India as spectacle: The representation of India in French theater.
Item
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Title
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India as spectacle: The representation of India in French theater.
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Identifier
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AAI9720115
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identifier
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9720115
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Creator
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Mehta, Binita.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Francesca Canade Sautman
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Date
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1997
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Literature, Romance | Theater | History, European
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Abstract
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The focus of the dissertation is to examine how India was used by French eighteenth- nineteenth- and twentieth-century French dramatists, both to express their misgivings toward their own society as well as to establish India's aesthetic relationship to their oeuvre. Although the issues of imperialism and colonialism are not central to the study, I argue that even though France was not a major political player in India in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, nevertheless, French literature has appropriated an image of India consonant with the colonial project. After a historical overview of representation of India in European, specifically French literature, from antiquity onwards, I analyze how India was "displayed" along with other British and French colonies at nineteenth-century international exhibitions and World Fairs. I also study the image of an exotic India in nineteenth century Orientalist operas and ballets, discuss issues of intercultural theater and theatrical exchanges between Western and non-Western cultures, and proceed with an analysis of the representation of India in four plays and one ballet.;Through a close study of the plays I show how India became a spectacle, both literally and figuratively, on the French stage, and how French dramatists reproduced certain stock images of India such as the burning widow, the dancing girl and the untouchable in their plays. These figures portrayed India as a land of contrasts, of enormous wealth and abject poverty, of the exotic and the monstrous. I show that these contradictions persist in contemporary representations of India in France's print and visual culture. Articles on the "Festival de l'Inde" held in France in 1985 demonstrate that to the French India embodied the spectacular, was synonymous with excess, and a place where they could "find" themselves. In the final pages I try and move beyond issues of colonialism and cultural appropriation to address broader questions of intercultural performance within the West as well as between non-Western cultures and the West. I suggest that cultural exchange need not be a utopian concept, or result in a homogenization of cultural difference, but could also lead to dynamic and creative collaborations between cultures.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
