Abstract
The session begins with a tribute to George Steiner, who died on February 3 2020 in the UK : a genuinely European scholar who, fleeing anti-Semitism, settled in France, the USA, England and Switzerland. He represents the continuity of a line of European intellectuals that includes Thomas Mann, James Joyce and, closer to home, Umberto Eco. Among his most important works, Après Babel. Une poétique du dire et de la traduction (1975) and his lectures delivered at the Collège de France in 1992, published under the title Origine et poétique.
This first lesson, conceived as an apostille to the opening lecture, takes a look back at José-Maria de Heredia's poem " Les Conquérants " (1869), which served as the opening and main theme of the opening lecture. The focus is on the public reception of the sonnet's final image, that of new stars. In 1905, shortly after the author's death, critic Gaston Deschamps paid tribute to Heredia in Le Temps. Following this tribute, a naval officer challenged the astronomical relevance of the final image, and there followed a rather burlesque succession of letters, either defending or attacking Heredia, which Deschamps relayed in the newspaper. These letters must be taken seriously, as they testify to a problem of understanding, all the more acute as the image of the new stars met with phenomenal success : we have many testimonies to this. The aim of the lecture is to explore the origins of this image and its potential, by browsing through what might be called the library of new stars. One of the oldest shelves in this library contains Virgil's Georgics : here, the different, foreign star is the sign of a foreign sky, i.e. a foreign land. It is also the negative sign ofhubris, whereas in Heredia's work, its value is positive.
