Steles.
Gallimard| N° d'inventaire | 23611 |
| Format | 11 x 17 |
| Détails | 160 p., paperback. |
| Publication | Paris, 1973 |
| Etat | Nine |
| ISBN | 9782070320707 |
"When Victor Segalen had the idea for Steles in 1909, he "deliberately looked in China not for ideas, not for subjects, but for forms that were little known, varied and haughty." He would thus use what he found to translate what he felt, and what he found was the form of the Stele. Form: in every sense of the word, the erect mass and what it carries. An elongated rectangle that rises in the countryside, in a temple, at the entrance to a town, on the edge of a road - and a lapidary saying, an epigraph traced with a chisel in the stone, which praises the victories of a general or the beauty of a favorite. These are the two definitions of the form of the stele that Segalen would use. They are his: they are in China, in the middle of the world. [...] This is why China is ultimately here only a
alibi, that a figurehead: the most total exile, therefore, that can be conceived. And the Steles themselves... To his friend Henry Manceron, Segalen writes precisely: "One step further and the 'Stele' would strip itself entirely of its Chinese origin for me to strictly represent: a new literary genre, - as the novel, formerly, whether or not it came from a certain Princess of Clèves, or from higher up, came to Salammbô, then to everything, then to nothing at all. It is possible that later, in a very long time, I will give a new collection of 'steles' and that they will not even have the paper of China." And the Steles themselves are the rigorous form that Segalen carved out for himself in his Chinese clothes, simply to say. The Chinese garment remains, colorful, apparent, but what matters in the background of the poem and what concerns us here is less the garment than the "pattern". And the "pattern", the cut, is Segalen's own language, new if ever there was one." Pierre-Jean Remy.
"When Victor Segalen had the idea for Steles in 1909, he "deliberately looked in China not for ideas, not for subjects, but for forms that were little known, varied and haughty." He would thus use what he found to translate what he felt, and what he found was the form of the Stele. Form: in every sense of the word, the erect mass and what it carries. An elongated rectangle that rises in the countryside, in a temple, at the entrance to a town, on the edge of a road - and a lapidary saying, an epigraph traced with a chisel in the stone, which praises the victories of a general or the beauty of a favorite. These are the two definitions of the form of the stele that Segalen would use. They are his: they are in China, in the middle of the world. [...] This is why China is ultimately here only a
alibi, that a figurehead: the most total exile, therefore, that can be conceived. And the Steles themselves... To his friend Henry Manceron, Segalen writes precisely: "One step further and the 'Stele' would strip itself entirely of its Chinese origin for me to strictly represent: a new literary genre, - as the novel, formerly, whether or not it came from a certain Princess of Clèves, or from higher up, came to Salammbô, then to everything, then to nothing at all. It is possible that later, in a very long time, I will give a new collection of 'steles' and that they will not even have the paper of China." And the Steles themselves are the rigorous form that Segalen carved out for himself in his Chinese clothes, simply to say. The Chinese garment remains, colorful, apparent, but what matters in the background of the poem and what concerns us here is less the garment than the "pattern". And the "pattern", the cut, is Segalen's own language, new if ever there was one." Pierre-Jean Remy.