Poète en morceaux, morceaux de poète
This article focuses on the somatization of the creative process through the exploration of the ethnographic case of Tuareg poets. By analysing two corpora—the texts in which the poets describe themselves as “inspired” and as “prey to inspiration” and the informal descriptions given by “flesh and bl...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | fra |
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Laboratoire d'Ethnologie et de Sociologie Comparative
2019-07-01
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| Series: | Ateliers d'Anthropologie |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://journals.openedition.org/ateliers/11684 |
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| Summary: | This article focuses on the somatization of the creative process through the exploration of the ethnographic case of Tuareg poets. By analysing two corpora—the texts in which the poets describe themselves as “inspired” and as “prey to inspiration” and the informal descriptions given by “flesh and blood” poets of the creative process in moments of informal conversation and during my observation of the creative act—I was able to identify two distinguishing features. One concerns the body and the parts of the body involved in the creative process. As regards the former there is talk of “bodies in pieces, boiling, explosion” and emotional disorders that affect the internal organs such as the liver, heart, spleen and bowels. Moreover for “flesh-and-blood” poets, creation is essentially reflected in effects on the skin (e.g. goose bumps) and “small hairs and downs” (bristling), therefore on external organs. The second feature concerns the description of the creative act. While poetic texts focus on the moment before creation and are silent about post-creation, the informal descriptions operate in a symmetrical and inverted way, offering silence on inspiration and discourse on post-creation, on the “process of self-healing” brought by the creative process. To explain these differences, the following hypothesis is posited: describing oneself in a state of possession, as does the poet in this oral tradition, has two advantages, that of placing himself in an old tradition and that of staging a familiar state for his listeners, more familiar at least than inspiration. |
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| ISSN: | 2117-3869 |