Knowledge of the East. Followed by The Black Bird in the Rising Sun.
Gallimard| N° d'inventaire | 23612 |
| Format | 11 x 17 |
| Détails | 336 p., paperback. |
| Publication | Paris, 2000 |
| Etat | Nine |
| ISBN | 9782070417766 |
"Of The Black Bird in the Rising Sun, Claudel said that "it forms a diptych with Knowledge of the East." He was undoubtedly thinking above all, in bringing these two texts together, of their "subject," of this double discovery of the Orient which in fact gives them an apparent unity. From one to the other, passages are made; Japan is at the heart of Knowledge of the East with the poems which evoke the journey of 1898 and memories of China easily surface in The Black Bird. More clearly, in this collection, Claudel returns to certain opinions, to certain old reactions to clarify or contradict them. The resemblances, however, are deeper than this parallelism implies, more revealing too. Only China and Japan have held Claudel's attention to this point. Certainly, he loved Bohemia, admired Brazil, observed America... None of the countries where he lived left him indifferent and his work bears the trace of all of them. But he did not grant them this fascinated attention nor take this care and this pleasure in describing them. The Orient touched him in a different way that neither the picturesque nor the exotic are sufficient to explain. It is this fascination, with the contradictions it supposes and its ambiguities, which gives these two collections their interest; it also suggests a thematic reading which illuminates them." Jacques Petit.
"Of The Black Bird in the Rising Sun, Claudel said that "it forms a diptych with Knowledge of the East." He was undoubtedly thinking above all, in bringing these two texts together, of their "subject," of this double discovery of the Orient which in fact gives them an apparent unity. From one to the other, passages are made; Japan is at the heart of Knowledge of the East with the poems which evoke the journey of 1898 and memories of China easily surface in The Black Bird. More clearly, in this collection, Claudel returns to certain opinions, to certain old reactions to clarify or contradict them. The resemblances, however, are deeper than this parallelism implies, more revealing too. Only China and Japan have held Claudel's attention to this point. Certainly, he loved Bohemia, admired Brazil, observed America... None of the countries where he lived left him indifferent and his work bears the trace of all of them. But he did not grant them this fascinated attention nor take this care and this pleasure in describing them. The Orient touched him in a different way that neither the picturesque nor the exotic are sufficient to explain. It is this fascination, with the contradictions it supposes and its ambiguities, which gives these two collections their interest; it also suggests a thematic reading which illuminates them." Jacques Petit.