The Works Of Victor Segalen And China

Victor Segalen (1878-1919) is a French poet in the early twentieth century; as a naval doctor, French-Chinese interpreter and archaeologist, he had the opportunity to come to China three times in his lifetime and contacted a China buffeted by wars at the end of Qing Dynasty. His footprints were all over China; he participated in the medical aid of the plague raging in the north-eastern China and undertook a number of archaeological researches on ancient statues of Han Dynasty and ancient imperial tombs in Nanjing. What is more valuable to point out is that the poet composed his most important collections of poems and novels during or after he made trips to China. His writing in regard to China didn’t stop until his mystical death in the forest Huelgoat in1919. Therefore, how the poet views China, how he integrates Chinese cultural elements in his poetic system and how he explores his spiritual universe from these precious experiences in China, remains a well-deserved subject to study.Victor Segalen is one of the French writers who are the first to come to China in the early twentieth century, his writing related to China surpasses simple description in travelogues:he created various artistic images inspired by oriental paintings, experienced the distance between reality and imagination during adventures and through the Son of Heaven and the Forbidden City he got to overstep the wall of knowledge. China, mystical land of Far East, is always an absolute existence at the heart of Segalen, what attracts him most is not chasing novelties in an exotic land, but a poetic quest of higher level and reconstruction of his soul. This research is devoted not only to the relationship between China and the works of Segalen but also to illustrate a more comprehensive connotation via the oriental taste of a western poet.The first chapter describes Segalen’s three trips to China and these precious expeditions influence significantly on the literary creation of poet:journeys open his horizon of vision and enrich his poetic imagination; each geographical experience gives him a chance to experience the "real country". Then comes the great historical context when Segalen came to China and the works composed in terms of this frame of reference will be analyzed. Afterwards, we’ll enter the interior of the literary texts to research the relationship between eastern culture and the poetic field of Segalen, and discover Chinese myths, legends and stories hidden in his French poems.On the basis of the previous researches in geographical, historical and cultural angles on the relationship between China and the poetic creation of Segalen, the second chapter aims to explore the poetic ideals sought by him in the East. The representative of symbolism Arthur Rimbaud, his aspiration to "live elsewhere" and his desire for vagabond life has a significant hold on the youth of Segalen, encouraging him to feel the beauty of diversity and to look for poetic ideals in other places. In this chapter, the research is focused on Segalen’s value on exoticism and the new poetic form Steles initiated by him to illustrate his poetic ideals hidden behind the literature.The third chapter aims to discover a self-discovery of Victor Segalen referring to his vision on China and his attempt to establish a soul kingdom belonging to himself. By comparing similar details between the story of Segalen and the tale created by Chinese hermit-poet Tao Yuanming, we’ll decrypt the spiritual utopia of the poet and his trips to China in double sense, which are both outside and intimate. The third chapter is focused on the observation of the ego in the mirror of the other and the transfer from Chinese empire to the ego’s empire of the poet.This paper employs analytical procedures to study the literary texts of Victor Segalen’s important works inspired by Chinese culture, in a comprehensive way aiming to analyze eternity and instance, the light of knowledge, aesthetics on difference, relationship between reality and imagination, etc.