whole man of his age and his contemporaries” (WL 137 ). Finally,
“literature would really be anthropological, in the full sense of the term”
(WL 138 ). “In short, literature is, in essence, the subjectivity of a society
in permanent evolution...To be sure,” he repeats, “this is utopian”
(WL 139 – 140 ).
“Situation of the Writer in 1947 ”“I am speaking about the French writer, the only one who has remained
a bourgeois” – so begins his concluding chapter. Addressing writers
who share his historical situation – which includes the violence, the
propaganda, the betrayals, the discrediting of trusted individuals and
institutions – in sum, the recent war and its immediate aftermath, Sartre
expands several of the conclusions drawn in his three previous chapters.
The first is the importance of “historialization,” namely, of facing
up to our situation with its limits and opportunities, its liabilities
for the past and its possibilities for the future. “All of a sudden we
found ourselvessituated...Historicity flowed in upon us...abitter
and ambiguous mixture of the absolute and the transitory.”^44
Historialization, then, “is not a matter of choosing one’s age but of
choosing oneself within it” (WL 195 ). Sartre has been presenting a
lesson in such moral “ownership” in this essay and the others in our
chapter, especially inAnti-Semite and Jew. He cites a genealogical
example of the various forms of exploitation and bad faith exhibited
by three generations of writers: before the Great War, between the
World Wars, and the present, post-war generation. This generational
reference will prove to be a favored argument that Sartre will repeat,
though the subjects change, inThe Communist and Peace,theCritique,
andThe Family Idiot. It reveals yet another, generational path “toward
the concrete.”
“The fact is that the purely imaginary andpraxisare not easily
reconciled” (WL 334 ,n. 25 ). Though directed against the surrealists’
“revolution,” this remark captures Sartre’s thought as well, especially his
politically “committed” writings following the liberation. References to
(^44) WL 175 ;Sitii: 243 , translating “historicite ́”as“historicity,” a technical term of Heideggerian
inspiration, instead of “history.” Seenote 42 above.
What is Literature? 259