Publication scientifique : Un dialogue fécond entre société archaïque et monde moderne : Brânduş et Agrippine dans la nouvelle « La fille du capitaine » de Mircea Eliade

Author(s): JEAN-MICHEL LEMONNIER

Language: French

Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies

Issue: 2/16/2015

Page Range: 24-49

No. of Pages: 26

Keywords: modernity; archaic societies; Mircea Eliade; globalization; archetypes; historicism; education

LIEN : https://www.ceeol.com/search/article-detail?id=414580

Summary/Abstract: In the last chapter of "The Myth of the Eternal Return", Mircea Eliade confronts two types of conceptions of the existence peculiar to two categories of human being: the modern man who claims to make history and the archaic man, anhistorical who complies with archetypes, sacred prototypes, for whom this is the only reality. We hypothesize that the Roman scientist imagined a meeting between these two persons in the novel "The Captain's Daughter". We will see that the discussion between Brânduş and Agrippine which may appear senseless, to the point that we could consider we are reading a "dialogue of the deaf", a inapprehensible fictional narrative -the postmodern writing serving this impression- is at the same time an opposition and a fertile confrontation revealing the coexistence of two worlds, in prima facie, apart from each other. Mythos against logos, holistic education and respect for biocosmic rhythms against academic culture, etc. are all antagonisms that the conversation between the two protagonists puts into perspective, notably according to the Philippe Descola's ontological scheme. So, if the characters don't get along well, their disagreements allow to discover the criticism that archaic man would make to the modern man and vice versa. Consequently, if at the end of the conversation between Brânduş and Agrippine, the apparent lack of comprehension seems reciprocal, the finding of such disagreement gives us the opportunity to progress in the understanding of two worlds and what one should or can bring to the other. After having raised the realistic elements of the story, we will explore the hypotheses which seem to us the less complete but nevertheless interesting concerning the nature of the two characters (psychoanalytic approach of the behaviours, mythocriticism, comparison with historical and literary figures, similarity between Brândus with the primordial child or the puer aeternus and l'Emile of Jean-Jacques Rousseau...) then propose an analysis to bring us to answer this question : Does Eliade try to show, through this novel, that there is no solution of continuity between the world of the tradition of the archaic man and the modern world, as in his academic work ? Moreover, reading the "Captain's Daugther" gives us a awfully basis for reflection in our time of the reign of increasingly weighing of standardization of individuals, and allows to envisage a possible archeomodern human existence transcending the ontological cleavage between archaism and modernity.