Abstract

Staging the Buddha: Victor Segalen’s Siddhârtha and the Unsettlement of Western Culture

Highlights

  • By writing a play on the Buddha, Segalen testified to an era of unsettlement in which Buddhism, Empire and Modernism met

  • The poet felt the urge to write a drama on the human life of Siddhārtha Gautama, the historical Buddha. The piece he envisioned was called Siddhârtha, and he worked on this piece until the very last years of his life. This early travel experience nourished a comprehensive reflection on exoticism and otherness that Segalen would develop throughout his literary work

  • Authors tended to use the East as exotic decor[19] or as a metaphysical realm.[20]. They were interested in the life of the Buddha insofar as it provided them with a new topic and figure: the Buddha represented an Eastern alternative to the figure of Christ.[21]

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Summary

Theatre going global in the late nineteenth century

Most studies that examine French theatre in its connections with Asia consider Antonin Artaud’s Le Théâtre et son double as a historical landmark (most notably Bharucha, Theatre and the World). Studies have emphasized the seminal importance of World Exhibitions, among them the Parisian 1889 and 1900 Expositions universelles and the subsequent 1931 Exposition coloniale, in the renewal of theatrical conceptions[9]. In the aftermath of postcolonial studies, this new focus on the history of global exchanges in the late nineteenth century underlines the development of exoticism as an imperial manifestation of Western metropolitan supremacy on its peripheries. A number of popular theatrical and lyrical shows staged colonial encounters involving ‘Oriental’ (usually Middle Eastern) scenery.[10] In this context, the success of Japanese stage icon Sada Yacco in the 1900 Exposition universelle and her influence on modern dancers such as Loïe Fuller and Isadora Duncan have been recently studied.[11]

The ‘Buddhist culture’ in France and the life of the Buddha in the arts
Re-reading Siddhârtha or the drama of the unsettlement of space
An exotic setting and a static character: a distance away from set patterns
Siddhârtha and the aesthetics of Diversity in the wake of the global world
Segalen’s encounter with Buddhism: a crisis of values
On the edge of two cultural worlds: from the biography to the play
VIII. From exotic setting to symbolic geography: a cross-cultural dramatic space
Achieving Realization
Conclusion
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