La mer et les approches du sacré chez Chateaubriand
Institution:
Paris 4Disciplines:
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Abstract EN:
Chateaubriand s'est voulu homme de mer : il assume litterairement son atavisme breton en elaborant une image mythique de lui-meme et en se faisant le chantre de l'ocean. Sa connaissance de la mer repose sur trois sources : son experience intime et la double influence des cultures greco-latine et judeo-chretienne. A partir de la, il effectue une synthese personnelle constituant la base de son experience du sacre; essentiellement tolerante. Fidele a platon, il considere le beau comme le signe du vrai; tolerant comme les philosophes des lumieres, il respecte toute apprehension physique du beau en tant qu'elle est authentique perception du sacre. Sa religion peut se definir comme un acces a la transcendance par l'experience de la beaute, reposant sur un sensualisme accepte et depasse. La mission du poete est alors de rendre compte de la beaute de dieu, perceptible a travers la beaute de la nature en vertu de la theoire des harmonies. Chateaubriand fonde sa poetique sur les trois caracteres fondamentaux du sacre selon lui: mystere, grandeur et douceur. Telle est l'expression du sublime source d'inspiration, la mer devient aussi pour lui un instrument privilegie d'ecriture : elle lui fournit une symbolique exprimant exactement sa sensibilite p0ropre et son rapport au sacre.
Abstract FR:
Chateaubriand wanted himself to be a seaman: he assumes his british atavism by elaborating a mythical image of himself and becoming the bard of ocean. His knowledge of the sea rests on three sources: his own experience and the double influence of the greco-latin and judeochristian cultures. Then he makes an essentially tolerant and personal synthesis which constitutes the basis of his experience of the sacred. Like plato he considers the beautiful as the sign of the true; tolerant like the philosophers of the enlightenment he respects any physical access to the beautiful as long as it is an authentic experience of the sacred. His religion can be defined as means as atteigning the transcendent through the experience of beauty based on an accepted and surpassed sensualism. The mission of the poet is then to account for the beauty of god which can be perceived through the beauty of nature in accordance to the theory of harmonies. Chateaubriand bases his poetics on the three fundamental characters of sacred for him: greatness, mildness, mystery. As a source of poetic inspiration the sea also becomes a privileged instrument of writing: it provides him with a symbolic system expressing his own sensitivness and his link with the sacred.