At Home in the Museum: Pierre Loti, Self-Collected, Self-Possessed

Authors

Anthony Purdy, The University of Western OntarioFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2-1-2007

Volume

7

Issue

3

Journal

Image [&] Narrative

Abstract

Suspended between metaphor and metonymy, between the spatial logic of the collection and the scenario of the personal that was the life of its owner, Pierre Loti's house in Rochefort participates in the same transvestism as his novels. This article explores the house museum as a heterotopia in which the synchronous time of the collection is open to disruption by the souvenir's reference to past events, to the biography of the collector.