Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Preuve d'amour / Proof of Love


Je dédie ce message à Pasqualino Stracuzzi, modèle de W. von Gloeden, dont je suis tombé amoureux dans une autre vie.

This post is dedicated to Pasqualino Stracuzzi, a W. von Gloeden model I felt in love with in one of my previous lives.



"Preuve d'amour: je te sacrifie mon Imaginaire — comme on  faisait la dédicace d'une chevelure. Ainsi peut-être (du moins le dit-on) accéderai-je à l'"amour vrai". S'il y a quelque similitude entre la crise amoureuse et la cure analytique, je fais alors le deuil de qui j'aime, comme le patient fait le deuil de son analyste: je liquide mon transfert, et c'est ainsi, paraît-il que la cure et la crise finissent. Cependant, a-t-on fait remarquer, cette théorie oublie que l'analyste, lui aussi, doit faire le deuil de son patient (faute de quoi l'analyse risque d'être interminable); de même, l'être aimé — si je lui sacrifie un Imaginaire qui cependant l'empoissait —, l'être aimé doit entrer dans la mélancolie de sa propre déchéance. Et il faut, concurremment à mon propre deuil, prévoir et assumer cette mélancolie de l'autre, et j'en souffre, car je l'aime encore."

Roland Barthes, Fragments d'un discours amoureux, Paris, Editions du Seuil, 1977, p. 125.


My attempt to translate this text for my English-speaking readers...

"As a proof of love, I offer you the sacrifice of my Imagination -- just as ancient Greeks could offer the sacrifice of some of their hairs. Doing so, perhaps, at least it is said so, I could reach the "true love". If there is any similarity between a crisis of love and a psychoanalytical course of treatment, I should be mourning the one I love just as the patient mourns his (or her) analyst. I am getting rid of my transfer, such is the way, it seems, the course of treatment and the crisis of love are supposed to end up. However,  it has been noticed that such a theory forgets the fact that the analyst should also forget his (her) patient, otherwise psychoanalysis would be endless; in a similar way, my loved one, if I provide him with the sacrifice of my Imagination that was surrounding him, my loved one should feel the melancholy of his own vanishing condition. As an addition to my own grief, I should anticipate and take on myself the melancholy of the other one, and it causes to me a lot of pain, because I am still in love with him".

Roland Barthes, Fragments d'un discours amoureux, Paris, Editions du Seuil, 1977, p. 125.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thank you so very much for this wonderful blog! I am currently writing a chapter on Von Gloeden, Von Pluschow and Vincenzo Galdi for my PhD. I have found your blog to be extremely informative. Thanks :-)

Steve

Butterfly said...

Hi Steve,
Many thanks for your very kind message... I am happy you enjoy my blog... and... I am curious, indeed, about your current PhD project... All my best wishes for it... Von Gloeden, von Pluschow and Vincenzo Galdi deserve the attention of scholars and historians: they are part of the history of art, of photography, of queer studies and postcolonial studies.
Feel free to contact me through the email adress displayed on the right column of my blog if you need more information...
Thanks again for your feedback !