L'ecriture de l'echec: Segalen, l'Empereur de Chine et la tentation du mythe

At the peak of European imperialism in the early 20th century, Victor Segalen was a naval doctor, poet, novelist and adventurer who travelled to Polynesia and China. His encounter with these different cultures revealed to him the acculturation and transformations the latter were undergoing through their contact with Christian evangelism and European colonialism. This led Segalen to thoroughly rethink the concept of Exoticism and the dynamic between Self and the Other, between the Western world and its foreign counterparts. As a result, he elaborated narrative techniques that undermine and challenge the formation of Eurocentric stereotypes. Segalen achieved this by writing from what he considered to be the Other's point of view and culture. Instead of providing the reader with his own impressions and touristic like information about Polynesia and China, Segalen wishes to recreate a cultural shock by plunging the reader in the midst of these cultures, without any explanations, and by showing how they perceive the presence of Western foreigners on their soil. In his Chinese cycle, the point of view adopted is that of the Emperor of China. The latter is the centrifugal figure which permeates nearly all of Victor Segalen.s Chinese writings. This dissertation will thoroughly investigate and question his fascination with this mythical-historical being, the aim essentially being twofold: on the one hand, to retrace the genesis and evolution of this fascination as it unfolds in his correspondence and in the following works: his theater play Le Combat pour le Sol, his short story Le Siege de l'ame, and especially his unfinished novel Le Fils du Ciel which was his first Chinese inspired project from which all of his other works of Chinese inspiration sprang forth. In doing so, we will also study Paul Claudel's theater play Le Repos du Septieme Jour and the draft of Segalen's Polynesian novel Le Maitre-du-Jouir. On the other hand, our objective will be to ask why this figure of the Emperor of China appealed so much to Segalen and to bring under scrutiny the many ways he tied it in his overarching literary project. Behind this fascination, we will uncover many contradictions in a landscape of political theology and mythological revival where concepts such as the Nation and the Individual, history and myth, the geminated person of the Sovereign and the Artist as Sovereign interact in conflicting ways that undermine the author.s original intent.