Ce que lire fait au voyage : Lapérouse au Kamtchatka (1787)

• Published in: Viatica
• Main Author: Nathalie Vuillemin
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English; French
• Published: Université Clermont Auvergne 2020
• Subjects: Lapérouse (Jean-François de); Cook (James); Kamtchatka; Intertextuality; mimesis; Ricœur (Paul); Literature (General); PN1-6790; Kamchatka
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.52497/viatica1296; https://doaj.org/article/e80b656bb085487cb5e80ff14a605370

This article tries to propose a new analyse of the problem of intertextuality in travel literature, examining a specific passage of Lapérouse’s “Voyage”: the stopover in Kamchatka. Literally haunted by Cook, Lapérouse sometimes seems to confuse real space with the space of the story, making a strange attempt to “re-stage” the characters his predecessor had met. We propose here a re-reading of this episode in the light of the "triple mimesis" system developed by Paul Ricoeur. We’ll try to measure the effect of the travel narrative on reality. Lapérouse, re-writing Cook, performs a literary as well as a political gesture.