Золотой век поэтического двуязычия: французские переводы Баратынского

Pour Evgenij Baratynskij (1800-1844), poète romantique de l’Âge d’or de la poésie russe, comme pour tous aristocrates russes du XIXe siècle, écrire en français était absolument naturel. À Paris durant l’hiver 1843-1844 sur la demande d’Adolphe de Circourt et de ses confrères français, tel que Prosper Mérimée, il a traduit en français certains de ses poèmes. En choisissant de traduire en prose Baratynskij n’a pas seulement sacrifié à la tradition de cette époque-là, son choix était sans doute aussi motivé par une démarche de nature métapoétique. À la différence d’autres études textologiques qui remettent en question la paternité de ces traductions en leur attribuant un travail collectif, les quinze poèmes en prose de l’édition de 1914 de M. Gofman sont étudiés ici, en questionnant les problèmes de la traduction poétique : le choix de la traduction en prose et une conception de la poésie comme étant déjà une traduction et une mise à l’écart. L’article privilégie une approche de traductologie et de poétique qui questionne non pas la paternité de ces traductions, mais le phénomène même de bilinguisme poétique dans le contexte du bilinguisme de la noblesse russe du XIXe. Laissant de côté la question de l’attribution des traductions françaises de poésies de Baratynskij, déjà traitée par d’autres chercheurs, l’auteur s’attache à montrer comment Baratynskij a cherché à rendre sa prose poétique.

La Jaquerie: une tragédie romantique juste avant la « fin de l’histoire »

The Jaquerie is one of the lesser-known dramatic works of Prosper Mérimée. However, it is a very important work to understand the aesthetic and political stakes of romantic theatre on the eve of the July Revolution. The Jaquerie also helps us to understand the cul-de-sac of the theatre of French liberalism which had, however, dominated the theoretical debate about a new dramatic form during the 1830s.

A Naturalist in India : Victor Jacquemont’s Journey as Described in his Correspondence (1828-1832)

Born in 1801, a student of Cuvier and Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, Victor Jacquemont went to India in 1829 within the framework of a botanical and geological mission commissioned by the Muséum d’histoire naturelle. He died in Bombay in December 1832 from a liver amoebiasis, but had had the time before his death to assemble for the Muséum more than 5,800 plant and rock samples. He also included his journal which was published in 1841 under the title Voyage dans l’Inde (4 vol.). His friend Prosper Mérimée published the definitive edition of his correspondence in 1867. Although tragically shortened, this journey was not a total failure and its results were of great scientific interest. My aim is to recount, through the correspondence, the stages of his endeavour, particularly in Hindustan, and his lonely and courageous fight against sickness.

Eugène-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc

A polymath, Eugène-Emmanuel Viollet-le Duc (b. 1814–d. 1879), is best-known today as a restoration architect and champion of the Gothic style whose influential theoretical writings on form and function collected in the ten-volume Dictionnaire raisonné de l’architecture française du XIe au XVIe siècle (translated loosely as The Foundations of Architecture; 1854–1868) and the two-volume Entretiens sur l’architecture (Lectures on Architecture, 1863–1872) exerted a profound influence on modern architects such as Victor Horta, Antoni Gaudí, Louis Sullivan, and Frank Lloyd Wright. An independent thinker who refused the normal French path to architectural legitimacy—training at the École des Beaux-Arts—the talented draftsman took advantage of his personal and family connections—including Prosper Mérimée, Ludovic Vitet, Baron Taylor, Jean-Jacques-Marie Huvé, and Jean-Baptiste Lassus—to obtain the knowledge, training, and commissions that would transform him into the preeminent 19th-century French restorer of monuments. Much criticized in the 20th century for having intervened too aggressively in well-known restoration projects such as the Church of the Madeleine at Vézelay, the cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris, and the walled city of Carcassonne, the increased accessibility of archival sources has allowed 21st-century scholars to reassess his entire body of work, setting his voluminous writings and correspondence against the intellectual, cultural, and administrative context of his time, a period in which Viollet-le-Duc and other self-trained specialists laid the foundation of what would become the academic field of medieval studies. His restoration theories and influence have been well studied since his death, but his many complementary activities, particularly his prolific attempts to popularize architecture and history for the masses, have yet to be systematically explored in any language. Viollet-le-Duc was not just one of the first historic preservationists, he was also a talented draftsman, archaeologist, architect, engineer, public administrator, teacher, theatrical set designer, international exposition organizer, city councilor, journalist, children’s book writer, military strategist, and ecologist.

Prosper Mérimée et la Pologne

Prosper Mérimée and Poland Prosper Mérimée (1803‐1870), writer and scholar, member of the French Academy, has often evoked in his correspondence, his fictional accounts and his historical studies, the political and cultural past of Poland as well as its conflicting relations with Russia during the 19th century. Unlike many of his romantic contemporaries, he was rather insensitive to the plight of the Poles and made no effort to understand them better. His fear of revolutionary convulsions, his anti‐Catholic prejudices, his too superficial knowledge of local realities and his growing love for Russia throughout his life, probably explain his views. However, we should not forget his friendship with some Poles in exile in France and his support for the Historical and literary library of Paris.

De Deusa Lua a mulher demônio: as múltiplas faces de Carmen, de Prosper Mérimée

Neste artigo, examinamos o modo de representação da personagem Carmen, originária da narrativa de Prosper Mérimée, a partir da análise das configurações do narrador e dos aspectos que caracterizam a personagem, a fim de observar a presença do discurso da misoginia, diluído entre outros discursos, na constituição da personagem sob o estereótipo da mulher-demônio, em comparação com as formas de representação mitológicas das deusas lunares, principalmente na forma da Lua Negra, que pode corresponder a Lilith, Circe, e Diana, dentre outras. Também observamos a presença simultânea dos dois polos de representação da mulher (santa e demônio), constatada em comparação às representações das deusas lunares e de Carmen. Para tanto, partimos do exame da narrativa de Mérimée, levando em consideração os contextos histórico e literário, que podem ter influenciado o autor na produção da obra, bem como os aspectos que colaboraram para a cristalização dos estereótipos e a transformação da personagem em demônio, “monstrualizada” em consequência da alteridade e da sexualidade. Para fundamentar nossa discussão, lançamos mão dos estudos de Roberto Sicutere, Jerome Cohen, Angela Arruda, Margarete Rago, Jean Delumeal e Hoaward Bloch, dentre outros.

The Spains of Paris, Mérimée, and Bizet’s Carmen

The Prelude briefly situates the creation of Carmen within a long tradition of Spanish entertainment in Paris, from its incarnation as a novella by Prosper Mérimée (in the 1840s) to the opera by Georges Bizet and his librettists Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy (1875). The fashions of the Second Empire; the influence of the Spanish-born Empress Eugénie, who fostered a taste for Spanish music and dance; and the growing community of Spanish performers and artists in Paris formed a cultural landscape that informed the local color of the opera. This Hispanic milieu in the French capital also conditioned and shaped Bizet’s musical depiction of Spain in Carmen.