QUART DE JOUR

The "dissidents" of the Pacific by Michel Magnant

"Free man, you will always cherish the sea"( Baudelaire )

Why this invocation? Yet the sea is as bewitching because of the immense beauty of its swells and its endless horizons, as it is fearsome because of its immoderation. Why this fascination? Is it just an unknown and perilous expanse to cross to exploit its resources or unknown islands and continents? Or is it to discover new, foreign or enigmatic peoples, to reveal unknown aspects of nature and mankind? Or is it to
to escape from civilised, conformist, routine belonging, and so exercise the human freedom of dissent and the aspiration to a broader horizon?

These were some of the intertwined impulses that threw the 19th-century flotillas into the great challenge of the Pacific Ocean, that of the artists and writers - travellers Paul Gauguin, Victor Segalen, Herman Melville, Jack London and Robert-

Louis Stevenson, united by the same spirit of regeneration and discovery, as much as inspired by the same intimate attitude of dissidence. Michel Magnant, professor of philosophy, lover of the sea and literature,
will provide his answers.

Information: maisonecrivainsdelamer@orange.fr or www.maisonecrivainsdelamer.fr.