Sociopoétique des étapes iraniennes chez les voyageurs français au XIXe siècle: Etude du cas Trois ans en Asie de Gobineau

Abstract

The image of the East revolves around a set of collective representations created by Western thinking. In the 19th century we observe an increase in the number of travelogues in the East, and travel literature plays an important role in mutual knowledge. Among the European countries, France dispatched diplomats to Persia, charged with taking on tasks in relations between the two countries. The Comte de Gobineau is one of these emissaries whose travelogue titled Three years in Asia, concerns his stay in Iran between the years 1855 to 1858. In this account, Gobineau plans to share his social visions of the East and Persia, in reaction to representations that previously existed. With Gobineau, the theme ‘living elsewhere’ is evident in his impressions of the different places where he temporarily lived during his trip to Iran. This interdisciplinary research between literature and social psychology on the travelogue belongs to the field of comparative literature. Based on the sociopoetics of Alain Montandon, as a new theoretical approach, we analyzed the ways in which the author’s social representations on the theme of ‘living elsewhere’ inform the text through the Iranian stages.