French Literary Fascism

This is the first book to provide a sustained critical analysis of the literary-aesthetic dimension of French fascism--the peculiarly French form of what Walter Benjamin called the fascist "aestheticizing of politics." Focusing first on three important extremist nationalist writers at the turn of the century and then on five of the most visible fascist intellectuals in France in the 1930s, David Carroll shows how both traditional and modern concepts of art figure in the elaboration of fascist ideology--and in the presentation of fascism as an art of the political.


Carroll is concerned with the internal relations of fascism and literature--how literary fascists conceived of politics as a technique for fashioning a unified people and transforming the disparate elements of society into an organic, totalized work of art. He explores the logic of such aestheticizing, as well as the assumptions about art, literature, and culture at the basis of both the aesthetics and politics of French literary fascists. His book reveals how not only classical humanism but also modern aesthetics that defend the autonomy and integrity of literature became models for xenophobic forms of nationalism and extreme "cultural" forms of anti-Semitism. A cogent analysis of the ideological function of literature and culture in fascism, this work helps us see the ramifications of thinking of literature or art as the truth or essence of politics.

Acknowledgments Pt. 1The Fathers of French Literary Fascism 1The Use and Abuse of Culture: Maurice Barres and the Ideology of the Collective Subject The Cult of the Self Cultural and Racial Typologies The Aesthetics of the Collective Subject 2The Beautiful Community: The Fascist Legacy of Charles Peguy Aesthetic Socialism Antimodernism and the Spiritualization of History Nation, Culture, Race 3The Nation as Artwork: Charles Maurras and the Classical Origins of French Literary Fascism Antiromantic Organicism Integral Nationalism, Anti-Semitism, and the Aesthetic Power of the Monarch Pt. 2Literary Fascists 4Fascism as Aesthetic Experience: Robert Brasillach and the Politics of Literature Nationalism, Fascism, and the Defense of Literature Fascist Joy and the Aestheticizing of Experience 5The Fascist Imagined Community: The Myths of Europe and Totalitarian Man in Drieu la Rochelle The Modernist Political Imagination The Ideal of Total Art The Fascist Imagination and the Myth of Europe Aesthetic Ideals and Collaborationist Politics Apocalyptic Fictions 6Literary Fascism and the Problem of Gender: The Aesthetics of the Body in Drieu la Rochelle The Gender(s) of Fascism: Sartre, Adorno, Theweleit The Fascist Aesthetics of the Body The Trouble with Gender and the Ambivalence of Desire 7Literary Anti-Semitism: The Poetics of Race in Drumont and Celine The Aesthetic Totalization of the Other Style and Race The Politics of Language and the Poetics of Race 8The Art of Anti-Semitic Rage: Lucien Rebatet's Aesthetics of Violence Aesthetic Sensibility and Anti-Semitism The Aesthetic Final Solution 9A Literary Fascism beyond Fascism: Thierry Maulnier and the Ideology of Culture Classicism, Humanism, Fascism Tragedy, Violence, and the National Revolution The Spiritual Revolution and the Ideal of Culture Afterword: Literary Fascism and the Case of Paul de Man Notes to the Chapters Index