2020
Catherine Alès et al., « « El Dorado revisitado » », HAL-SHS : géographie, ID : 10670/1.5z15ng
El Dorado revisitedAbstractThroughout the 16th century, vain and perilous expeditions headed into inland South America, between the Andes and the Guianas, in search of the “Land of gold”, which became eventually a legendary “golden” em- peror’s sanctuary. The Dorado myth, which still thrives in various forms, is analyzed in relation to the history of ideas, advances in cartography, and the permanence of these imaginary geographies in literature. Till the 19th century, map-makers, their intentions sometimes guided by geopolitical ambitions, indicated a huge lake in the unexplored area between the Orinoco and Amazon Rivers, the Parime lacus with, on its banks, Manoa, a fabulous city with walls of gold. Forgotten during the Enlightenment and the period of scientific explorations, these fantastic geographies re- emerged in texts of a utopian genre and of the Ibero American “magical realism”. Such fictive geographies, whether imagined by Voltaire, Conan Doyle or Alejo Carpentier, describe a territory where signs are reversed and the logic of a rite of passage can be expressed. Certainly, once the enigma posed by the communication between the Orinoco and Amazon basins with the recognition of the Cassiquiare Chanel has been solved, there remains still unknown –and this leads us into the second half of the 20th century– the Orinoco’s headwaters and the last Terra incognita of the Guiana shield, the interfluvial area of the watershed.Key-words: El Dorado, Imaginary Geographies, Parime Lacus, Literature, Magic Realism, History, Exploration of the Guianas, Geography, Cartography, Cassiquiare, Orinoco, Amazon, South America