LE VOYAGE RÉTROSPECTIF DE FRANZ HELLENS – UNE AFFAIRE DE GOÛT ?
FRANZ HELLENS 'RETROSPECTIVE TRIP - A TASTE CASE?

Summary/Abstract: Inspired by a journey taken in North Africa in 1925, Le Voyage rétrospectif (The Retrospective Voyage) by Belgian author Franz Hellens presents a series of representative pictures of the visited areas. However, these travel notes only partially belong to the genre of travel literature popular in late 19th and early 20th century. Therefore, the originality of this work as well as differences between it and similar texts written before or during the writer’s time are worth exploring. The hypothesis of the present study is that the aesthetic dimension of Hellens’ text renders it remarkable. This is visible in a series of narrative and descriptive sequences characterized by aesthetic taste and judgment, or, more generally, the aesthetic attitude of the writer-traveler towards the world he portrays. In order to identify and analyze the components of this aesthetic network, the paper will first focus on how the confrontation between two different socio-cultural worlds (of the traveler and of the visited countries) allows the identification of certain anthropologic, ethnographic and historical constants for the representation of North Africa in the European literature of early 20th century. Next, the concept of representation will be shifted towards the artistic dimension by analyzing how perception and description employ visual and musical filters that help interpret the reality as a work of art. Finally, the paper will analyze the components of the writer’s aesthetic taste and judgment, which assign art criticism value to these travel notes.

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