TAHITI IN FRENCH LITERATURE FROM BOUGAINVILLE TO PIERRE LOTI Item Type text; Dissertation-Reproduction (electronic) Authors Gray, Frederic Charles, 1918- Publisher The University of Arizona. Rights Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. Download date 07/10/2021 17:20:03 Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/287460 I 70-15,424 GRAY, Frederic Charles, 1918- TAHITI IN FRENCH LITERATURE FROM BOUGAINVILLE TO PIERRE LOTI. .[Portions of Text in French]. University of Arizona, Ph.D., JL970 Language and Literature, modern University Microfilms, A XEROX Company, Ann Arbor, Michigan THIS DISSERTATION HAS BEEN MICROFILMED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED TAHITI IN FRENCH LITERATURE FROM BOUGAINVILLE TO PIERRE LOTI by Frederic Charles Gray A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the DEPARTMENT OF ROMANCE LANGUAGES In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY WITH A MAJOR IN FRENCH In the Graduate College THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA 19 7 0 THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA. GRADUATE COLLEGE I hereby recommend that this dissertation prepared under my direction by Frederic Charles Gray entitled TAHITI IN FRENCH LITERATURE FROM BOUGAINVILLE TO PIERRE LOTI be accepted as fulfilling the dissertation requirement of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy December 23, I960 ssertation Director Date After inspection of the final copy of the dissertation, the following members of the Final Examination Committee concur in its approval and recommend its acceptance:-* & ^ /y<Z9 4C_ W-« .. 1. X c\ G, <=1 h. )• S* B . f 9 * This approval and acceptance is contingent on the candidate1s adequate performance and defense of this dissertation at the final oral examination. The inclusion of this sheet bound into the library copy of the dissertation is evidence of satisfactory performance at the final examination. STATEMENT BY AUTHOR This dissertation has been submitted in partial fulfillment of requirements for an advanced degree at The University of Arizona and is deposited in the University Library to be made available to bor­ rowers under rules of the Library. Brief quotations from this dissertation are allowable without special permission, provided that accurate acknowledgment of source is made. Requests for permission for extended quotation from or re­ production of this manuscript in whole or in part may be granted by the head of the major department or the Dean of the Graduate College when in his judgment the proposed use of the material is in the in­ terests of scholarship. In all other instances, however, permission must be obtained from the author. SIGNED PREFACE Residence of several years in Tahiti and the Society Islands, with its consequent exposure to the language, customs and attitudes of their people, aroused in the present writer a curiosity to trace the development of French literature concerning them. Particularly tempting was the period from the visit of the first French vessel— that of Bougainville in 1768—to the introduction by Pierre Loti in 1880 of Tahiti into the mainstream of exotic fiction. Subsequent residence and study in the Polynesian area, this time in Honolulu where the University of Hawaii libraries are distinguished by their rich collections dealing with Asiatic and Pacific lands, was a further stimulant to undertaking the present work. In this connection I should particularly like to acknowledge the helpfulness of the library staffs of the many branches of the University of Hawaii library system—*the Sinclair Library, the Hamilton Library, the Asiatic Library of the East-West Center, and the separate and remarkable Hawaiian and Pacific collections—whose cooperation and assistance have been of such great value. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ABSTRACT v CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION 1 II. BOUGAINVILLE AND HIS COMPANIONS 5 III. EIGHTEENTH CENTURY REACTIONS 20 IV. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY BEFORE LOTI 78 V. THE TAHITI OF PIERRE LOTI 108 VI. CONCLUSION 165 LIST OF REFERENCES 172 iv ABSTRACT Since their discovery in 1767 by the English captain Wallis and the visit in 1768 of the French navigator Bougainville, Tahiti and Tahltlan society have received much attention from French writers. Between 1768 and 1880 the subject of Tahiti was treated in various ways but a certain type of progression in attitude seems to have applied. The purpose of this study, as stated In the Introductory chapter, has been to trace this development. Chapter II shows the en­ chanted reactions of Bougainville and his companions at their unexpected discovery of what seemed an earthly paradise, although Bougainville him­ self was astute enough to realize that even in this apparent Eden there were imperfections. Chapter III examines the impact on the French lit­ erary world of the revelation of such a place as Tahiti where rigors of climate, problems of material subsistence and agonizing conflicts between the demands of society and the instincts of natural man were apparently non-existent. In this period leading up to the French Revolution, the image of Tahiti as an ideal state was used by the philosophes and their followers to point out faults in French society which they condemned and felt in need of reform. Chapter IV indicates the change from this attitude which took place after the Revolution and during the early nineteenth century, whereby Tahiti was no longer viewed as a paradise or ideal society from which valuable lessons could be learned, but rather, on the whole, as a land of depraved or Incompetent savages, the direction of whom the v evangelizing and colonizing forces of nineteenth century Europe should take up, both for reasons of commercial and military advantage and as part of the white man's burden. The vision presented by Pierre Lotl, described in Chapter V, represents a further development in which Tahiti and the Tahitians were at last viewed not In terms of political purpose or moral judgment, but aesthetically and psychologically, thus culminating in a treatment of Tahiti in French literature that stands as both a sensitive appreciation of an exotic land and people and a psychological study of Individual Polynesian characters. In conclusion it may thus be seen that the tone of the portrayal of Tahiti in French letters has evolved in almost a full circle from original favorabllity through disapproval and condescending pity back to sympathy coupled with sensitive understanding, and that there has likewise been a progression in complexity from Bougainville's relatively direct and objective account to Pierre Loti's fully developed exotic novel with Its subtle and artistic Interpretation of the very soul of a dying race. CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION Exoticism in French literature is as old as French literature Itself. Villehardouin, Joinville and Robert de Clari take us to the Crusades. Rabelais crosses oceans and visits strange lands with Panurge and Pantagruel, Montaigne's cannibals take on the form of the noble savage. Moli&re and Racine have Turks and Montesquieu has Persians* Then, as Europe accelerates its expansion, exploring the four corners of the globe, an ever greater familiarity with the Orient and the New World leads to increasingly frequent portrayal of foreign lands and peoples. An excellent general history of exoticism in French literature has been produced by Roland Lebel (Histoire de la LittSrature coloniale en France. Paris, 1930). However, in order to include mention of the great number of selections, particularly those concerning North America, Africa and Indo-China, that such a study implies, within the limitations of space of this relatively concise work, Lebel has restricted his treatment of each case to a very brief summary and sometimes to the mere listing of title and author. It is not, moreover, his principal intention, in what is essen­ tially a compendium rather than an interpretation of exotic writing, to examine the shifting attitudes of French writing in regard to Tahiti or any other of the specific areas under consideration. The same, largely, may be said of the earlier history of the subject with a similarly gen­ eral approach by Louis Carlo and Charles Regismanset, L'Exotisme. la 1 2 literature colon!ale (Paris, 1911). Within the general framework of exoticism there has always been a variety of attitudes. Foreign lands and peoples have been viewed variously as superior, or as interesting and admirable, as inferior or as reprehensible, as ridiculous or as merely picturesque* They have been pictured sympathetically or unsympathetically and portrayed in varying degrees of truthfulness or reality. They have been represented In a variety of literary forms and both superficially and understand- ingly and with a greater or lesser amount of accurate detail as well as of literary skill and personal style* Tahiti, brought into the French consciousness by the visit of Bougainville in 1768, is no exception. It is therefore the purpose of the present study to examine and trace the variations in the treatment of the subject of Tahiti in French letters from the time of Bougainville and his contemporaries to that of Pierre Lotl, a period which represents the first htcndred years of European communication with the island and Its people, who, by virtue of their uniqueness and special charm, have come to form the subject matter of a distinct branch of exoticism in French