Orientalism in French Classical Drama (review)

Abstract

THE COMPAKATIST cal projections, paradoxical myths ofcomfort. Rather the tragic is in the apprehension of the banality of successive appearances, which are always decaying, what Porter would read as an anticipation ofthe later theme ofthe eternal recurrence. Science, art, and the tragic are conflated in an Oedipal lust for penetrating the secrets ofnature beyond the realm of appearance. In their search for something beyond, they deny life. For Nietzsche, myth making is the inevitable by-product of existence. The human condition is condemned to the perpetual projection and nullification ofmyth, perhaps the greatest myth being that ofmythlessness itself. 77ie Invention ofDionysus breaks new ground in our appreciation ofNietzsche. Porter's minute and innovative reading ofBirth ofTragedy, set against the context ofyoung Nietzsche's work as a classical philologist, is both challenging and stimulating , requiring us to return to a work too often glossed over. Not only has Porter shown that Birth reveals much ofNietzsche's later thought, but at the same time, he also compels us to rethink our reading ofthat later thought as well. But such a rethinking would be consistent with the spirit ofNietzsche's Socrates/Dionysus. Thomas L. CookseyArmstrong Atlantic State University BOOK NOTES MICHÈLE LONGINO. Orientalism in French Classical Drama. Cambridge /New York: Cambridge UP, 2002. xii + 274 pp. Michèle Longino's book, although clearly placed under the banner ofthe muchdebated topic oforientalism, is not a ride through familiar territories. In fact, the book's originality comes from the author's focus on an earlier version oforientalism , before colonialism was institutionalized in the eighteenth century, at the origin ofwhat Edward Said defines as orientalism. Longino's focus is the invention, construction , and advertising ofthe "Other" on stage, and, in particular, the connection between the staging ofcultural "Otherness," on the one hand, and the construction ofFrench collective identity during the seventeenth century, on the other. Seven plays by Corneille, Molière, and Racine provide the literary basis for the exploration. Longino's contextual "reading" transforms the classical stage into a space for new stories, into a "zone ofcontact," as M. L. Pratt called it, in which moments ofhybridization counterbalance conflicts and clashes. The staging ofthe Orient is linked to early colonial discourse and to issues belonging equally to the seventeenth century and the present. Past documents, events, and literary texts—memoirs , histories, archival documents, correspondence—are fleshed out with theoretical arguments from new historicism, cultural studies, post-colonial theory and, certainly , orientalism, which has a special place in the book's informed bibliography. The book's first four chapters are devoted to examining a single author's works —Corneille's Médée and Le Cid, Molière's Le Bourgeois gentilhomme and Racine's Bajazet and Mithridate—whereas the fifth chapter compares works oftwo playwrights—Corneille's 7ire et Bérénice and Racine's Bajazet. Each chapter is built with commendable clarity: each starts with the play's summary, followed by "a set ofquestions to ponder" that provokes the reader to dive deeper into the text. Each chapter is a staging of the cultural encounter on and off stage between the VcH. 27 (2003): 187 'BOOK NOTES French and the Other, an encounter that, fortunately for understanding the topic, gives both sides of the story. In the reading of Corneille's Médée, for instance, Longino's discussion about the double status ofMédée as "outsider" is counterbalanced by that ofthe Turks and their relationship with the French, as they were portrayed in the documents ofthe period. But, ifdocuments, events, and mentalities are privileged over literary texts, the latter are rediscovered through new readings ofthe texts themselves: Pollux, the traveler-savant, becomes the center of attention in Corneille's Médée; the alien's mediation of French politics in Le Cid; the problem oftranslation (among others) in Molière's Le Bourgeois gentilhomme; the East-West gendered rivalry in Corneille's and Racine's respective plays, Tite et Bérénice and Bérénice; and the "staging of France" in Racine's Bajazet and Mithridate. The stage is transformed into a cultural crossroads in which real people— diplomats, historians, merchants, translators—enter into dialogue with theatrical characters. The theatre...