hence, imagination and reality are fused in these oneiric objects, which reenact the instinctive processes of human consciousness in the moment of awakening; that is, this grey area which could respond to Lacan’s imaginary as the site for delusory images and radical alienation in the process of the selfhood’s configuration.
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This Imaginary1 (the visual element) is articulated by the Symbolic (language), where the signifier and the signified are intertwined in the realm of signification, crucial to the interpretation of unconscious desires. As Benjamin remarks, “the realization of dream elements in the course of waking up is the canon of dialectics. It is paradigmatic for the thinker and binding for the historian” (2002, “On the Theory of Knowledge, Theory of Progress”, p. 464). Similarly, the Surrealist recollection of dreams and the metamorphoses undergone by the object in this imaginary world is an epitome of its inner tensions. On the one hand, it needs to consolidate its position as a circulating commodity within the empirical world. On the other hand, it reveals dreamlike transpositions of reality emerged from the unconscious.
In Nadja (1928), Breton invests the object with introspective qualities which point to the symbolism of clothing. As Lehman states, “traces of the woman are felt in her sartorial shell, and evoke the metaphorical potential of clothing as simulacra” (2007, p. 25). In the same vein, Yves Tanguy in his Indefinite Divisivility (1942) [fig. 1], a work created out of amorphic figures, seems to suggest the idea that the subject moves into the object, that is, the technique and art of the individual pervades reality by virtue of dream figures which determine the visual aspect of the work. Thus, in this painting, the text is the realization of the drives by way of the creative process (Lehman 2007, p. 27).
The found object is another Surrealist practice based on the collection of unusual items and, once removed from its original context, their scientific and fantastic properties are exploited. The element is deprived of its functional value and, at the same time, is transposed into an enigmatic world of significations. Emak Bakia [fig. 2], Fisherman’s Idol [fig. 3] and Collage ou l’âge de la colle are illustrations of found objects which show Man Ray’s “marvelous faculty of grasping two mutually distant realities… of bringing them together and drawing a spark from their juxtaposition”2. In Emak Bakia (1926) Ray’s compositional elements are an old cello, obtained from the Parisian flea market, and the horse hair of the bow, used for playing the instrument. Man Ray points humorously to the age of the cello with the addition of a long white beard. Fisherman’s Idol (1926) is the story of some pieces of cork found in the seaside resort of Biarritz. As Man Ray manifested, he was delighted by the beauty emanated from this object merged with net-floats and life-belts in tatters. Three vital elements took part in the configuration of the object (water, air and earth), and the fourth element (fire) was facilitated by Man Ray’s imagination. Collage ou l’âge de la colle (1935) is the collection of objects that Man Ray kept in his desk (a T-square, tape measure, rulers, snapshots…). This found object is the result of the arrangement of goods that Man Ray’s maid carried out. The grace of the items’ ordering captivated the artist to such an extent that he
NOTES
1 | See Schwartz, Arturo (1977) citing Breton in Man Ray: The Rigour of Imagination. New York, Rizzoli International Publications, Inc., 177 2 | See Breton (1928): Nadja, in Margaret Bonnet, Philippe Bernier Ètienne-Alain Hubert, José Pierre (eds.), Oeuvres Complètes. Paris, Gallimard, vol. 1, 678.
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rendered it a work of art by gluing it and punning on the word collage: in French colle is the equivalent to glue, âge answers for age, and the title literally means “Collage or the age of glue” (Schwartz 1977, p. 157). Through these illustrations, Man Ray’s collecting ability can be read as a way of actualizing “latent archaic representations of property connected with taboo” (Benjamin 2002, “The Collector”, p. 209). In other words, by appropriating these accidental goods, he confers them a sacred value to be experienced by others. Hence, the viewer is challenged to explore the nooks and crannies of his imagination in order to decipher the enigmas posed by the artist.
In Nadja (1928), Breton recounts his interest in the unusual items of the flea market at Saint-Ouen: “I searched for objects that I could not find anywhere else, old-fashion, fragmented, unusable, rather incomprehensible, in the end perverted in regard to whether I understood or liked them, as for example an irregularly shaped white half-cylinder, varnished and showing reliefs and indentations which meant absolutely nothing to me”3. In this passage, the object is interpreted according to the conditions of commodity production and its accidental encounter. Walter Benjamin, in his essay “Surrealism: The Last Snapshot of the European Intelligentsia”, accounts for the temporal dislocation of the object as a fabricated commodity and its incidental discovery: “It first came across the revolutionary potential that appeared in the ‘outmoded’, in the first iron constructions, in the first factory buildings, in early photography, in the objects that are just becoming extinct, the grand pianos, the clothes of five years ago, mundane gathering places after the vogue begins to retreat from them” (1999, p. 210). With this statement, Benjamin seems to point to the revolution of the object in the industrial era, as it discloses potential forms of alienation, objectification and reification inherent in capitalist structures, that is, in the notions of fabrication, circulation and consumption. The item undergoes a series of transformations, from its form and texture to its perceptual experience, of which found objects are a unique example. In Paris Peasant (1926), Aragon intertwines past memories with a present event in which goods seem to be infused with human spirit:
What memories, what revulsions linger around these hash houses: the man eating in this one has the impression he is chewing the table rather than a steak, and becomes irritated by his common, noisy table companions, ugly, stupid girls, and a gentleman flaunting his second-rate subconscious and the whole unedifying mess of his lamentable existence; while, in another one, a man wobbles on his chair’s badly squared legs, and concentrates his impatience and his rancours upon the broken clock. Two rooms: a bar room with a zinc counter and a door opening on a low-ceilinged, smoke-filled kitchen, and a dining room extended at the end by an alcove just bit enough to accommodate a table, a sette and three chairs [...]4.
NOTES
3 | Caws, Mary Ann, ed. (2002): Surrealist Poets and Painters: An Anthology. Cambridge, MA & London, The MIT Press, 73.
4 | Personal communication with Henry Sussman. Also see Sussman, Henry (1997): The Aesthetic Contract: Statutes of Art and Intellectual Work in Modernity. Stanford, CA, Stanford University Press
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Here, the accumulation of common articles is indicative of the unexpected transformations undergone by the object within the physical world, which dismantles rational and discursive modes of thought, and also points to the contact with the human as the agent of such transgression. In other words, the phenomenological constituents of experience (space and time) are replaced by subjective impressions which appeal to the sensuous faculties of the industrial article, rather than to its functionality.
Surrealist objects proper, another modality based on the idea of incidental discovery, are rooted in materialist and psychoanalytical notions of fetishism, by virtue of which their material properties and the dream world of the psyche are explored. In so doing, the Surrealist artist exploits metaphorical devices which open up a universe of textual and textural suggestiveness. Mechanisms such as the automatic writing or the fortuitous assembly of words or fragments present a complex of temporal and spatial discontinuities which frustrate expectations of intelligibility. This diversity of Surrealist projects, strategies and cross-disciplinary alignments can be called, in Sussman’s terms, “aesthetic subcontracts”5. The collage, erected as the main compositional strategy of Surrealist objects, agglutinates disparate elements which generate unusual associations and often sexually suggestive narratives. Breton’s poème-objets [fig. 4], Apollinaire’s calligrammes [fig. 5], or Man Ray’s assemblage photographs are the embodiment of collage techniques. Just as Man Ray’s L’Amour fou [fig. 6] is an ensemble of diverse-natured photographs, Breton’s poème-objets bring two disparate objects closer in order to generate unexpected meanings. These plastic and poetic compositions are inspired by Picassian collages, as they represent a synthesis of words and images, genres and materials6. Apollinaire’s Surrealist calligrammes also resort to Picasso’s fragmentary techniques, as they rescue an image emerged from the poetic discourse by virtue of complex associations of verbal and visual signs. According to Bohn, “the role of the reader is thus to identify textual patterns and to translate them into structural equivalents at the cognitive level” so that the structure beneath the surface can be elicited (Bohn 1993, pp. 20-21). Michel Leiris is representative of this tendency with his calligramme “LE SCEPTRE MIROITANT”, where the words “amour”, “miroir” and “mourir” reproduce a mirror effect resulted from the combination of the capital letters “ROI” and “MOI”. Apparently, this image contains a psychoanalytical message related to narcissism, omnipotence and death (Spector 1997, p. 224). By virtue of this multiperspectivism, deeply rooted in Cubist strategies, Surrealist objects act out the antagonisms of Marx’s materialist principle; that is, they define themselves by virtue of their connection with other objects or constituents, but in so doing, they consolidate their position within the production of commodities.
NOTES
5 | See Spector, J., Jack (1997) citing Breton in Arte y escritura surrealistas (1919-1939). Trans. by Pedro Navarro Serrano. Madrid, Editorial Síntesis, 224.
6 | See Jung, G. Carl, ed. (1964): Man and his Symbols. London, Dell, 295.
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The subjectivism with which Surrealist objects are impregnated also helps Dalí and De Chirico develop their own strategies. Dalí’s paranoiac-critical method, illustrated by his painting The Persistence of Memory (1931) [fig. 7], is based on the systematic manipulation of images and objects which generate delirious associations and interpretations. Likewise, De Chirico’s compositions reveal dreamlike transpositions of reality emerged from the unconscious. As a founder of the so-called pittura metafisica, he manifests regarding the function of the object: “Every object has two aspects: The common aspect, which is the one we generally see and which is seen by everyone, and the ghostly and metaphysical aspect, which only rare individuals see at moments of clairvoyance and metaphysical meditation. A work of art must relate something that does not appear in its visible form7”. His conception of pittura metafisica is overtly influenced by the philosophies of Nietzsche and Schopenhauer, who discovered the “dreadful void” and senselessness of life. In striving to find artistic expression for that emptiness, De Chirico delved into the existential dilemmas of contemporary man.
Lastly, Duchamp’s readymades, conceived as an antidote to retinal art, respond to these eccentric experimentations with objects since they are elevated to the dignity of an artwork by the will of the artist. By being originated in the age of mechanical reproduction, they evoke Benjamin’s theorizations on the decay of the aura in the modern artwork. He claims that the artwork possesses auratic qualities that are progressively exhausted as a result of mechanization within the industrial age:
Every day the urge grows stronger to get hold of an object at very close range by way of its likeness, its reproduction. Unmistakably, reproduction as offered by picture magazines and newsreels differs from the image seen by the unarmed eye. Uniqueness and permanence are as closely linked in the latter as are transitoriness and reproducibility in the former. To pry an object from its shell, to destroy its aura, is the mark of a perception whose “sense of the universal equality of things” has increased to such a degree that it extracts it even from a unique object by means of reproduction. Thus is manifested in the field of perception what in the theoretical sphere is noticeable in the increasing importance of statistics. The adjustment of reality to the masses and of the masses to reality is a process of unlimited scope, as much for thinking as for perception.8
Whereas found objects are charged with auratic qualities and segregated from mass culture, readymades are neutral materials which the artist arbitrarily selects and appropriates by signing and exhibiting them. Their acquisition is analogous to the activity of research that Marx mentions in the afterword of Capital, and that Benjamin evokes later on in his Arcades Project: “Research has to appropriate the material in detail, to analyze its various forms of development, to trace out their inner connection. Only after this work
NOTES
7 | Benjamin, Walter (1968): “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”, in Hannah Arendt (ed.), Illuminations. New York, Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 225.
8 | See Paz, Octavio (1970) citing Duchamp in “The Ready-Made”, in Joseph Masheck (ed.), Marcel Duchamp in Perspective. New Jersey, Prentice Hall, 88.
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is done can the actual movement be presented in corresponding fashion. If this is done successfully, if the life of the material is reflected back as ideal, then it may appear as if we had before us an a priori construction” (2002, “On the Theory of Knowledge, Theory of Progress”, p. 465). Here, an exhaustive analysis of the object is suggested in order to reflect on its sensuous and intellectual constituents.
Readymades, then, can be considered to be an enactment of that a priori construction and appropriation illustrated by research processes. At the same time, they become objects of idol and mockery, and are invested with magical properties which emphasize their disturbing, absurd nature. The selection of these pieces, devoid of aesthetic value, is based on “visual indifference”, which manifests Duchamp’s sense of irony, humor and ambiguity. Thus, Duchamp selected a series of items (the snow shovel, the comb, the urinal) encountered in daily reality and devoid of aesthetic pleasure. In his words,
The great problem was the act of selection. I had to pick an object without it impressing me and, as far as possible, without the least intervention of any idea or suggestion of aesthetic pleasure. It was necessary to reduce my personal taste to zero. It is very difficult to elect an object that has absolutely no interest for us not only on the day we pick it but which never will and which, finally, can never have the possibility of becoming beautiful, pretty, agreeable or ugly9.
Once the object is chosen, inscription, a substitute for the idea of fabrication, is another requirement in the configuration of the work. In the process of inscribing the object, the strategy of pictorial nominalism opened up an ample spectrum of rhetorical relations between the object and its name. Duchamp experiments with tautology, metaphor, synecdoche, allegory, anagrams and acrostics, among others. Some of these experiments are his Bicycle Wheel (1913) (bicycle wheel mounted on a stool) [fig. 8], In advance of the broken arm (1915) (snow shovel) [fig. 9], Hat Rack (1917) (hat rack) [fig. 10] and Fountain (1917) (urinal) [fig. 11] and. The last condition of the encounter between the object and the artist is the signature. Rather than attributing a special value to his authorship, Duchamp proliferates the signature of pseudonyms such as Richard Mutt (for the Fountain) and Rose Sélavy (for Fresh Widow). In addition to these defining characteristics, the imprint of the transient is pivotal to the configuration of readymades’ semblance. In many cases, the originals have disappeared (Fountain and Bottle Rack), and the only documentation that attests to their existence is a photograph. In other instances, multiple replicas have emerged as a way to subvert the idea of originality and preservation of the artwork (Bicycle Wheel and Hat Rack). Despite their connection with mass culture and commodity fetishism, readymades are also charged with a subversive spirit and,
NOTES
9 | See De Duve, Thierry (1997): “Echoes of the Readymade: Critique of Pure Modernism”, in Martha Buskirk & Mignon Nixon (eds.), The Duchamp Effect. Cambridge, The MIT Press, 104-107.
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as a result, they negate their engagement with empirical reality.
The Surrealist collection of objects is a significant activity which eventually comes to be included within long-lived artistic disciplines (painting, poetry, sculpture). By placing emphasis on the intellective and sensuous aspects of the object, this artistic practice seeks to reconcile the antagonisms of the industrial era. Hence the emergence of dialectical materialism. This tendency merges the twofold materialist approaches of Freud’s psychoanalysis and Marx’s processes of commodification inherent in capital structures. The aesthetic modalities commented here (dream objects, found objects, poème-objets, calligrammes, Surrealist objects and readymades) answer for commodity fetishism as a way of penetration into social relations in a widely objectified culture. Therefore, for the Surrealists, things are devoid of human mediation, and thus, converse and engage with one another in a reified universe of fantastic connections. This preliminary study of Surrealist artifacts has placed emphasis on the Marxist notions of commodity fetishism as a way of delving into the object’s inner and outer properties. In so doing, I have explored different aesthetic domains (literature, painting, Surrealist objects proper) to prove the prominence of matter over ideas and to unravel the intersections between visual art and language. Nevertheless, the universe of Surrealist objects and their existing visual and rhetorical correlations is an ample field which requires further research to establish more solid relations.
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Works Cited
APOLLINAIRE, Guillaume (1916): Il Pleut. Flicr, 19/03/2009. <http://ronsilliman.blogspot.com/2006/08/i-respond-positively-to-ambitious-work.html>.BENJAMIN, Walter (1968): “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”, in Hannah Arendt (ed.), Illuminations. New York, Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 217-252.----- (1999): “Surrealism: The Last Snapshot of the European Intelligentsia”, in M.W. Jennings (ed.), Selected Writings. Cambridge, MA & London, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, vol. 2, 207-221.----- (2002): “Convolute H: The Collector”, The Arcades Project, Howard Eiland & Kevin McLaughlin (trans.), Cambrige, MA & London, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press: 203-211.----- (2002): “Convolute N: On the Theory of Knowledge, Theory of Progress”, The Arcades Project, Howard Eiland & Kevin McLaughlin (trans.). Cambrige, MA & London, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press: 456-488.BOHN, Willard (1993): Apollinaire, Visual Poetry and Art Criticism. London & Toronto, Bucknell University Press.BRETON, André (1928): Nadja, in Margaret Bonnet, Philippe Bernier Ètienne-Alain Hubert, José Pierre (eds.), Oeuvres Complètes. Paris, Gallimard, vol. 1, 643-753.----- (1936): “Crisis of the Object”. Cahiers d’Art, vol. 11, nos 1-2, 21-26.----- (1941): Poem-Object. MoMA: The Collection, New York, 19/03/2009.<http://www.moma.org/collection/object.php?object_id=81121>.----- (1948): “Max Ernst”, in Ralph Manheim (trans.), Beyond Painting. 2nd ed. New York, Schultz.CAWS, Mary Ann ed. (2002): Surrealist Poets and Painters: An Anthology. Cambridge, MA & London, The MIT Press.CONFORTH, Maurice (1952): “Materialism and the Dialectical Method”, Dialectical Materialism, London, Lawrence & Wishart ltd.: 30-35.DALÍ, Salvador (1931): The Persistence of Memory. MoMA: The Collection, New York, 19/03/2009. <http://www.moma.org/collection/object.php?object_id=79018>. ----- (1932): “The Object as Revealed in Surrealist Experiments”, in This Quarter, vol. 2, no. 1, 197-207.DE DUVE, Thierry (1997): “Echoes of the Readymade: Critique of Pure Modernism”, in Martha Buskirk & Mignon Nixon (eds.), The Duchamp Effect. Cambridge, The MIT Press, 104-107.DUCHAMP, Marcel (1913): Bicycle Wheel, original lost. Collection of Arturo Schwartz, Milan, 30/11/2008. <http://www.beatmuseum.org/duchamp/bicycle.html>.----- (1915): In Advance of a Broken Arm, original lost. Photographed by Stieglitz, “Philosophy & the arts: Examples of the work of Marcel Duchamp”, 30/11/2008. <http://www.mnstate.edu/gracyk/courses/phil%20of%20art/duchamp2.htm>.----- (1917): Hat Rack, original lost. The Art Institute of Chicago, 30/11/2008.<http://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/artwork/73661>.----- (1917): Fountain, original lost. Photographed by Stieglitz, “Philosophy & the arts: Examples of the work of Marcel Duchamp”, 30/11/2008. GOLLOBIN, Ira (1986): Dialectical Materialism: Its Laws, Categories, and Practice. New York, Petra Press.JUNG, G. Carl ed. (1964): Man and his Symbols. London, Dell.KRAUSS E., Rosalind, John Ades & Jane Livingston eds. (2002): L’Amour Fou: Photography and Surrealism. New York, NY, Barnes & Noble.
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LACAN, Jacques (1993): The Seminar, Book III. The Psychoses. Ed. by Jacques-Alain Miller, & trans. by Russell Grigg. New York, W.W. Norton & Co. LEHMAN, Ulrich (2007): “The Uncommon Object: Surrealist Concepts and Categories for the Material World”, in Ghislaine Wood (ed.), Surreal Things: Surrealism and Design. London, V & A Publications, 19-38.MARX, Karl (1952): Capital. Ed. by Friedrich Engels. Chicago, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. PAZ, Octavio (1970): “The Ready-Made”, in Joseph Masheck (ed.), Marcel Duchamp in Perspective. New Jersey, Prentice Hall.RANCIÈRE, Jacques (2004): The Politics of Aesthetics. Trans. by Gabriel Rockhill. London, Continuum.RAY, Man (1926): Fisherman’s Idol, Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Renwick Gallery, Washington, DC, 30/11/2008. <http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=15616>.----- (1926): Emak Bakia, MoMA: The Collection, New York, 30/11/2008. <http://www.moma.org/explore/collection/provenance/items/images/5.67.jpg>.SCHWARZ, Arturo (1977): Man Ray: The Rigour of Imagination. New York, Rizzoli International Publications, Inc. SPECTOR J., Jack (1997): Arte y escritura surrealistas (1919-1939). Trans. by Pedro Navarro Serrano. Madrid, Editorial Síntesis.SPITERI, Raymond & Donald LaCoss eds. (2003): Surrealism, Politics and Culture. England & USA, Asghate Publishing Limited.SUSSMAN, Henry (1997): The Aesthetic Contract: Statutes of Art and Intellectual Work in Modernity. Stanford, CA, Stanford University Press.TANGUY, Yves (1942): Infinite Divisibility. Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, 16/07/2009.WOOD, Ghislaine, ed. (2007): “Surreal Things: Making ‘the fantastic real’” in Surreal Things: Surrealism and Design. London, V & A Publications, 2-15.
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Citation recommandée || GUENTHER, Melissa (2010): “L’Espagne sous le regard d’une Française : la Relation du voyage d’Espagne (1691) de Madame d’Aulnoy“ [article online] 452ºF. Revue électronique de théorie de la littérature et de littérature comparée, 2, 127-136 [Date de consultation: jj/mm/aa], < http://www.452f.com/index.php/fr/melissa-guenther.html >.Illustration || Mar OliverArticle || Reçu: 04/10/2009 | Apte Comité Scientifique: 13/11/2009 | Publié: 01/2010License || Creative Commons Paternité-Pas d’Utilisation Commerciale-Pas de Modification 2.0 License.
L’ESPAGNE SOUS LE REGARD D’UNE FRANÇAISE:LA RELATION DU VOYAGE D’ESPAGNE (1691) DE MADAME
Melissa GuentherDoctoral StudentUniversity of Waterloo
452ºF
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Résumé || La Relation du voyage d’Espagne de Madame d’Aulnoy a eu une grande importance littéraire et peut être considérée comme le miroir du monde espagnol à l’époque classique. En observant la culture des Espagnoles, elle lui attribue de la valeur et ne se contente donc pas de valoriser la sienne. Par ailleurs, elle définit sa propre identité en tant que femme et en tant que citoyenne française. L’objectif de cet article consistera à présenter la femme espagnole sous le regard d’une voyageuse-narratrice, en proposant une analyse culturelle et sociologique des descriptions faites par Madame d’Aulnoy, plus spécifiquement celles du caractère et des coutumes des femmes espagnoles.
Mots-clé || Marie-Catherine d’Aulnoy (1650-1705) | Relation du voyage d’Espage (1691) | Littérature française | Récit de voyage | Écriture par des femmes | 1600-1699 | Espagne.
Abstract || Madame d’Aulnoy’s Relation du voyage d’Espagne (1691) had an immense literary importance and can be considered a mirror to the culture of Spain and its customs in the late Seventeenth-Century. Madame d’Aulnoy’s observations do not aim to pass judgment on Spanish culture nor are they an attempt to promote to French culture over that of Spain. However, by observing the culture and customs of the Spanish Other her observations allow her to define her own identity as a French women. This article will examine how this French female writer, Madame d’Aulnoy, portrays Spanish women and to what extent the prejudices and practices of classical travel literature are present in her descriptions.
Key-words || Marie-Catherine d’Aulnoy (1650-1705) | Relation du voyage d’Espagne (1691) | French literature | Travel literature | Women writers |1600-1699 | Spain.
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Voyageuse et aventurière, Madame d’Aulnoy nous raconte ses aventures dans un nouveau pays, en tant qu’étrangère en Espagne, avec la publication de la Relation du voyage d’Espagne en 1691. Moins connue actuellement que ses cabinets de contes de fées, la Relation du voyage d’Espagne de Madame d’Aulnoy a eu une grande importance littéraire et peut être considérée non seulement comme le miroir du monde espagnol mais aussi une réflexion du monde français à l’époque classique. L’auteure fait le portrait de l’Espagne au moment où leur culture et leur littérature s’étaient infiltrées en France et où les descriptions de l’exotisme ibérique faisaient fureur parmi les lecteurs français. La Relation tire avantage non seulement de la vogue des récits de voyage, mais également de celle de l’écriture épistolaire. Rédigé sous forme de lettres destinées à une cousine en France, le récit ne fournit qu’une perspective, celle de la voyageuse française devant les Espagnols. En observant la culture des Espagnoles, elle lui attribue de la valeur et ne se contente donc pas de valoriser la sienne. Par ailleurs, elle définit sa propre identité en tant que femme et en tant que citoyenne française.
Pour aborder la Relation du voyage d’Espagne (1691) de Madame d’Aulnoy, un des récits de voyage les plus appréciés du XVIIe siècle, il faut connaître l’histoire de l’auteure, une histoire si mémorable et parfois aussi discutée que ses écrits. Marie-Catherine Jumelle de Barneville, la comtesse d’Aulnoy, est née en 1650 en Normandie et est morte à Paris le 14 janvier 1705. En 1666, à l’âge de seize ans, elle a épousé le baron François de la Motte d’Aulnoy, un nouveau riche qui avait 46 ans. En 1669, une accusation de lèse-majesté est lancée contre le mari de Madame d’Aulnoy par Madame de Gudannes, la mère de Madame d’Aulnoy. C’était la conséquence d’une série de débâcles financières qui avaient détruit la réputation du mari (Seguin, 2005: 399). Le 4 novembre de la même année, l’innocence du baron d’Aulnoy a été affirmée par le Conseil du Grand Châtelet, mais à cause de son rôle dans l’accusation du baron, la mère de la comtesse d’Aulnoy s’est exilée en Espagne. Rien n’est certain concernant la participation de Madame d’Aulnoy dans cette affaire, mais ce qui est incontestable c’est qu’elle s’est cachée depuis le procès de son mari jusqu’à la parution de ses premiers livres en 1690. En ce qui concerne son lieu de résidence pendant ces années voilées de mystère, certains critiques croient qu’elle a dû passer du temps en prison suivi d’un an au couvent (Thirard, 2006:par. 1), et une autre source établit qu’elle s’est exilée en Espagne avec sa mère à cause de sa culpabilité (Foulché-Delbosc, 1926: 13). Même si ancundocument ne le certifie, il est probable que Madame d’Aulnoy ait voyagé en Espagne entre 1679 et 1681 (Seguin, 2005: 7), sans doute pour se soustraire aux rumeurs qui circulaient à cause du scandale (Hester: 89), mais aussi pour rendre visite à sa mère qui s’était installée à Madrid (Seguin, 2005: 400). C’est donc grâce à cet événement dramatique et inoubliable dans l’histoire de Madame
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d’Aulnoy que le récit de voyage en Espagne est le plus célèbre publié au du XVIIe siècle (Mcleod, 1989: 91) a été publié.
Très célèbre aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles, la Relation du voyage d’Espagne a été oubliée dans les siècles suivants, éclipsée par le succès des deux anthologies de contes de Madame d’Aulnoy1. De nos jours, les critiques commencent à attribuer une valeur littéraire à cette œuvre (Mcleod, 1989: 93), mais une grande partie des analyses tentent de déterminer si Madame d’Aulnoy a véritablement voyagé en Espagne ou si ses descriptions sont du plagiat créatif. Ne tardons pas sur le thème de la véracité de cette œuvre, puisque ce qui mérite davantage de retenir l’attention est le regard critique et descriptif posé sur la culture des Espagnoles et l’Espagne dans ce récit. Cette Relation, remplie d’observations détaillées, a fourni tant de nouvelles connaissances sur le pays, les mœurs et les morales espagnoles, que ce récit a été utilisé pour enrichir les dictionnaires de l’époque, de même que l’Encyclopédie de Diderot et d’Alembert (Melzer, 2006: 42). Née de la probable expérience de Madame d’Aulnoy en Espagne, la Relation du voyage d’Espagne est reconnue comme le plus célèbre et le plus instructif récit d’un voyage en Espagne au XVIIe siècle (Prud’homme, 1995: 166).
Genre en évolution, le récit de voyage est le résultat d’une tradition fort ancienne, qui va du périple médiéval de Marco Polo2 aux récits d’exploration en Amérique et hors d’Europe du XVIe siècle des voyageurs comme Jacques Cartier3, André Thévet4 et Jean de Léry5. À la place du voyage lointain, les Français du XVIIe siècle ont exploré les pays voisins peu connus (Requemora, 1997: 128). À cause de la nouveauté de leurs sujets, les écrivains voyageurs de l’époque ont tous eu l’avantage d’une certaine liberté descriptive (Grélé, 2003: 209), mais en même temps cette liberté les obligeait à prouver la véracité de leurs ouvrages, et à combattre pour leur réputation. Le proverbe «a beau mentir qui vient de loin» démontre par excellence le préjugé défavorable contre lequel les écrivains voyageurs doivent lutter (Chupeau, 1977: 540). Madame d’Aulnoy aborde la question de la véracité des récits de voyage dans son adresse «Au Lecteur» :
Je n’ai écrit que ce que j’ai vu, ou ce que j’ai appris par des personnes d’une probité incontestable. Je n’en allègue point des noms inconnus, ni des gens dont la mort m’ait fourni la liberté de leur supposer des aventures. […] je me contente d’assurer que ce qui est dans mes Mémoires, et ce que l’on trouvera dans cette Relation, est très exact et très conforme à la vérité (d’Aulnoy, 2005: 31).
En plus de cette adresse, Madame d’Aulnoy justifie la véracité de ses écrits à plusieurs reprises dans ses lettres6.
La nouvelle célébrité des relations de voyage exigeait, pour maintenir
NOTES
1 | Les Contes des Fées (publié en 1697) et Les Contes Nouveaux, ou les Fées à la mode (publié en 1698).
2 | Devisement du monde, 1298.
3 | Bref récit et succinte narration de la navigation faite en 1535 et 1536 par le capitaine Jacques Cartier […], 1545.
4 | Cosmographie et singularités de la France antarctique, 1557.
5 | Histoire d’un voyage fait en la terre du Brésil, 1578.
6 | Madame d’Aulnoy ajoute, dans une lettre, qu’elle a dû s’informer à l’égard de plusieurs aspects pour mieux présenter l’actualité espagnole à sa cousine : «L’exactitude que j’ai à vous apprendre les choses que je crois dignes de votre curiosité, m’oblige très souvent de m’informer de plusieurs particularités que j’aurais négligées, si vous ne m’aviez pas dit qu’elles vous font plaisir, et que vous aimez à voyager sans sortir de votre cabinet» (d’Aulnoy, 2005: 157). Elle utilise le style de son écriture comme justification de la véracité de ses écrits aussi : «Je vous dis les choses à mesure qu’elles me viennent dans l’esprit, et je les dis toutes fort mal; mais comme vous m’aimez, ma chère cousine, cela me rassure contre mes fautes» (d’Aulnoy, 2005: 218). Autrement dit, ses fautes et la spontanéité de son écriture sont précisément ce qui crée le style naturel et la vraisemblance dans sa relation.
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l’intérêt du lectorat français, de mettre l’accent sur le divertissement et l’intrigue, et pour cette raison, les ouvrages consacrés à la société espagnole —exotique et fascinante— attiraient les lecteurs en grand nombre. Aussi, la littérature espagnole s’infiltrait de plus en plus en France et les Français ont commencé à la lire dans sa forme originale, donc, en espagnol. Par exemple, le Don Quichotte de Miguel de Cervantes, un texte lu et apprécié par Madame d’Aulnoy (d’Aulnoy, 2005: 339), reflétait une image exotique et mystérieuse de l’Espagne. (Palmer, 1971: 223-224). Même les salons littéraires français s’intéressaient à tout ce qui était espagnol (Rogers, 1926: 208-209). Autrement dit, l’Espagne était à la mode. L’intérêt français provenait non seulement de la question de la Succession espagnole —qui déterminerait le futur de l’Espagne— mais aussi du déclin du pouvoir que l’Espagne vivait à cette époque, et, également, en raison de la mort mystérieuse de Marie Louise d’Orléans, épouse de Charles II, roi d’Espagne (Mcleod, 1989: 94). En raison de ce «goût français», l’écriture de voyage en Espagne et les descriptions de ces voyages portaient souvent préjudice au pays et à son peuple. Les stéréotypes qui se répètent d’un texte à l’autre sont ceux de «l’auberge espagnole», de leurs vices et de leurs mœurs peu civilisées, de leur passion dans l’amour, de leur violence et de leur vengeance excessives, de leurs croyances superstitieuses, et finalement de leurs coutumes barbares. Ces images défavorables de l’Espagne primitive qui proviennent des idées préconçues des voyageurs sont également évidentes dans quelques observations de Madame d’Aulnoy.
Bien que la Relation du voyage d’Espagne de Madame d’Aulnoy tente de créer un portrait de l’Espagne au XVIIe siècle, ce récit ne fournit qu’une perspective, celle de la voyageuse française fâce à les Espagnoles. La majorité des descriptions fournies par cette Relation traitent seulement une partie de la société espagnole —les membres de la haute société, et plus précisément, les femmes— et fournissent alors une image pas tout à fait juste des Espagnoles dans leur totalité. En observant la culture des Espagnoles, Madame d’Aulnoy lui attribue de la valeur et ne se contente donc pas de valoriser la sienne. Selon Emmanuel Lévinas, aussitôt que l’on n’a accès qu’à une seule perspective sur une culture, il y a un manque au niveau de la réciprocité, nécessaire à l’identification de l’Autre. Même s’il est évident que l’individu observé est observateur à son tour —autrement, l’Autre Espagnole observe la voyageuse aussi—, cela ne figure ni dans le texte ni dans les descriptions de Madame d’Aulnoy.
Pour reprendre l’idée de Tzvetan Todorov selon laquelle l’exotisme se divise en deux catégories —soit celle d’un peuple plus avancé et supérieur soit celle d’un peuple moins avancé et inférieur qu’un autre—, il semble que les descriptions de Madame d’Aulnoy
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s’inscrivent au cœur des deux tendances à la fois; elle décrit tantôt les Espagnoles comme étant supérieurs aux Françaises, tantôt inférieurs en ce qui concerne les plus grandes différences culturelles. En somme, le regard de la narratrice sur les Espagnoles oscille entre objectivité et jugement de valeur, ce qui est évident dans la citation suivante :
Vous m’allez dire que les Espagnols sont fous avec leur chimérique grandeur. Peut-être que vous dirai vrai ; mais pour moi qui crois les connaître assez, je n’en juge pas de cette manière. Je demeure d’accord, néanmoins, que la différence que l’on peut mettre entre les Espagnols et les Français est tout à notre avantage. Il semble que je ne devrais pas me mêler de décider là-dessus, et que j’y suis trop intéressée pour en parler sans passion. Mais je suis persuadée qu’il n’y a guère de personnes raisonnable qui n’en jugent ainsi (d’Aulnoy, 2005: 285).
Tous les jugements de la narratrice proviennent de son histoire et de ses expériences, et c’est donc à partir de son propre système de valeurs qu’elle peut formuler un jugement sur l’Autre. La notion de relativisme culturel est donc très importante, puisqu’elle n’implique pas toujours une négation de l’Autre, comme en témoigne d’ailleurs le récit de Madame d’Aulnoy. En effet, la narratrice observe les différences entre les deux cultures et prend soin de remettre ces différences dans leur contexte sociétal. L’écriture de Madame d’Aulnoy correspond également, dans son approche de l’Autre, à la définition de l’ethnographie : d’écrire la culture de l’Autre.
Madame d’Aulnoy souligne, à l’égard de la situation de l’Espagnole, que les femmes souffraient d’une liberté limitée et de l’assujettissement aux hommes. Elle s’est aperçue des contraintes pesant sur les déplacements de la femme depuis sa troisième lettre où elle explique qu’il n’est pas permis à une femme de demeurer plus de deux jours dans une hôtellerie sur les chemins en Espagne. L’isolement des femmes dans la société espagnole s’étend jusqu’à la cour de Madrid, où les femmes se mettent aux balcons et aux fenêtres à chaque occasion ; où les carrosses ont toujours les rideaux fermés ; où les maîtresses sont envoyées au couvent après que le roi en a fini avec elles, pour qu’«elles se fassent religieuses» (d’Aulnoy, 2005: 285); et finalement, où les femmes portent des vêtements magnifiques pour profiter de chaque occasion de se montrer.
Madame d’Aulnoy illustre la subordination de la femme avec un exemple frappant l’imagination. Il s’agit des règles du dîner à l’espagnol où les hommes mangent seuls à table et leurs femmes par terre, sur un tapis avec les enfants. Selon la narratrice, ce n’est pas pour des raisons de respect qu’ils mangent de cette manière (d’Aulnoy, 2005: 310), mais cette façon de dîner signale une différence entre les deux sexes. Madame d’Aulnoy expose cette coutume davantage quand elle raconte aux lecteurs l’épisode où elle
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a dû se mettre au tapis pour manger :
Le couvert était mis sur une table pour les hommes, et il y avait à terre, sur le tapis, une nappe étendue avec trois couverts pour doña Teresa, moi et ma fille. Je demeurai surprise de cette mode, car je ne suis pas accoutumée à dîner ainsi. Cependant, je n’en témoignai rien et je voulus y essayer, mais je n’ai jamais été plus incommodée ; les jambes me faisaient un mal horrible ; tantôt je m’appuyais sur le coude, tantôt sur la main ; enfin, je renonçais à dîner, et mon hôtesse ne s’en apercevait point, parce qu’elle croyait que les dames mangeaient par terre en France comme Espagne. Mais [les hommes], qui remarqua ma peine, […] me dirent […] qu’absolument je me mettrais à table. Je le voulais assez, pourvu que doña Teresa s’y mît ; elle ne l’osait, à cause qu’il y avait des hommes, et […] elle nous avoua […] qu’elle ne s’était jamais mise dans une chaise […] (d’Aulnoy, 2005: 195-196).
Madame d’Aulnoy critique davantage le comportement des Espagnoles à la cour quand elle examine le manque de formalité dans leur conduite par rapport à la cour de France :
[les femmes] ne se baisent point en se saluant. Je crois que c’est pour ne pas emporter le plâtre qu’elles ont sur le visage ; mais elles se présentent la main dégantée ; et, en se parlant, elles se disent tu et toi, et elles ne s’appellent ni madame, ni mademoiselle, ni Altesse, ni Excellence, mais seulement doña Maria, doña Clara, doña Teresa. Je me suis informée d’où vient qu’elles en usent si familièrement, et j’ai appris que c’est pour n’avoir aucun sujet de se fâcher entre elles […](d’Aulnoy, 2005: 211-212).
Pour la narratrice, qui a une expérience française du monde, cette indifférence à l’égard de la politesse de la société semble choquante et signale aussi la différence entre les comportements féminins des deux cours. Madame d’Aulnoy ajoute que :
[c]’est la coutume à Madrid que le maître ou la maîtresse du logis passent toujours devant ceux qui leur rendent visite. Ils prétendent que c’est une civilité d’en user ainsi, parce qu’ils laissent, disent-ils, tout ce qui est dans leur chambre au pouvoir de la personne qui y reste la dernière (d’Aulnoy, 2005: 371).
Cette description de l’altérité aboutit à une représentation de l’Espagnole exotique, une image également renforcée par la représentation de doña Teresa, où Madame d’Aulnoy présente la conduite féminine idéale :
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[L]es trois chevaliers demeurent là, parce que ce n’est pas la coutume en Espagne d’entrer dans la chambre des dames pendant qu’elles sont au lit. […] Doña Teresa me reçut avec un accueil aussi obligeant que si nous avions été amies depuis longtemps. […] [Q]uand il fut question de se chausser, elle fit ôter la clef de sa chambre et tirer les verrous. Je m’informai de quoi il s’agissait pour se barricader ainsi ; elle me dit qu’elle savait qu’il y avait des gentilshommes espagnols avec moi, et qu’elle aimerait mieux avoir perdu la vie qu’ils eussent vu ses pieds. Je m’éclatai de rire, et je la priai de me les montrer, puisque j’étais sans conséquence. Il est vrai que c’est quelque chose de rare pour la petitesse, et j’ai bien vu des enfants de six ans qui les avaient aussi grands (d’Aulnoy, 2005: 191-192).
Même si Madame d’Aulnoy rit de cette règle selon laquelle les hommes ne devraient jamais voir les pieds d’une femme, cette description ne sert pas à ridiculiser la coutume, mais à montrer la femme idéale qui respecte et considère comme importantes les mœurs et les pratiques culturelles de l’époque. Madame d’Aulnoy présente aussi une image des Espagnoles plus équilibrée, puisqu’elle expose les deux pôles, telle qu’on les voit dans la littérature du XVIIe siècle. Mais il faut être conscient du fait que l’auteure relève des exemples extrêmes afin de rendre ses anecdotes plus exotiques.
Ainsi, l’ouvrage de Madame d’Aulnoy nous renseigne sur la façon dont les Français percevaient une autre culture. Pour elle parfois «[l]e voyage n’est que la confirmation de ce que [elle] pensait savoir d’avance ou de ce que [elle] avait lu dans un livre antérieur» (Cioranescu, 1983: 57) et elle insiste souvent sur la supériorité française par rapport aux Espagnoles. Par exemple: les châteaux en France sont plus beaux qu’en Espagne (d’Aulnoy, 2005: 55, 170), la France est plus civilisée parce que les femmes ne mangent pas à terre (d’Aulnoy, 2005: 196), les princesses françaises profitent de plus de liberté en France (d’Aulnoy, 2005: 210), et les Français respectent la formalité dans leur comportement (d’Aulnoy, 2005: 212) pour citer quelques exemples. Souvent, les comparaisons avec la France servent à établir l’infériorité de l’Espagne, mais il y a quand même, en de rares occasions, des passages critiques où l’auteure fait une comparaison qui inverse les statuts. Par exemple, en comparaison avec l’Espagne, où les membres d’une classe ne se mêlent pas aux autres, la haute société française permet, dans une certaine mesure, les mélanges de classe et, pour cette raison, est jugée inférieure. Elle remarque également que les Espagnoles possèdent une beauté incomparable (d’Aulnoy, 2005: 213), que les femmes d’Espagne marchent mieux que les Françaises quand elles portent les talons et, en fait, elles marchent comme elles volent (d’Aulnoy, 2005: 200), et que l’amour est beaucoup plus passionné et ingénieux en Espagne qu’en France (d’Aulnoy, 2005: 314-315). Ses jugements ne sont donc pas toujours négatifs ou dépréciatifs.
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Indépendamment de la question des préjugés et des stéréotypes contenus dans la Relation du voyage d’Espagne, le texte de Madame d’Aulnoy est remarquable non seulement pour les descriptions d’un voyage long et ardu entrepris par une voyageuse du XVIIe siècle, mais aussi à cause du fait qu’en tant que femme de lettres, elle a eu tant de succès dans un genre antérieurement dominé par les hommes. Sa Relation fait partie de celles qui, au XVIIe, ont initié la mode du voyage en Espagne et ont influencé l’avenir du genre. Madame d’Aulnoy, doit sa réussite à son genre de même qu’à son sujet. Elle témoigne des Espagnols à une époque où les descriptions de l’exotisme ibérique faisaient fureur parmi les lecteurs français notamment à cause des intérêts de la France par rapport à la situation culturelle, politique et économique de l’Espagne à la fin du XVIIe siècle. Les descriptions vives et détaillées de Madame d’Aulnoy témoignent à la fois des découvertes et des idées préconçues au sujet de l’Espagne et des Espagnoles, et ce, dans une perspective féminine et française. Contrairement à l’usage de l’époque, Madame d’Aulnoy est généralement équitable dans ses choix descriptifs et l’image des Espagnoles perpétuée par la relation de Madame d’Aulnoy n’est pas seulement une image de l’Espagnole exotique ou inférieur. Autrement dit, il est évident que Madame d’Aulnoy, par ses descriptions, apprécie les différences entre les deux cultures.
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