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- Title
THE BAROQUE AND THE EXOTIC TROPES OF A PROTEAN CONCEPT.
- Authors
NIȚA, CONSTANȚA
- Abstract
Our paper resorts to three of the obsessive symbols of the literary Baroque, the pearl, the peacock and the mask. All of them establish an explicit link between Baroque and exoticism. They are as well centres of semiotic and stylistic irradiation. Much before the Baroque was crystallised in the concepts of literary criticism, the Baroque French poets associated the Orient with these three exotic tropes of their imaginary. The features shared by the Baroque and by exoticism are: the dialectics of abundance and insufficiency; duplicity; exportability; permeability and utopianism. The pearl, discovered on exotic lands, evokes in its symbolism the very origin of the term "baroque" and the presence of the crisis. On one hand, the pearl act as the very embodiment of a Baroque persistence in suffering, an inner suffering surrounded by outside iridescence. On the other hand the pearl coagulates figures of speech, stylemes of brightness, such as: the oxymoron, the hyperbolas, the metaphors, the symbols, the concettis. The peacock, as a symbol of ostentatiousness and of the exaggerated effort to seduce, patronises the hedonism of expression and the stylistic luxuriance of the Baroque. The peacock is par excellency the exotic bird. It overbids in order to get to luxury and magnificence. Actually, "abundentia stili" is a typical Baroque tendency. Through the mask, the tensions present in the Baroque self may be maintained, their un-resolvability is achieved. The mask is the patron of ambiguity, it nourishes the tensions between essences and appearances. It is consensual with the Baroque vocation for disguise, for dissimulation and illusion. All these three baroque tropes have in common the fact that they are both symbolic presences and they generate superincumbent figures of speech.
- Subjects
BAROQUE literature; 17TH century European literature; EXOTICISM in literature; FRENCH poets; UTOPIAS in literature
- Publication
Annals of the University of Oradea, Romanian Language & Literature Fascicule / Analele Universităţii din Oradea. Seria Filologie, Fascicula Limba şi Literatura Română, 2014, Vol 21, p130
- ISSN
1224-7588
- Publication type
Article