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The Christian Bain de Diane, or the Stakes of an Ambiguous Paratext

Amstutz, Patrick.Moore, Gerald.

diacritics, Volume 35, Number 1, Spring 2005, pp. 136-146 (Article)

Published by The Johns Hopkins University Press

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The ChrisTianBain dediane, Or The sTakes Of anambiguOus ParaTexT

PaTRiCK aMSTUTZ

upo t plcto,L b d lctd w cto o t pt o ctc.kloow w tll ct d, dpt t ot o wt c btll,

bvo, C, P, d st d t plc ollow, t o d

to have read this fth work remained conned to those already familiar with Klossow-ski the essayist (S mo proch, Mttos bblqus Hm), o t ovlt(L vocto suspu, Robrt, c sor). T dct lc tt cctzd trst reception ofL b d wold lt tl t d o t vt, dpt reedition in 1972 by the same publisher. During this time three important momentsd L b d resurface at the heart of the literary world: rst, in ctionalform, thanks to a subtle but explicit homage paid by Henri Thomas [L promotor];second, in the form of a penetrating commentary article by Michel Foucault [La prosedActon], and nally, at the hands of Ren Micha and Catherine Backs-Clment,key contributors to the issue that the reviewLarc ddctd to t wt. T dto

oL b d by Gallimard1

would signicantly relaunch interest in this workwhich, one comes increasingly to realize, is a major text in the Klossowskian oeuvre:offering a reection on the image and writing, it was Gilles Quinsat who would opent w pod o ctcl cpto.

a Ucrt itty

Quinsat emphasizes the series of tableaux that glazes L B d cco-dance with a circular descriptive movement, he says, from vision to commentary,

tttd to t dl wtot d o , d wc d t t wo o PKlossowski [95]. And if he borrows the term exegesis from Foucault to describethe genre of the work, he immediately associates it with that of narrative. A quarterof a century earlier, a commentary in the new nouvll rvu frs had alreadyunderlined the disconcerting character of Klossowskis book, by accentuating notonly the strangeness of its thematic, but also the difculties posed by the uncertainty ofits generic belonging (which is echoed by the absent mention of a paratext): the critic,hesitating, suggested somewhat confusedly a typological kinship with philosophicalcommentary, theological scholasticism, prose poetry, series of paintings, historical nar-rative and even the analysis of myths [Amer 144]. In fact, this mythological reverie,

neither an essay nor a narrative, is, from this point of view, a typically Klossowskian

1. Publsh th wht collcto, ths w to rw o th rct otorty of thuthor bl much wr crculto of th book. But t s ot s wll prpr s tsprcssor: msprts crp tht ot xst th Gllmr to.

crtcs 35.1: 13646

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diacritics / summer 2005 137

book, as Ian James has more recently reminded us [143]. L b d erudite commentary and narrative discourse so well that it entices its commentatorsinto the traps of scholarly, historical, and philological annotation. Yet this would beto forget, as Maurice Blanchot has observed [9294], that the written oeuvre of Klos-sowski belongs fully to the eld of literature, even more so than to those of philosophy,theology, or psychoanalysis.

When it comes to discerning the literariness of this literary object, which the dif-

ferent paratextual and intertextual stakes and levels underline, the principal difcultyconsists in not losing oneself in a mythological labyrinth and innumerable variants ofthe cult of Artemis, which was one of the most signicant, oldest, and popular cults ofthe Greco-Roman era and which plunges into a world on whose complexity historiansand philologists have insisted on many occasions. The study of Klossowskis sourcescould lead one through multiple disciplines (philology, mythography, psychoanalysis,the history of religions, history of art, French literatureall centuries cobbled together,and so on) to overly vast inquiries: the goddess of a thousand names assumes a prop-erly vertiginous semiotic richness, and the cult of Artemis, before being linked to thato apollo, ttc c to t ol w, d at, c lpd

the Asiatic gure of a Great Mother Goddess, whose polymastia testies to her immen-sity.2

What is essential to remember for the study ofL b d tt t twoprincipal gures of the goddess form a paradox, but cohabit her in a unique sign: 3 tvirgin huntress, pure and chaste, presides over fertility and fecundity. Her very polyo-nymy, more than just the proof of her antiquity and the mark of both her very distantorigin and her omnipotence, designates the multiplicity of her traits and at the sametime shows how these can coalesce in a single divinity. They both coalesce and, in thecase of Diana, who was assimilated early by the Romans and subsequently strongly de-ned by imperial poetry, acquire xity. Thus, through the intermediary of OvidsMt-

morphoss, a precise image of the goddess has remained xed for centuries. Somewhathumorously, Curtius rightly recalled that where European literature is concerned, theOvidian canon formed nothing less than a mythological Vulgate, a Whos Who omythology [55].

a Trtol Ttl

So determined by the Greco-Roman tradition, for a long time the rigid archeress cededher place to the young huntress, who would henceforth be garbed in a tunic shortened

2. O mght rtur, o ths pot, to th my works tht hv b ct to thssubjct, mogst rct xmpls of whch c b fou brf, populst troucto ththr chptr of Fros Frots-ducrouxs Lhomme-cerf et la femme araigne; and a rstscientic bibliography in Hlne Casanova-Robins Diane et Acton: clats et reets dun mythe la Renaissance et lge baroque. Ths works url th sprs but prl prsc ofth goss Wstr ltrtur rt, from tquty to th prst; s lso my forthcomgstuy o th subjct th jourlLatomus.it s th sprt of trtxtul pproch thtmy rst academic work on the d (ssrtto submtt to th Uvrsty of Frburg,1995) Le bain de Diane (ssrtto submtt to th Uvrsty of Prs-iii) ws lk toth stuy of sourcs: ot ccorc wth trmst, llusory, obsolt mthoology,whch mght v hv govr subsqut work, but rthr of th mtly ltrry typ ofprspctv of th work of Klossowsk.

3. These two faces, opposed but reunited in a single sign, strongly recall the gure of Janus,whch, rgubly, shrs ts tymologcl org wth d, s Klossowsk hmslf rclls hsclarications.

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to t , wt to, l acto, wo o lw. follow t dpc-tion propagated by Leochares, the most celebrated of all the Artemis gures is the onewho today is called by the royal name that so becomes her: d of Vrslls. Dianawas granted a home in the Louvre, on the ground oor of the Sully wing, in Room 17,the so-called Salle Caryatides, which houses Roman copies rendered from long-lostGreek works. His Roman replica from the second century BC, from a fourth-centuryBC original attributed to Leochares. Her right hand, middle nger outstretched, moves

to draw an arrow from the quiver that hangs from her shoulder; her chignon is lifted inthe Greek style, with a crescent in her hair. She carries her head with nobility, but seemshurried, in motion, dressed in a simple chiton (tunic) and himation (cloak) tied at theshoulders and waist. At her left hand is a young deer, the doe of Cerynee.4

Copod to t t t ptto o t odd dlcoto,

o olzto, o dv pt, wo ptv vo d t o

cruelty nor need of metamorphosis. And it is only since Callimachus [On the Bath ofPallas, v. 11214] and in Hellenic and later Roman versions that she would be takenby surprise in her bath.

A subject like the bath of Diana, so rich in visual detail, will not have failed top pt d clpto ov t ct, o to t pctto o tworks with memories of certain postures [BD2 7]. The success of this motif[BD2 7] in literature and the arts implies a very literal rst reading of the thematictitle, which, given with neither subtitle nor indication of genre, unsettles the would-bereader, insinuating doubt in regard to the mythological or erotic content of the subjecttt. kloow cold ot v ttld oo t wtot ow tt t wold

immediately lead to musings on numerous iconographic variations on the theme ofDiana in the bath or Dianas bath; for instance, it is clearly this thematic reading ofthe title that led Quinsat to speak of paintings when approaching the question of genre.From just the period of the Renaissance to the Classical Age, one can nd dozens and

dozens of examples illustrated by painters, includingto cite only a few in chronologi-cal orderVecchio, Zuccari, Clouet, Heintz the Elder, Rubens, Gentileschi, Brueghelthe Younger, Jordaens, Rembrandt, Vouet, van Cuylenburgh, Vermeer, van der Lisse,Cloypel, Loth, Watteau, and Bucher.

Yet it is not this Diana who was the most represented, but Diana the huntress, shewho thrusts herself, alone or with her nymphs, into the heart of savage territories, or,according to legend, she who punishes. Conning ourselves to the same period, an evengreater number of paintings of Diana and Acton could be cited, including paint-ings from, for example, the Italian school (140050, 150813), the Venetian school(fteenth century), Correggio (1535), Lucas Cranach (1540, four versions), Hans Hol-

bein the Younger (1543), the school of Fontainebleu (second quarter of the fteenthcentury), Titian (several versions in 1559; 1560, 1575, 1600), Veronese (1560, 1563),Joseph Heintz the Elder (1600), Hendrick van Balen (1608, in two versions; 1616, andapparently later versions), Jan Brueghel the Elder (1609, 1621, and an undated versionwith additional work by Franois le Moyne), Nicolas Poussin (1614), Jan Brueghelthe Younger (1620), Albani (1615, 1620, 1640, and other later, undated versions), Pe-ter Paul Rubens (1632, 1638, 1639, 1640), Rembrandt (1635, 1640, 1665), Jordaens(1640, and another, undated, version), Abraham van Cuylenburgh (1658), Cornelis van

4. Ths llustrous xmpl hs urgly mrk th works of mor sculptors, whchhave rivaled its classical elegance while changing nothing of the divine gure. The marbles ofth Fotblu school (1558, Louvr, orglly from th Chtu at: th sculptur wswrongly attributed to Jean Goujon), Girardon (ca. 1660, Versailles), Frmin (rst half of theeighteenth century, Louvre), and even Houdon (1780, LHermitage) testify to this.

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Poelenburgh (1667, and two undated versions), Dirck van der Lisse (1669, and twoundated versions), and Gabriel Blanchard (1672).

now, kloow clld oo td acto od th Bth,both of which would have foregrounded the gure of the goddess. In opting for the for-mulation in which the denite article focuses attention on the episode of the bath, notonly does he give the impression of concentrating, paradoxically (and thereby, for us,most curiously), on images and narratives that would have reduced such a moment

of sacred horror to the single vision of a bath of women [BD2 7], he also insists onwhat is, from the narratological point of view, a key moment and an essential aspectof this mythical scene, namely the metamorphosis. This uncertainty of identity and itsincommunicability are at the heart of Klossowskis reection, and it is in this sense thatthe title tricks us, as Marroni has suggested [72]: it trumps the horizon of expectationo wc t pp .

a Hrmutc Frotspc

T ttl ll t o tt tt t lltto tt ollow t ttl dvcseems to take the opposite stance, in so doing conferring on it the status of a false leg-end, in both senses of the term. Todays readers are unaware that the Gallimard editiondiffers from the old Pauvert edition in one important sense: the staging of the extratex-tl . T dto o tL b d in the white series reproduces exactlythe same text, unrevised since its publication in 1956. By contrast, the elements of thevisual paratext are wholly different. While the Gallimard edition places a drawing byt to l o t otpc,5 in the Pauvert edition, Diana is presented in hermost traditional of representations: the celebratedd of Vrslls.6

i ct, t cov p podc, o wt cod, t l d o t

statue: it is the gaze of the goddess that is in evidence here. On the inside of the work,four plates punctuate the reading in accordance with a rhythm and a tendency that seemto mimic the appearance and disposition of the goddess, which is to say, her theophany.All four are blue-tinted photographs, against a black background, of the statue takenfrom very different angles. The rst plate [BD1 8]presented with a broad blue bandacross the top of the page, designating it as the rst of the seriescaptures the statuein prole, from head to thighs: it is the deliberate movement of the archeress, and thenoble tilt of her head, that is emphasized here. The second plate [BD1 24] catches thegoddess almost full-frontally from the strong bend at her knees, emphasizing the great-ness and the severity of the huntress. Taken at three-quarters and almost her full height,

the third plate [BD1 104] shows her in full glory, upright, cloak tightly knotted at herwaist and the crescent, resplendent and emblematic on her headfully visible for therst time, whereas it was hidden in the three previous angles of view. Finally, the fourthphotograph [BD1 120]this time presented with a broad blue band at the bottom ofthe page, designating it as the lastallows us to see only the hindquarters of a hithertocarefully concealed deer and the nely curved calf of Diana, who turns her back to usand who seems, tunic to the wind, denitively to be taking her leave.

By this paratextual process, the Pauvert edition staged a theophany and thus alsostaged the problematic of vision. By accentuating the metamorphosis and outrage ofacto, t otpc o t glld dto dd t wt o Ovd -

5. KlossowskisM. Mx t Mll Glsst s ls rls d t acto.6. And this is not by any underhanded personal design: there were already three on this sub-

ject in existence at the time of publication (the rst dating from 1952; the second, from 1954, wasbought by fml collctor from Br; th thr, from 1955, ws cqur by Mrgus).

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text, reviewed and corrected by the commentary of Klossowski, and consequently re-inforces the effect of the false legend in the same waylike a mirror imageas doesthe exactly similar citation that Klossowski traced by hand at the bottom of the picture,t t oot o acto, t t t o t two d l o t do o t t.

With a man-deer and a woman-goddess on the same plane, this tableau returns to themyth its true dimension. Not that of a bath of women, the scene of voyeurism inwhich Diana has ultimately no more signicance than Suzanna; no longer so much the

celebrated motif of Dianas bath, from which, moreover, the gure of Acton oftendisappears, but that of the metamorphosis: the reection is once again centered on theot cottd t t odd.

a Pg epgrph Chrst Mtgrph

But the Ovidian subtext is also undermined on the inside of the text by the extract thatfaces it. Presented in the form of a liminal epigraph [BD2 7] (and not with a pleonasm, od to t ttc cpto o t told o t cpt, wt wc t

o cottl, d od to dt t o ot cptl p-), t p, dw o cocl p o tMtmorphoss, cowith precision, which raises the question, crucial in the debate regarding epiphanies, ofl d vo. ad Ovd tt, ct, t topo t ct t,

if one recalls that the legend of Acton, as it is presented by the august poet, rests onthree determining moments: (1) the vision; (2) the metamorphosis; (3) the laceration.Now, as indicated above, the artistic tradition of Antiquity insisted foremost, in themost primitive of times, on the murderous vengeance of Artemis: the goddess herselfvisiting death upon the hunter. It is only later, through a discourse that has been dilutedin line with the historical stages, as Reinach has judiciously explicated, that moralizing

explanations were deemed necessary and that, as has been shown, the episode of thet w vtd.

howv, to t pp t copod ctto, plcd t t d o t

xplct, whose capitalization and typographical spacing invite consideration as a me-tagraph:7 Great is Diana of the Ephesians! [BD2 97]. The text ofL b d thus framed at its opening by an extract from theMtmorphoss and a quotation fromSaint-Luc at its close. Such is the exclamation of the workers of Demetrius in theactsof th apostls: Magna Diana Ephesiorum [ novum Tstmtum, act apotolo-rum 19: 28; 34, Vulgate ed.;nw Tstmt, Acts of the Apostles 19: 28; 34].8

7. To reuse the term by which Perec qualies a closing quotation, and which recalls Genette[Gtt 139].

8. Gr st l d s phss! [nov Ttt, acts s ptrs 19: 28;34, trans. Segond]. The Protestant version, dating from the rst half of the twentieth century, isgv hr bcus t rws o th Vulgt thus prsrvs th Lt m of th mor tyto sgt th ephs goss, followg th xmpl, tg from th tth ctury,of abbot Glr, who ws vry fthful to th Vulgt, who ws us Vgourouxs fmousPolyglot Bbl [La Sainte Bible polyglotte]. Ths trslto ws probbly cosult by Klos-sowsk t St-Mxm: t llustrts ths vrss wth smll grvg of th grt poly-mastic goddess [7: 627]. By contrast, the modern versions from the second half of the twentiethctury (thrfor ukow to Klossowsk t th tm of hs ovtt th tg of Le bainde Diane)namely the so-called Jerusalem Bible (for which the nl ott th ippott were delivered to Rome in October 1955), the translation that is indebted to Jean Gros -jean for the collection of La Bibliothque de la Plaide (1971), and the ecumenical translationof th Bbl (TOB, from 1972)ll rtur to th goss hr orgl Grk m, artms. Forwhtvr rso, t s lmost crt tht Klossowsk, Ltst, ot borrow hs ctto from

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Thisisastrongindicationthatretrospectivelyinvitesthereadertodiscernbetween

thelinesofthismythologicalsubject,aboveandbeyondthepaganallusionsandcita-

tionsthatheorshehasuncoveredandcontemplated,boththeChristian intertext in

whichheorsheisimmersedandthetheologicalquestionsthatareheldinsuspension,

theechoesofwhichmakethemselvesheardfromtheonsetofthebook.ForaWesterner

raisedontheHolyScripturesandtheChurchFathersasmuchastheAncientGreeks,

doesntthestagintowhichActontransformshimselfsuggestadualimageryaswell,

eminentlypaganandChristianalike?Isntthefawndevotedtothehuntress(ArtemisElaphiaia)alsothesymboloftheChristiansthirstfortheTruth?Isitnotinthisway

thatthedoublesenseofthewordaltered(altr)intheprayerthatopensthebook

mustbeunderstood:quainsilesnomsdeDianeetdActonrestituentpouruninstant

leursenscachauxarbres,aucerfaltr,londe,miroirdelimpalpablenudit[thus

thenamesofDianaandActonrestore,foraninstant,theirhiddensensetothetrees,

tothealteredstag,tothewaterssurface,amirrorofimpalpablenudity][BD28]?Ac-

tonisasmuchchangedinformhereasheisthirstyfordivinity,asintheoft-repeated

Psalm41.9

1. In nem in intellectum liis Core.2. Quemadmodum desiderat cervus ad fontes aquarum:

ita desiderat anima mea ad te Deus.

3. Sitivit anima mea ad Deum fortem vivum:

quando veniam et apparebo ante faciem Dei?

Psalmorum liber 41:17[Vulgate]

1. Pour la n, intelligence des ls de Cor.

2. Comme le cerf soupire aprs les sources des eaux,

ainsi mon me soupire aprs vous, mon Dieu.

3. Mon me a eu soif du Dieu fort, vivant:quand viendrai-je, et paratrai-je devant la face de Dieu?

Psalm41:17[trad.Glaire]

1. [for the sons of Korah]

2. As the hart panteth after the water brooks,

so panteth my soul after thee, O God.

3. My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God:

when shall I come and appear before God?

Psalm42:27

Onewillperhapsbesurprisedbythislackofphilologicalrigor,sincetheHebrewtext10

andtheSeptuagent11mentionnotastag,butadoe.Butthisbarelycountsforeithera

any French translation, and that he translated it himself from the Vulgate. Elsewhere, the DTC

(Dictionnairedethologiecatholique), which is to students of classical theology what the Littr

is to students of French literature, gave the following explanation for this passage: The temple

of the great goddess Diana of Ephesus counted for nothing and the majesty of the goddess dimin-

ished to nothing. The town is in revolution, and the crowd, massed at the theatre, shouts for two

hours: Great is Diana of the Ephesians. This scene proves both the popular vogue for idolatry

in the pagan world to which Saint Paul brought the Gospel, and the anti-idolatrous character ofthe preaching of the apostle of the true God [DTC 4: 1019].

9. Psalm 42 in some modern versions.

10. The masculine aayl (deer) is contradicted by the gender of the verb and is certainly

due to a haplography. It should rather be read as ayylth (doe).

11. H laphos (feminine) and not ho laphos (masculine).

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readeroftheVulgateor,aboveall,apractitioner.Fortheversionimposedislessaliter-

alversionthanapopularandliturgicalpsalmody.ThepoemofJouve,Sicutcervus,12

provesasmuch.TheversionsungoverthecenturiesbythePsalterisasfollows:

XLI. 1. In nem intellectus liis Core.

2. Sicut cervus desiderat ad fontes aquarum its desiderat anima mea ad te

Deus.

3. Sitivit anima mea ad Deum vivum quando veniam et parebo antee faciemDei.

[Psalterium Romanum 10:91]

Thatsaid,theRomanPsalterwashardlyinuseinFrance,wheretheGallicanPsalter

[Psalterium Gallicanum S. Hieronymi]hadreplacedit.Thelatterreturnstothetransla-

tionoftheVulgate(quaemadmodum),sinceitisthede facto PsalteroftheVulgate. 13

Now,thereisnoreasonforFrenchmenlikeJouveandKlossowskitorefertothisLatin

version.TheexplicationofSicutcervusis,asonewouldsuspect,solelyliturgical:

Jouve and Klossowski do not recall a text but a mass song. During the ofces of the

preconciliarperiodthatinterestsus,namelythethirtiesandforties,theFrenchmadeuseoftheLatinpsalms:theyintonedinamonochordouscantillationwhenchanting

the antiphoniesand the tracts.The chantclearlydemandedaLatin thatwas easier

topronounce.Thequemadmodumwouldbecomesicut.Sicutcervusisatract

(tractus)[cf.Hesbert230].

Thequestion,whichbearsnotonthecitationofaparticulartext,butonmemo-

rized,popular,ChristianWesternculture,ismoreimportantthanitseems.Howwould

Klossowskinot rememberapsalmthathemusthavechantednumeroustimes, and

whichhecouldhaverereadeverytrimester,inscribedineveryeditionofMorsjour-

nal,Dieu vivant, whoseverytitleheborrows?

KlossowskisDiana,itfollows,isnotonlyrichiniconographicalvisionsandro-manticdescriptions,suchasthefabulousFlaubertianevocationoftheGreatGoddess

inThe Temptation of Saint Anthony, whereFlaubertleadsusnotintopolitediversion,

butintothefantastic,intotheologyandintohistory.14Here,thegoddessofathousand

epiclesesalsopullsbackherbowunderaChristiansky.InDiana,too,divinityistobe

consideredinitsheight and its depth, its breadth and its lengthandonemustalways

12. Klossowskis friend could not have based his version on the versions which, following

the Greek hon tropon, say quaemadmodum.

13. At the beginning of his preface to the Gallican Psalter, Jerome states that he initially

quickly corrected a Latin psalter during his stay in Rome, in order subsequently to produce amore elaborate version that would better correspond to the Greek text (the future so-called Gal-

lican Psalter), and nally to redo another, third version of the text from the Hebrew, the iuxta

Hebraeos.The psalters acquired the prexes Roman and Gallican several centuries later

because they were used in Rome and France respectively. The Roman Psalter has been identied

with the rst hurried correction of Hieronymus. What is astonishing in this confusion between

the three versions is that it was in the ninth century, with Alcuin, that the iuxtaHebraeosPsalter

was promoted, to the prot of the Gallican Psalter, which had only ever been a revision, based

on the Greek text of Hexaples, of an older Latin version. The Gallican became the Psalter of the

Vulgate. The Roman Psalter is no less well named, for all that, since it appears to have preserved

more faithfully than other ancient manuscripts the text of a primitive Latin version.

14. See also the appearance of the Christian deer in LalgendedeSaintJulienlHospitalier.Almost a century ago, Louis Bertrand had already shown how the extraordinary phantasmagoria

of Flaubert owed its wealth to innumerable skillful readings, notably by publishing in a second

appendix to his edition of the Tentationthe list of works that Flaubert had read or consulted for

the 1874 version, some of which would later inuence Klossowski (Gibbon, Thierry, Tertullian,

Augustine, Creuzer) [Flaubert 282303].

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satisfy these four dimensions: space being nothing other than the spirit of its fourmovements [BD2 20], as the narrator reminds us, following Saint Paul (epstul btPul postol ephsos 3: 18, Vulgate: ut possitis conprehendere cum omnibussanctis, quae sit latitudo, et longitudo, et sublimitas, et profundum).

In his epistle to the Ephesians, Paul draws on the enumeration reprised by Klos-sowski, who intends the totality of the universe in the philosophy of the Stoics to recallt vl ol o Ct t to o t Wold, to wo

source lies in the Love of the Sonthe Mysteryand which exceeds human under-standing. Thus, the knowledge that he mentions in Eph. 19: 3 does not culminate froman intellectual or philosophical understanding, but from a mystical knowledge shotto wt lov. i ct, t l tt o ow t o lovd d l

t; d a mo w o doct o ll ot to pd, Pl

forcefully to remind us of the immensity of the mystery of Incarnation (as, follow-ing him, does Saint Augustine: Hujus enim templum simul omnes et singuli templasumus [Cvts d 10: 3]. The temple of Christ is not that of Ephesus, beautiful as itmay be, but the heart of each man. To reach his public, Paul purposively makes use ofa procedure that Klossowski holds dear: taking his word to the opposing party, in order

to return it, like a glove, and subvert it: the apostle in fact twice utilizes the term of theGnostics, plenitude (to pleroma, pleroma), better to refute their errors on this point.And, since Augustine has been cited, should one not also muse on the subject of theCity of the wicked [BD2 2224], on the translation of the famous City of the impi-o o wc t ro ft p o vl occo Th Cty of Go?15

This imbrication of the visual and the linguistic, of resemblance and identity,which underlines the paratext so well, returns us not only to the Klossowskian theme ofthe simulacrum, but also to questions raised by the Church Fathers and neo-Platonistsalike. Is this one of the reasons for which, following a celebrated poet a century before,16 Klossowski sought to rejoin paganism and Christianity?

a Ukow Ptg

L b d interrogates human language and poses the question of the commu-cto o t pc o acto, wc t pc o lc. how c

linguistic signs communicate that which escapes their rigidity? Klossowskis discourse to d tl o dto. at t t t to p o ttpt,

by means of language, a communication with the reader on the subject of mythicalimages, a sentence, emphatically suspended right above this clearly expressed desire,

threatens the undertaking with failurewhence the circular structure in the paintingsof which Quinsat spoke. And if one might digress from this brief critical journey byreturning to an instant both prior to and in excess of linguistic codes, one may wellbe reminded of another, unknown pictorial example of Diana of Ephesus, exhibited

15. Klossowsk h trslt som prts ofThe City of God urg th wr; ths trsl-to s thought to hv b lost. a St august, morovr [d t], h lry pro-c lswhr, s th Vulgt [cf. Prov. 4: 14: n lctrs smts mporum, c tbplct mlorum v.) to syoymous us of mlus mpus [s lso Lmr].

16. How far is it from this to the age when Robert Canalis, comparing Notre-Dame dePrs to tht fmous tmpl of d t ephsus, so clbrt by th pgs of tquty,whch mmortlz erostrtus, fou th Gllc cthrl mor xcllt lgth, brth,hght, structur! [Hugo, Notre-Dame de Paris 123]. Hugo s quotg hr from RobrtClss hto llc.

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144

under the Consulate in the Salle de Diane.17 it tp tt t ptcl oothrough which visitors to the Louvre must obligatorily pass, should they desire to enterthe Salle Caryatides (where, as has been seen,d of Vrslls to od) o tSalle Venus de Milo. Emblazoned with three frescoes and four bas-reliefs, this spaceis entirely dedicated to Diana and structured in a wholly interesting manner. The threefrescoes are aesthetically mediocre. The rst, on one of the two lateral tympana, depicts

d Rturg to arc, Hppolytus Rsusctt by asculpus, d t cod

voHrculs Szg th Gol-Hor do from d. T td pt othe ceiling and in urgent need of restoration:Diana Begs Jupiter Not to Subject Her to

Mrrg [ lhym]illustrates the mythological trait brought forward by Callima-chus and recalled by Klossowski, namely the notion that the virginity of Artemis is nott t ocd.18

By contrast, the bas-reliefs are worthy of attention. The rst of these, by PierreCartellier (17371831), represents adc of Youg Sprtt Grls Hoour of d-, which shows only Dianas bust sculpted on the altar, with her quiver and crescent;in the second, Diana and her nymphs asking Vulcan for their hunting arms, by JosephEspercieux (17571840), Diana is a traditional young goddess amongst her compan-

ions, distinguishable from them only by her cloak, bow, and crescent; the third, adcof th amzos t th Fouto of th Tmpl of d t ephsus, by Jean-JosephFoucou (17391815), reproduces the Great Mother Goddess, polymastic and ripe forplc; d t ot t tdtol c o Orsts iphg StrppgTurc d of Sttur, by Pierre Petitot (17601840).

i t t l op, t l copoto otl l.

In fact the attributes of Diana and a classic episode from her legend are displayed ontwo sides that face one another, whereas on the lateral tympana, on the other two sides,the rst glory of Artemis is opposed to the nal and all-powerful glory of Diana ofEphesus, the two separated by centuries and a spiritual world. The composition of theop do ot, t, lv to wod t tt o kloow oo, wc with an evocation of the wild Virgin, the huntress Artemis, and ends with an invocationof the Great Diana of Ephesus.

a Grk Lght th Chrst nght

That which precedes thus follows. Klossowskis practice of a particular indeterminacyof sources partakes in a discontinuity that concomitantly underlines an approach ofol t towd t tcto o t dv d t . T ptt do

not, here, have the primary aim of elucidating the text so much as blurring its mean-ings, pointing to the enigma of that which is a thousand in one, different and alwaysdtcl.

And Klossowski wants to reinvigorate this portrait, not only by renewing, restitch-ing it with everything found deposited in these evidential texts, by merging indissolu-bly and simultaneously in the unique sign of Diana, Apollo, and Dionysus, but also bywv t p pt wt Ct pt tt tll pt. T l o t

17. Dated 180103 (Louvre). This room should not be confused with the other famous Salle d of whch Sthl spks th sco book of Le rouge et le noir [Chptr XXVii:

Les plus belles Places de lEglise 4: 605]. This latter gallery, also called the Galerie des Am-bssurs, whch thr ws v copy of th clg pt by abl Crrch the Farnese Gallery (in Rome), was completely destroyed in the re of the Tuileries in 1871.

18. The rst painting is by Lonor Mrime (17571836), the second by Etienne-Barth-lmy Grr (17891849), th thr by Prr-Pul Pruho (17371823).

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blind aede, Homer, is in this way also that of the rst psalmist, David, cantor of the can-ticles of Israel; that of Callimachus, loyalist poet and man of letters; also that of Paul,converted apostle and man of faith; nally, that of Ovid and also that of Augustine. Inthe wake of Karl Rahners research, Foucault sensed this admirably:

d pcts vc u mo trmr tr ls ux t ls hommspour s mfstr acto. Pr so corps r l mo l d

s s thoph t spr acto l sr t lspor ss pos-sr l ss. il vt lmgto t l mror d. et lultmmtmorphos acto l trsform ps crf chr ms u boucmpur, frtqu t lcusmt proftur. Comm s, s l complctdu divin avec le sacrilge, quelque chose de la lumire grecque sillonnait enclr l fo l ut chrt. [327]

d mks pct wth mo trmry btw th gos m orr to ppr to acto. Wth ts rl boy, th mo ltd- hr thophy sprs acto wth th sr th foolsh hop

to possss th goss. it bcoms actos mgto ds mrror.And Actons nal metamorphosis does not transform him into a stag that istor prt, but to lw, frtc, lghtfully profg got. s f, the complicity of the divine with sacrilege, some of the light of Greece ashedthrough th pths of th Chrst ght. [PA 125, translation modied]

Trslt by Grl Moor

WORKS CITED

Amer, Henry. Pierre Klossowski: Le Bain de Diane.L ouvll rvu frs 49(1957): 144.

Blanchot, Maurice. Le rire des dieux.L ouvll rvu frs 26 (1965): 9294;ptd Lmt. Paris: Gallimard, 1971. 19396.

Cllc.Hyms epgrms, Lycophro, artus. rv. d. T. a. W. m dG. R. Mair. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1977.

Casanova-Robin, Hlne. Diane et Acton: clats et reets dun mythe la Renais-sc t lg broqu. Paris/Geneva: Honor Champion/Slatkine, 2003.

Ct, et rot. L lttrtur urop t l Moy ag lt. T. JBrjoux. Paris: PUF, 1956.

dctor Tholog Ctholqu. Ed. A. Vacant and E. Mangenot. Paris: Letouzeyet An, 1911. [DTC]

flt, gtv. La premire Tentation de Saint Antoine (1849-1856). uddwork published by Louis Bertrand: Eugne Fasquelle Editeur, 1908.

Foucault, Michel. The Prose of Acton. Mchl Foucult: asthtcs, Mtho epstmology. Vol. 2 ofesstl Works of Foucult, 19541984. 12335. Ed.James D. Faubion. Trans. Robert Hurley et al. New York: Penguin, 2000. Trans. ofLa prose dActon.L ouvll rvu frs 135 (mars 1964).

Frontisi-Ducroux, Franoise. Lhomm-crf t l fmm rg. Paris: Gallimard,2003.

gtt, gd. Suls. Paris: Seuil, 1987.Hesbert, Dom Ren-Jean, ed. atphol Mssrum Sxtuplx. Bruxelles: Vromant,

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Hugo, Victor.notr-dm Prs. Trans. Alban Krailsheimer. Oxford: Oxford UP,1999. T. onotr-dm Prs, Ls trvllurs l mr. Ed. Jacques See-bacher and Yves Gohin. Paris: Gallimard, 1975.

J, i. Prr Klossowsk: Th Prsstc of nm. Oxford: Legenda, 2000.Jouve, Pierre-Jean. Sicut servus. Suur sg. Paris: Gallimard, 1966. 194.kloow, P.L b d. Paris: Jean-Jacques Pauvert, 1956. [BD 1].________.L b d. Paris: Gallimard, 1980. [BD 2]________.M. Mx t Mll Glsst s ls rls d t acto. Pcl dw,

1973. T, Po collcto.

Lamirande, Emilien. Ciuitas dei. augustus-Lxco. Basel: Schwabe, 1992. 1:95870.

mo, aldo. Klossowsk. Pescara: Tracce, 1990.Micha, Ren, and Catherine Backs-Clment, eds.Larc 43 (winter 1970).

L Psutr rom t ls utrs cs psutrs lts. Critical ed. Dom Robert We-ber. Rome: Libreria VaticanaAbbaye Saint-Jrme, 1953. 10: 91.

Quinsat, Gilles. Diane de prol. L ouvll rvu frs 338 (mars 1981): 95.T ll tt ptd ecrt mrg. By Gilles Quinsat. Seyssel: Champ

Vallon. 8795.L St Bbl polyglott. Ed. F. Vigouroux. 8 vols. Paris: Roger et Chernoviz, 1900

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Paris: Gallimard, 1947.Thomas, Henri. 1961.L promotor. Paris: Gallimard, 1987.

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