La pratique de la nage et ses représentations : un frein à l’épanouissement de la nature aquatique de l’homme ? Une lecture sociopoétique de Schwimmen, une fiction autobiographique de John von Düffel

The unprecedented development of swimming in the second half of the twentieth century has contributed greatly to overcoming the obstacles associated with aquatic immersion. In a short autobiographical account entitled Schwimmen, John von Düffel tells how, in the context of the widespread development of swimming, he gradually developed a second nature of an aquatic type. This experience leads him to shake up common representations and contemporary practices: relaxation, conviviality, sports performance, competition are, according to Düffel, only the transposition of terrestrial activities into water; revealing the persistence of man’s attachment to land, they paradoxically act as an obstacle to the blossoming of his amphibious nature, even as they create the conditions for the acclimatization of the greatest number to the aquatic universe. In contrast, Düffel’s privileged relationship with water is a source of re-enchantment at a time when the trivialization of immersion plays against connivance and symbiosis with the liquid element.