Les « Adieux du Vieillard » comme anamorphose littéraire (Contribution à une lecture critique du Supplément au Voyage de Bougainville)

Abstract

Pierre Hartmann: The " Old Man's Farewell " as a Literary Anamorphosis (Contribution to a Critical Reading of the Supplément au Voyage de Bougainville). Le Supplément au Voyage de Bougainville is generally considered to constitute Diderot's principle literary contribution to primitivist thought. However, a study of the two different states of the same text (the "old man's farewell") reveals a more subtle reflection, at the end of which the author, while reviving primitivist clichés, emphasises its artificial literary character and the fact that it is epistemologically untenable. For the speech put in the old man's mouth can only be that of enlightened philosophy. Diderot's subtle textual manipulation manages to make the reader realise that this substitution of speech is both a literary subterfuge and the only possible answer to an ethical necessity. As a literary anamorphosis, the old man's farewell is both a literary artifice designed to educate the reader and an introduction to a more refined reading technique.