Pudeur et splendeur de la prostitution chez Aimé Césaire et Zadi Zaourou

Abstract

In the Cahier d’un retour au pays natal, Césaire depicts prostitution in its abject and reprehensible dimension. Many stylistic processes, such as the reference to the biblical account of the fall, thus define a servile and shameful practice. The reason is that the poet subtly encodes the vice of the sex trade that he makes the equivalent of cultural assimilation. In contrast, Zadi Zaourou Bernard, Ivorian poet and disciple of Césaire, generally depicted prostitution under the aegis of admiration. Elegy for those bodies offered to the libidinal satisfaction of whoever is able to pay the price, some poems from his collection titled À Califourchon sur le dos d’un nuage raise and sublimate the prostitute.