A fresh reading of Balzac's La Duchesse de Langeais (1834) reveals that the geography of African exploration, and of Andalusia as a liminal space between Europe and Africa, are mapped onto the geography of Paris. Class boundaries make the conquest of the aristocratic faubourg Saint-Germain as problematic as the exploration of central Africa. Spatiality is crucial in understanding this novella, which can be read as secondary travel writing: it is partly a response to a travel narrative by René Caillié published in 1830. Useful here are critical approaches to travel narratives such as Mary Louise Pratt's notions of the "contact zone" and the "anti-conquest" narrative. Caillié's real-life experience sheds light on Montriveau, whose voyage is one of pathos, suffering, and epistemological failure. Balzac's novella thus explores a failed or incomplete mapping project. This reflects what Fredric Jameson calls the failed "cognitive mapping" underlying the European attempt to reach a fully global world-view.

中文翻译：

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巴尔扎克与非洲探险者：圣日耳曼堡的认知图

重新阅读巴尔扎克的《朗格瓦公爵夫人》（La Duchesse de Langeais，1834年）后，发现非洲勘探地理以及安达卢西亚作为欧洲和非洲之间的界限空间被映射到了巴黎地理上。阶级界限使对贵族圣日耳曼的占领成为对中非探险的难题。在理解这本中篇小说时，空间性至关重要，可以理解为中篇小说：它部分是对RenéCaillié于1830年发表的关于旅行叙事的回应。这里有用的一些重要的旅行叙事方法，例如玛丽·路易斯·普拉特（Mary Louise Pratt）的“接触区”和“反征服”叙事。Caillié的现实生活经历为Montriveau带来了启示，他的航行是悲惨，痛苦和认识论失败之一。巴尔扎克 因此，中篇小说探索了一个失败或不完整的制图项目。这反映了弗雷德里克·詹姆森（Fredric Jameson）所说的失败的“认知图”，这是欧洲试图达到完全全球性世界观的基础。