Anarchism and literature in France, 1870--1900.
Item
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Title
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Anarchism and literature in France, 1870--1900.
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Identifier
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AAI3008854
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identifier
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3008854
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Creator
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Nematollahy, Ali.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Julia Przybos
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Date
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2001
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Literature, Comparative | Literature, Romance
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Abstract
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Anarchism and Literature in France, 1870--1900, is an examination of the relations between the writers of the fin de siecle and the anarchist movement in France. As opposed to other ideologies and doctrines, anarchism stems from the writings of several thinkers (Proudhon, Bakunin, Kropotkin, Stirner) and radically rejects the notion of authority. It affirms the unique, the singular and the exceptional, while simultaneously celebrating the creativity of the masses.;I seek to contextualize the fascination that anarchism exercised on the writers of the Symbolist generation in its historical and literary framework: the repression of the Paris Commune and the demise of the traditional notions of revolution, with the attendant transformation of the Romantic concept of le peuple; the rise of the Boulangist phenomenon, which, for the first time in modern history pushed the working-class towards the Right, with anti-Semitism as its binding agent; the disappearance of the homme de lettres and the birth of the writer, dependent on the marketplace for his livelihood; the Symbolist theories of the uniqueness and autonomy of the work of art (and the artist), which found an echo in the most individualist branches of anarchism. All of these elements concurred to give rise to the poete revolte, at once committed and contemptuous, rebelling against the philistine bourgeois and the Third Republic. But, given the plural nature of anarchism, the role it played in the literature of the fin de siecle must be studied in the case of each individual. Each writer took elements from it that were in accordance with his own aesthetic practice: Georges Darien, Hugues Rebell, Adolphe Rette, Stuart Merrill, Laurent Tailhade, Zo d'Axa, and Jules Valles have little in common, except an anarchic sensibility, be it in the affirmation of the uniqueness of the poet, or the demand for the unification of art and life, or the aesthete's pose for shocking the bourgeois.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
