Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 2005 Exile as severance Alexandru Boldor Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations Part of the Comparative Literature Commons Recommended Citation Boldor, Alexandru, "Exile as severance" (2005). LSU Doctoral Dissertations. 2225. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations/2225 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized graduate school editor of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please [email protected]. EXILE AS SEVERANCE A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Interdepartmental Program in Comparative Literature by Alexandru Boldor B.A., Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj, 1995 M.A., Louisiana State University, 2003 August, 2005 Table of Contents Abstract . iii An Overview of the Concepts of “Exile” and “Severance” . 1 Preamble . 1 Exile: A Historical Overview . 12 Romanian Exile Literature . 18 Exile in the Modern World . 21 Variants of Exile . 27 Etymological Aspects of the Term “Exile” . 33 Exile and Severance: The Mechanics of a Phenomenon . 40 Definition of the “Severance” as an Element of Exile . 42 Etymology of “Severance” . 45 Literary Corollaries of the Concept. 49 Tristan Tzara: The Evasion of “The Approximate Man”. 58 A Puzzling Personality . 58 The Early Years. 63 Zürich . 76 The “Dégoût” and the Beginnings of an Ars Poetica . 81 Exile and Poetics – Possible Correlations . 92 The Paris Era . 98 Severance and Creativity – A Close Relationship. 103 Closing Thoughts: Tzara - an Ideal Case of Severance? . 107 Gregor Von Rezzori and the Doctrine of the Parallax . 113 An Interchange of Cultures . 113 A Different Kind of Nation . 117 Cultural Identity as a Matter of Choice . 128 Adopting and Rejecting a Culture . 137 An Invented Self . 144 Severance and Identity . 148 Severance and Morality . 158 Socio-political Connotations . 163 The Imaginary Worlds of Vintilă Horia . 167 A Remarkable Way to Tackle an Unremarkable Exile . 167 Literary Works and Political Disputes . 176 Imaginary Countries . 180 The Reality Check . 193 A Different Instance of Severance . 208 Conclusion . 217 The Elements of the Severance. 217 “Severance” as a Psychological Process . 221 Prefigurations of “Severance” in Past Literary Works . 232 Final Words . 244 Bibliography . 245 Vita . 253 ii Abstract Exile is a phenomenon probably as ancient as humanity itself, and one of the oldest topics in universal literature. The great majority of its variants (political, economical, social,) are founded on the idea of “forced displacement.” Consequently, most often exile is reflected in literary creations in discourses dominated by a sentiment of loss. However, in some cases exile is not seen as a tragic event, but rather as an opportunity for intellectual growth - as attested by a number of authors who have chosen voluntarily to exile themselves. The rationale behind this occurrence is a mental process I called “severance.” The first chapter of this study is an overview of the phenomenon of exile from historical and theoretical perspectives, followed by a number of examples where the subject’s stance vis-à-vis their exile diverges from the “classic” definition of the subject. Based on these examples, “severance” is defined as a distinct issue among the various forms of exile, and the term is analyzed from linguistic and psychological perspectives. The following three chapters are case studies of instances of severance reflected in the works of Tristan iii Tzara, Gregor von Rezzori, and Vintilă Horia. The comparative analysis of these author’s texts provide an extensive examination of the phenomenon, highlighting its importance and supporting the idea about the necessity of marking out “severance” as a new and distinct subject matter in exile studies. Tzara’s works are arguably the ideal illustration of the concept; Gregor von Rezzori’s creations reflect a similar intellectual evolution, with the added benefit of several extremely lucid self-analyses directly related to the phenomenon in question. Finally, the study of Vintilă Horia’s case allows the discussion of an additional number of issues related to the concept of severance. The last chapter begins with a brief re-evaluation of the phenomenon, based on a retrospective, comparative overview of the analyzed writings; its closing section focuses on two prior works related to the idea of “severance,” their main points being contrasted with the conclusions of the current inquiry in order to highlight the original elements contributed by this dissertation to the field of literary criticism. iv An Overview of the Concepts of “Exile” and “Severance” Preamble “Exile” is perhaps one of the most commonly re- occurring terms in the literature of the twentieth century. The subject is arguably as old as written literature itself, yet despite its age it never ceases to be prevalent. As a matter of fact, in the emerging “Global 1 Village ” of the modern society, terms like “exile” and “displacement” are gaining unprecedented weight. Understandably, the meaning of the term has undergone multiple alterations over time. The following paragraph briefly illustrates both its historical span and the evolution of its meaning throughout the past: “The exile of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden, the wanderings of Odysseus, the diaspora of the Jews all speak to a fundamental sense of loss, displacement and a desire to regain a paradisiacal sense of unity and wholeness, whether spiritual or secular. For many, though, that loss is transformed 1 A term coined by Marshall McLuhan in his book The Gutenberg Galaxy, describing the trend of electronic mass media collapsing space and time barriers in human communication to enable people to communicate on a global scale. 1 from the pain of dispossession into an alternative way of seeing. For Joyce’s Stephen Dedalus the “silence, exile and cunning” of his self-imposed expatriation provides the means to express untrammeled his artistic vision. For Salman Rushdie, the idea of homeland is intrinsically “imaginary.” For scholarly émigrés such as Edward Said and Julia Kristeva, exile is the necessary condition of the intellectual.” (Ouditt, xii) It would appear that exile is a fundamental aspect of la condition humaine, ever-present in all literatures, at all times. Yet despite its universality, exile is a remarkably difficult term to define. What is exile, after all? Is it a political status? A social phenomenon? A literary subject? While the term can be associated with any of the above criteria, or even all of them simultaneously, the prevalence of each element will vary vastly from one instance to another. Further complicating matters, its characterization from a literary perspective will differ significantly from its socio-cultural counterpart. As a starting point towards a “working” definition, let us take on the brief, almost technical description of exile proposed by Jo-Marie Claassen: 2 Exile is a condition in which the protagonist is no longer living, or able to live, in the land of his birth. It may be either voluntary, a deliberate decision to stay in a foreign country, or involuntary. In some cases, exile can be merely the result of circumstances, such as an offer of expatriate employment. Such instances will usually cause little hardship to the protagonist. However, exile may be enforced. This last occurrence frequently results from a major difference of political disagreement between the authorities of a state and the person being exiled. Often such exiles are helpless victims of circumstances beyond their sphere of influence; sometimes, however, the exiles are themselves prominent political figures, exiled because of the potential threat to the well-being of their rivals. (Claassen, 9) The above description of the phenomenon outlines some of the most common, basic features of “exile,” offering a general perspective upon the term – most importantly, the separation between the subject and his motherland. However, such a description accounts mainly for its socio-political aspects: “expatriate employment,” “political disagreement,” while the literary domain is concerned mostly with the ways in which the exile affects the inner world of the author and the conversion of his stance in textual form. 3 Furthermore, in the literary domain “exile” can be approached from two angles: the first is the writer’s perspective, where it can constitute a subject per se or the motivation behind a certain creation. The second is the critics’ perspective, where “exile” can be used as a key element in the analysis of the text. The present study will try to focus primarily on the relationship between the writers’ exile status and its effect upon their creations. But how exactly does exile affect the mindset of an artist, and how does such an altered mindset influence his creations? Most often the main effect of exile is considered to be a state of perpetual suffering. This traditional viewpoint can be traced as far back as the first century B.C., when Publilius Syrus wrote: “Exsul, ubi 2 ei nusquam domus est, sine sepulcro est mortuus.” The image of the exiled