Essay on Exoticism: An Aesthetics of Diversity

119 Pages·2002·0.39 MB·English

by  Victor Segalen

EssayonExoticism
post-contemporary
interventions
SeriesEditors:StanleyFishand
FredricJameson
Essay on Exoticism
An Aesthetics of Diversity
by victor segalen
TranslatedandEditedbyYaëlRachelSchlick
ForewordbyHarryHarootunian
duke university press
Durham&London2002
H
Assistanceforthetranslationwasprovidedbythe
FrenchMinistryofCulture/CentreNationalduLivre.
©2002DukeUniversityPress
Allrightsreserved
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Contents
Foreword
vii
Acknowledgments
xxi
Introduction
1
Chronology:VictorSegalen(1878–1919)
7
EssayonExoticism:AnAestheticsof Diversity
11
Notes
71
OtherWorksbyVictorSegalenAvailableinEnglish
89
SelectedCriticalWorksonVictorSegalen
inEnglish
91
Index
93

Foreword:
The Exotics of Nowhere
CharlesBaudelairedefendeddandyismasthe‘‘bestelement
inhumanpride,’’commendingtheflaneur’sattemptto‘‘combat
anddestroytriviality’’inthestrugglewithasocialconformism
thatthreatenedtoinstallhomogeneityeverywherethatindus-
trialcapitalismhadestablisheditsregimeinthenineteenthcen-
tury.Ahalfcenturylater,VictorSegalennominatedexoticism
asthecandidatebestsuitedtoprotectcontemporarylifefrom
therelentlessbanalitywroughtbythetransformationofcapital-
ismintomass-societyimperialismandcolonialism.Thistrans-
formation,inhiseyes,reachedaclimaxwiththeGreatWarand
its aftermath. Like Baudelaire, Segalen privileged the poetic.
ButwhereBaudelaire,accordingtoWalterBenjamin,employed
the‘‘techniqueoftheputsch,’’eschewingthearmatureofalle-
gory, often appearing as a poet willing to support anyof the
causespursuedbythisclass,Segalen,recallingtheexampleof
Mallarmé and the theoryof poésie pure, built a ‘‘production on
. . . (a) basic renunciation of all manifest experiences of . . .
class. . . . These difficulties turn . . . poetry into an esoteric
1
poetry.’’ Bycontrast,Baudelaire,forthemostpart,avoidedthe
esoteric, and, even though the experiences refracted through
hisoptic‘‘nowherederivedfromtheproductionprocess,least
of all in its advanced form—the industrial process,’’ his work
still bore the imprint of the historical moment in the figures
of the ‘‘neurasthenic, of the big-city dweller, and of the cus-
2
tomer.’’ ForSegalen,writinginatimewhenfinancialcapital
foreword
viii
alreadyoccupiedthepoliticaleconomichorizonandimperial-
istpowerscompetedmadlytoseizeandcolonizemuchofthe
globeoutsideofEuro-America,theappealtoexoticismprom-
isedtotradethevastunevennessofthismomentforthepoetic
dreamofaestheticdiversityandthefantasyof irreparableloss
ofwhatneverwas.Yetthisveryrefusalofreferencemarkedpre-
cisely how the poet, now driven by the noble ideal of art for
art’ssake,confrontslanguagetheway‘‘thebuyerfacesthecom-
3
modityonthemarket.’’
Inhispoetic‘‘EssayonExoticism,’’anunfinishedfragment
attestingtotheprimacyofartinaworldnowmiredinthemedi-
ocrityofthemassesandaneverydaylifelandlockedinrepetitive
routine,Segalenlookedoutwardlyto‘‘things,’’‘‘tothe‘external
world,’ to the Object in its entirety’’ that speaks and interpel-
lateshim,muchlikeBenjamin’s(andMarx’s)empathic‘‘soulof
the commodity,’’ whispering its seductions to a ‘‘poor wretch
who passes a shop window containing beautiful and expres-
sivethings’’andseeingin‘‘everyonethebuyerinwhosehand
4
and house it wants to nestle.’’ For Segalen, the exoticism he
ascribestothings,tothe‘‘Objectinitsentirety,’’‘‘byaninstan-
taneous,continuoustranslationthatwouldechoone’spresence
ratherthanblurtitoutbluntly,’’‘‘willperhaps...createater-
rain where I feel completelyat home.’’ Convinced that such a
transformation depended upon the form one employs—what
hecalled‘‘art’sreasonforbeing,’’theactoftranslatingtheob-
jectandmakingvisiblewhathadremainedhiddeninasubjec-
tivistic recess mobilized the unredeemed promise of a meta-
physics of presence and its authentication of the individual’s
immediate experience. In this way, Segalen’s rewriting of the
textofexoticismabandonedtheactofrealisticdescriptionthat
hadimpelledsomanytravelersandtouristsinthepasttoreport
on the strangeness they had encountered and replaced it with
onefoundedontheelicitingofsensationand‘‘suggestion.’’It
also disdained the performative exoticism of a Pierre Loti or
LafcadioHearn.
ix
EvenbeforeSegalenbegantowritedownthethoughtsthat
wouldconstitutetheposthumousEssayonExoticism,anolderex-
oticismwasalreadyinpractice,stemmingfromceaselessover-
seasexplorationandeconomicexpansionanditsaccompany-
ingsearchfornewsourcesofrawmaterial,markets,andcheap
labor.Thisexoticismfollowedtheitineraryofcapitalismasit
migratedaroundtheglobeandoftenmaskedtheviolentseizure
and colonial expropriation that was at the heart of its law of
movement.Segalenhadobservedthatthisexoticistpracticewas
based on the prospect of an elsewhere, driven by the novelty
of geographic unfamiliarity but exemplified by intrepid trav-
elers/tourists like Pierre Loti, the explorer Richard Burton,
andtheculturalmisfitLafcadioHearn.Itsignifiedtheprimacy
ofthespatialdimensionofcapitalistexpansionattheexpense
of its temporal workings and thus managed to displace and
ofteneffacethebanefuleffectsoftheactualdeterritorialization
and reterritorialization of land, labor, and capital that trans-
formed and destroyed received cultures of reference to make
them little more than outposts of Western civilization. This
modeofexoticismwasentirelycommittedtospatializingterri-
toriesintofixed,static,andunchanginglandscapesthatexisted
intemporalitiesoutsideofmodernity:vast,ethnographicmu-
seums of alien cultures and peoples who lived in a zone of
contemporarynoncontemporaneousnessthatwouldsoondis-
appearbeforethehomogenizingmachineofindustrialcapital-
ism.Behindthisinventionoflosswasapowerfuldesireforan
elsewhere, located in the then and there that managed to dis-
place the here and nowof modernity which itself was already
a misrecognition of the reproduction of capitalist accumula-
tion.What exoticism constructed was the loss of something,
animmensenostalgiaforanexperiencethatneverexistedand
5
thatwasnowmadetoappearpriortoitsnarrative. Inthisnar-
rative, the old, precapitalist cultures signifying difference and
value have been rediscovered precisely in those colonial sites
where theviolent process of deterritorialization was proceed-