Hostname: page-component-5c6d5d7d68-sv6ng Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-08-22T02:50:58.591Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

“The Indies”: Baudelaire's Colonial World

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

Françoise Lionnet
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

[Les critiques] ont en commun avec les tyrans de plier le monde à leurs désirs.

[Critics] and tyrants have this in common: they bend the world to their desires.

—Yasmina Reza, L'aube le soir ou la nuit (9)

If there is anything that radically distinguishes the imagination of anti-imperialism, it is the primacy of the geographical element. Imperialism after all is an act of geographical violence through which virtually every space in the world is explored, charted, and finally brought under control.

—Edward Said, Culture and Imperialism (225)

Denis Diderot's Encyclopédie is explicit about “Les Indes” ‘The Indies.‘ in explaining why distant landmasses were charted under the incorrect rubrics “East Indies” and “West Indies,” the Encyclopédie states in 1765 that these designations refer to countries situated on either side of the Cape of Good Hope, the southern extremity of Africa:

[L]es modernes moins excusable que les anciens ont nommé Indes, des pays si différens par leur position & par leur étendue sur notre globe, que pour ôter une partie de l'équivoque, ils ont divisé les Indes en orientales & occidentales. … De-là vint l'usage d'appeller Indes orientales, ce qui est à l'orient du cap de Bonne-Espérance, & Indes occidentales, ce qui est à l'occident de ce cap. … [P]ar un nouvel abus, qu'il n'est plus possible de corriger, on se sert dans les relations du nom d'Indiens, pour dire les Amériquains. (“Indes”)

[T]he moderns, who are less forgivable than the ancients, have called Indies countries so different by virtue of their location and their size on our globe that these had to be divided into East and West Indies in order to correct the ambiguity. … Hence the custom of calling East Indies what lies to the east of the Cape of Good Hope and West Indies what lies to the west of that cape. … [T]hrough a new misuse, which can no longer be corrected, the name Indians is used in travel relations to refer to Americans.

Type
The Changing Profession
Information
PMLA , Volume 123 , Issue 3 , May 2008 , pp. 723 - 736
Copyright
Copyright © 2008 by The Modern Language Association of America

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Works Cited

Aggeler, William, trans. “To a Creole Lady.” The Flowers of Evil. By Charles Baudelaire. Fresno: Acad. Lib. Guild, 1954. Fleursdumal.org. 2008. 11 Apr. 2008 <http://fleursdumal.org/poem/153>.Google Scholar
Aggeler, William, trans. “To a Malabar Woman.” The Flowers of Evil. By Charles Baudelaire. Fresno: Acad. Lib. Guild, 1954. Fleursdumal.org. 2008. 11 Apr. 2008 <http://fleursdumal.org/poem/309>.Google Scholar
Aggeler, William, trans. “The Swan.” The Flowers of Evil. By Charles Baudelaire. Fresno: Acad. Lib. Guild, 1954. Fleursdumal.org. 2008. 11 Apr. 2008 <http://fleursdumal.org/poem/220>.Google Scholar
Ahearn, Edward J. “Black Woman, White Poet: Exile and Exploitation in Baudelaire's Jeanne Duval Poems.” French Review 51 (1977): 212–20.Google Scholar
Ahearn, Edward J. “Marx's Relevance for Second Empire Literature: Baudelaire's ‘Le cygne.‘” Nineteenth-Century French Studies 14 (1986): 269–77.Google Scholar
Charles, Baudelaire. “À une dame créole.” Pichois 62–63.Google Scholar
Charles, Baudelaire. “À une malabaraise.” Pichois 73–74.Google Scholar
Charles, Baudelaire. “La belle Dorothée.” Pichois 316–17.Google Scholar
Charles, Baudelaire. “Le cygne.” Pichois 85–87.Google Scholar
Carayol, Michel. Preface. Le voyage de Baudelaire à l'Île Maurice et à la Réunion. By Emmanuel Richon. Saint-Denis, Réunion: Sham's, 2000. 11–13.Google Scholar
Charles, Castellan. “La malabare.” Beaux jours et jours d'orage. Paris: Gosselin, 1837. 69–76.Google Scholar
Charles, Castellan. Les palmiers. Paris: Gosselin, 1834.Google Scholar
Ross, Chambers. Meaning and Meaningfulness: Studies in the Analysis and Interpretation of Texts. French Forum Monographs 15. Lexington: French Forum, 1979.Google Scholar
Jonathan, Culler. “‘Trouver du nouveau?‘ Baudelaire's Voyages.” Writing Travel: The Poetics and Politics of the Modern Journey. Ed. Zilcosky, John. Toronto: U of Toronto P, forthcoming.Google Scholar
Edouard, Glissant. Caribbean Discourse. Trans. Dash, Michael. Charlottesville: UP of Virginia, 1989. Trans. of Discours antillais. Paris: Seuil, 1981.Google Scholar
Edouard, Glissant. Poetics of Relation. Trans. Wing, Betsy. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1997. Trans. of Poétique de la relation. Paris: Gallimard, 1990.Google Scholar
Hubert, J. D. L'esthéthique des Fleurs du mal: Essai sur l'ambiguïté poétique. Genève: Cailler, 1953.Google Scholar
“Indes.” Encyclopédie. Vol. 2. 1765. Wikisource. 2 Sept. 2006. 11 Apr. 2008 <http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Page:ENC_8-0662.jpg>..>Google Scholar
“Indes, Compagnie Françoise des.” Encyclopédie. Vol. 2. 1765. Wikisource. 2 Sept. 2006. 11 Apr. 2008 <http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Page:ENC_8-0662.jpg>..>Google Scholar
Michel, Jamet, ed. Œuvres complètes. By Charles Baudelaire. Paris: Lafont, 1980.Google Scholar
Claude, Jolly. “La Bibliothèque de la Sorbonne et sa politique documentaire.” Bulletin des bibliothèques de France 37 (1992): 8–24.Google Scholar
Joubert, Jean-Louis. Littératures de l'Océan Indien. Vanves: EDICEF/AUPELF, 1991.Google Scholar
Doris, Kadish. “Representing Race in Indiana.” George Sand Studies 11.1-2 (1992): 22–30.Google Scholar
Lionnet, Françoise. Postcolonial Representation: Women, Literature, Identity. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1995.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lionnet, Françoise. “Reframing Baudelaire: Literary History, Biography, Postcolonial Theory, and Vernacular Languages.” Diacritics 28.3 (1998): 63–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosemary, Lloyd. Baudelaire's World. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 2002.Google Scholar
Rosemary, Lloyd, ed. Selected Letters: The Conquest of Solitude. By Charles Baudelaire. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1986.Google Scholar
Elissa, Marder. Dead Time: Temporal Disorders in the Wake of Modernity. Stanford: Stanford UP, 2001.Google Scholar
McGowan, James, trans. “For a Creole Lady.” The Flowers of Evil. By Charles Baudelaire. New York: Oxford UP, 1993. 29.Google Scholar
Christopher, Miller. Blank Darkness. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1985.Google Scholar
Christopher, Miller. Nationalists and Nomads. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1998.Google Scholar
Morisi, Eve Celia. “‘À une dame créole’ de Charles Baudelaire: De l'ambiguïté colonialiste à l'ambiguïté plurielle.” Nineteenth-Century French Studies 35 (2007): 547–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Adlai, Murdoch. “Ghosts in the Mirror: Colonialism and Creole Indeterminacy in Brontë and Sand.” College Literature 29.1 (2002): 1–31.Google Scholar
Nancy, Jean-Luc. La création du monde ou la mondialisation. Paris: Galilée, 2002.Google Scholar
North-Coombes, Alfred. La découverte des Mascareignes par les Arabes et les Portugais. Rétrospective et mise au point: Contribution à l'histoire de l'Océan Indien au XVIe siècle. Port Louis, Mauritius: Service Bureau, 1979.Google Scholar
Geeta, Patel. Lyrical Movements, Historical Hauntings: On Gender, Colonialism, and Desire in Miraji's Urdu Poetry. Stanford: Stanford UP, 2002.Google Scholar
Claude, Pichois, ed. Œuvres complètes. By Charles Baudelaire. Bibliothèque de la Pléiade. Paris: Gallimard, 1975.Google Scholar
Poggenburg, Raymond P. Charles Baudelaire: Une microhistoire. Nashville: Vanderbilt UP, 1987.Google Scholar
Reclus, Onésine. Atlas de la plus grande France. Paris: Attinger, 1914.Google Scholar
Yasmina, Reza. L'aube le soir ou la nuit. Paris: Flammarion, 2007.Google Scholar
Joanna, Richardson. Baudelaire. London: Murray, 1994. Richardson, Joanna. “Dr. Melchior Yvan: An Influence on Baudelaire?” French Studies 46 (1992): 406–11.Google Scholar
Emmanuel, Richon. Jeanne Duval et Charles Baudelaire: Belle d'abandon. Paris: L'Harmattan, 1999.Google Scholar
Richon, Emmanuel, and Rungassamy, Vimala. Les poèmes mascarins de Charles Baudelaire. Paris: L'Harmattan, 1993.Google Scholar
Mireille, Rosello. “Baudelaire and Jeanne Duval: The Gift of Uncertain Fables.” The Flowering of Baudelaire. Brown Univ., Providence. 20 Oct. 2007.Google Scholar
Edward, Said. Culture and Imperialism. New York: Knopf, 1993.Google Scholar
Edward, Said. Joseph Conrad and the Fictions of Autobiography. New York: Columbia UP, 1966.Google Scholar
Edward, Said. The World, the Text, the Critic. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1983.Google Scholar
Debarati, Sanyal. The Violence of Modernity: Baudelaire, Irony, and the Politics of Form. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 2006.Google Scholar
Naomi, Schor. “1833: The Scandal of Realism.” A New History of French Literature. Ed. Hollier, Denis. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1989. 656–61.Google Scholar
Naomi, Schor. George Sand and Idealism. New York: Columbia UP, 1993.Google Scholar
Sharpley-Whiting, T. D. Black Venus: Sexualized Savages, Primal Fears, and Primitive Narratives in French. Durham: Duke UP, 1999.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sicard-Cowan, Hélène. “Désir colonial et ‘conscience historique authentique’: ‘La belle Dorothée’ de Charles Baudelaire.” Nineteenth-Century French Studies 35 (2007): 537–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. A Critique of Postcolonial Reason: Toward a History of the Vanishing Present. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1999.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. “Imperialism and Sexual Difference.” Oxford Literary Review 8 (1986): 226–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arthur, Symons. Baudelaire: A Study. New York: Dutton, 1920.Google Scholar
Théodora, Roger. Candide et l'ancien puits. Sainte-Marie, Réunion: Azalées, 2006.Google Scholar
Trouillot, Michel-Rolph. Global Transformations: Anthropology and the Modern World. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Varèse, Louise, trans. “The Beautiful Dorothea.” Paris Spleen. By Charles Baudelaire. New York: New Directions, 1970. 50–51.Google Scholar
Waldrop, Keith, trans. “To a Creole Lady.” The Flowers of Evil. By Charles Baudelaire. Middletown: Wesleyan UP, 2006. 83.Google Scholar
Waldrop, Keith, trans. “The Swan.” The Flowers of Evil. By Charles Baudelaire. Middletown: Wesleyan UP, 2006. 115–16.Google Scholar
Williams, Robert R. Hegel's Ethics of Recognition. Berkeley: U of California P, 1997.Google Scholar
Yvan, Melchior-Honoré. De France en Chine. Paris: Bibliothèque des Chemins de Fer, 1855.Google Scholar