G45.2791G46.2316
(same as G45.2791) COURSE
DESCRIPTION With the conclusion of World War II in
1945, the givens of political and intellectual life in France were completely
changed. France was more exhausted than triumphant; it had participated only
marginally in its own liberation and the trauma of defeat and occupation was to
cast a pall on the immediate post-war period. Moreover, the short-lived
euphoria of V-E Day quickly yielded to the frustrations of deep political
divisions compounded by the realization that France had been reduced to the
status of second-rate power in an increasingly Manichean world in which the
Cold War sharply opposed the US and the USSR.
Sartre wrote: “La guerre a pris
fin dans l’indifférence et dans l’angoisse…la paix n’a pas commencé.” If political realities were uprooted in
this “drôle de paix,” French
intellectual life also saw major changes. Many of the great voices of the
interwar period were either gone (Romain Rolland, Giraudoux) or fading (Gide);
others, compromised by their activities under the Occupation, were shunned
(Drieu La Rochelle, Céline) or executed (Brasillach). On the heels of the Liberation, it was
Existentialism that took center stage. Sartre and Camus suddenly became not
only the leading intellectual figures, but the maîtres à penser of an entire generation, active in the political
arena as in the major philosophical debates, world figures who popularized the
concept of committed literature. The success of Existentialism was astounding;
it went far beyond the normal ramifications of complex philosophical debates.
In what has come to be known as “l’âge
d’or de Saint-Germain des Prés,” Existentialism became a fad, a way of
life, a rebellion and a battle cry, in addition to being a serious literary
expression in the form of novels, plays, and essays concerned with the human
condition as lived in the chaos of the mid-century, of a world which, after
Auschwitz and Hiroshima, could never be the same again. It did not matter that Sartre and Camus
had already produced major works before and during the War (La Nausée, L’Être et le Néant, Huis clos,
Les Mouches, L’Étranger, Le Mythe de Sisyphe, Le Malentendu), that
“Existentialism” was never really a group and that even the non-group consisted
principally of only four writers (Sartre, Camus, Simone de Beauvoir, and
Maurice Merleau-Ponty), that no second generation of Existentialist writers ever
materialized, that Camus in fact vehemently refused to be classified as an
Existentialist, that the one-time literary and political allies, Sartre and
Camus, grew apart and broke publicly in a resounding quarrel in 1952: despite
these numerous inconsistencies, intellectual life in France in the post-War
decade was dominated by Existentialism and the writers associated with it. Primary texts to be read for seminar
discussion will include several major works by Sartre and Camus and books by de
Beauvoir, Edgar Morin, and Raymond Aron. Additional readings will include
articles by Sartre, Camus, and de Beauvoir, and critical texts by a variety of
authors, among them François,Mauriac, Jean Daniel, Tony Judt, Ariane Chebel
d’Appollonia, Marguerite Duras, M-A Burnier,
Régis Debray, Claude Roy. Through these works, we will study
attitudes towards the War, the defeat, the Occupation, Communism, the role of
the Soviet Union as well as the US, the Cold War, the French political scene.
The basic notions of Sartrean Existentialism will be examined in L’Existentialisme est un humanisme and
the call for “une littérature engagée”
will be evaluated in Qu’est-ce que la
littérature. Camus’s political essays, Actuelles
and L’Homme révolté will reflect the
constant concern with the problems of justice. Morin’s Autocritique will be read as an exemplary document of the
temptation of Communism and the disillusioned rejection of it. Aron’s L’Opium des intellectuels provides the
counterpoint to the temptation of Marxism. In the novels and plays by Sartre
and Camus (Le Sursis, Les Mains sales, La
Peste) we will see reflected the great issues of the period, while de
Beauvoir’s Les Mandarins provides a
fascinating fictional perspective of those turbulent years as lived by the
principal authors themselves. The additional readings as well as seminar
reports will complement the primary books assigned. The course will deal with these texts
both as works of literature and as “committed” works in a specific
socio-political situation, in the absence of any form/content hierarchy. A term paper and a final examination
will be required. In addition, students will be asked to contribute a brief
oral report to the seminar. The seminar will be taught in French. The following books have been ordered
from the NYU Book Center: Sartre: L’Existentialisme est un humanisme, Nagel. Sartre: Qu’est-ce que la littérature, Gallimard/Idées Sartre: Le Sursis, Folio Sartre: Les Mains sales, Folio Camus: Actuelles, Gallimard/Idées Camus: L’Homme révolté, Folio Camus: La Peste, Folio de Beauvoir: Les Mandarins, Folio Morin: Autocritique, Seuil Aron: L’Opium des intellectuels (edition to be determined) |
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