'The Writings of a Savage?' Literary Strategies in Paul Gauguin's Noa Noa

Abstract

D espite his self-imposed exile in Polynesia from I89I, Gauguin continued to play an active role-from afar-in the Paris art world, maintaining corre spondence with important literary figures, subscribing to periodicals, and writing cryptic explanations to accompany paintings back to Europe.' From the outset, he imagined his transferal in terms of its potential impact on aWestern audience and, once settled, he continued to rely upon European publications to resurrect in digenous myths and deities.2 Noa Noa, a partly autobiographical fiction evoking his paintings and experiences in Tahiti, was a key text in this endeavour to manipulate his critical reception. Later revised in collaboration with the Symbolist poet Charles Morice, the first draft of Noa Noa (hereafter denoted the Draft MS) was completed following Gauguin's temporary return to Paris in September I893, and possibly intended to complement an exhibition of his Tahitian paintings at the Durand Ruel Gallery in November I893, though it was not completed in time.3 Combining descriptions of his paintings with tales of adventure and references to Polynesian myth, it was less an accurate record of Gauguin's life, than a carefully staged encounter between the European and the 'exotic'. Although frequently sampled for 'evidence' about Gauguin's life and work, Noa Noa is rarely taken seriously as a literary text. Whether celebrating or con demning his 'primitive' adventure, scholars have treated it primarily as merely an autobiographical document or an explanatory guide to his painting, and have insisted on the crudeness and simplicity of the artist's prose.4 In a I96I edition of the Draft MS, for example, Jean Loize claimed that 'As soon as he takes up a pen, Gauguin is entirely spontaneous, with no literary tricks: he knows that he is barbar ous and shocking.'5 While the barbarous and shocking naivety of his paintings has