La problematique de la mort dans l’oeuvre de Jacques Chessex

<P align=left><FONT face="Times New Roman"><FONT face="Times New Roman"><EM>Whether in philosophy, science of religion or literature, the issue of death is still a topic of interest nowadays for its depth and the multitude of meanings and interpretations attributed to it. Regarded as a fact of life, as a challenge of life or as an end envisaged since birth, death seems to hold that human existence is just a mere preamble to it. Philosophers and writers such as Confucius, Henri Bergson, Martin Heidegger, Jean Paul Sartre, John Milton, or painters like Paul Gauguin, Johann Heinrich Füssli, and Hieronymus Bosch have given many representations of death while showing different views regarding this issue.</EM></FONT></FONT></P> <P align=left><EM>For the Swiss Romand writer Jacques Chessex (1934-2009) death represents the loss of the limits imposed by the existence, even a possibility of being out of time, out of regret, remembrance and memory, the end of an imperfect period which is life, the passage towards the Infinite. Death is seen as absence and according to an idea borrowed from Jankélévitch it represents the infinite void of eternity. But this absence is not the source of fear, but it rather brings the serenity of the mind / spirit.</EM></P> <P align=left><EM>The pain in death is in fact the suffering of others, all who remain alive, must accept the loss of loved ones, becoming accustomed to the situation. There is also in Jacques Chessex’s works an attitude of rebellion, but it is quickly drowned out by the consciousness of the original sin that casts man into the arms of fate. A special case is that of suicide which in the vision of the writer constitutes the only moment when man has the possibility to control his life, even if only for a few seconds.</EM></P>

07_Lioara Coturbas.pdf

<font size="3"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Abstract</span>: The novel The Forbidden Forest comprises the main themes in Mircea Eliade’s<br>literature, but at the same time it may be considered an attempt of re-writing the author’s past. The<br>exiled Mircea Eliade, haunted by the shadows of his former political beliefs, wants to renounce his<br>old identity and to build up a new existence outside Romania. He lends his main character, his alter<br>ego Ştefan Viziru, the key moments of his biography; one of the most significant episodes concerning<br>the concealment of his political convictions is represented by the incarceration in the legionary camp<br>in Miercurea Ciuc. If in Memoirs Mircea Eliade does not insist on this fragment of his past, he<br>chooses to reveal the ordeal he went through by means of this work of fiction, thus trying to<br>emphasize the main character’s and implicitly his own apolitical attitude. Ştefan Viziru eludes any<br>political involvement and is unfairly condemned, exactly as Mircea Eliade used to claim. If the<br>character may even be considered a victim of history, Mircea Eliade’s interest in the Legionary<br>Movement cannot be completely overlooked. Even if we disapprove of the articles written in favor or<br>the Iron Guard, in interpreting them we must take into consideration the fact that Mircea Eliade was<br>drawn to the mysticism of this Movement, whose leader advocated the spiritual revolution which can<br>be accomplished only by the new man, about whom Mircea Eliade had written on countless<br>occasions.<br><br><span style="font-weight: bold;">Key words</span>: terror of history, literary transfiguration, legionary camp.</font>