REGARDING THE POLITICIZATION OF ARTISTIC AND LITERARY AVANT-GARDES
A certain number of literary movements have attempted to unite aesthetic revolution and political revolution, thus seeking to radically transform, and jointly, art and the real world. However, this double project has taken on a significantly different meaning from one avant-garde to another. In order to analyze the different modalities this project could take, it appears necessary to question the relationship between aesthetic revolution and political revolution. To what extent do the new aesthetic conceptions of avant-gardes condition, or not, the will to work for a radical transformation of society and, at the same time, adhesion to a revolutionary movement? The study of the link between these two projects within the different avant-gardes of the late 19th and 20th centuries can allow us to highlight all the originality of the surrealist approach.
At the end of the 19th century, the symbolist movement can appear as a literary avant-garde that politicizes itself by joining a political avant-garde. Indeed, a certain number of symbolists, Laurent Tailhade, Paul Adam, Adolphe Retté, or even Viélé Griffin, supported and sometimes even participated in the anarchist movement[1]. Laurent Tailhade illustrates this commitment of the symbolists in favor of the libertarian ideal. Tailhade became enthusiastic about the anarchist attacks of 1893-1894. He collaborated with Le Libertaire, took part in public meetings, and did not hesitate to confront nationalists in duels (he came out crippled from an "encounter" with Barrès). In 1901, an article published in Le Libertaire, which called for the assassination of Tsar Nicholas II visiting France, earned him a sentence of one year in prison and a thousand francs fine. However, after fifteen years of participation and support for anarchist activities, in 1905, he renounced his libertarian ideas and joined nationalist circles. Like that of Tailhade, the symbolists' commitment was superficial and ephemeral: after having, for a few years, put their pen at the service of anarchism, the symbolists turned toward clearly conservative positions. Moreover, this commitment was not intended to be collective, but only concerned certain among them. The explanation for the superficial character of their revolutionary commitment is to be sought in the very conception of their aesthetic revolution. If the adoption of "free verse" brings about a true aesthetic revolution, this revolution is limited exclusively to the aesthetic domain. It does not bring about an upheaval in their vision of the world, it does not carry a political dimension. Their revolt remains above all literary, not bringing about a political revolt allowing them to identify durably with a revolutionary political movement. Thus, symbolism resembles the formal avant-garde that limits itself to the invention of original procedures within the artistic and literary domain. The movement does not carry a total change in the vision of the world, but only of the poetic vision.
In 1970, Philippe Sollers, animator of the journal Tel Quel, writes: "One cannot make an economic and social revolution without making at the same time, and at a different level, a symbolic revolution[2]." In this avant-garde's project, aesthetic revolution and political revolution seem linked again. To the aesthetic uncertainties of the first three years of the journal succeeds, from 1963, a proper aesthetic project, named "textualism" or "textual writing[3]." At its creation in 1960, the journal proclaims loudly its apoliticism and intends to distinguish itself from Sartrean commitment. But five years later, the journal politicizes itself and begins its rapprochement with the Communist Party[4]. From then on, the journal's animators strive to introduce a political dimension to their aesthetic project. Tel Quel intends to be as subversive in the literary domain as Marxist theory has been in the economic domain. Thus, in the literary field, the journal's action presents itself as the equivalent of the Marxist critique of capitalist economy. Tel Quel engages in an acrobatic theoretical demonstration aimed at making its literary conceptions compatible with Marxism. "Textual writing" is then presented as a form of "semantic materialism" and the journal's animators attempt to demonstrate that the relationship between infrastructure and superstructure exists in the field of language[5]. When in 1971 the journal definitively distances itself from the communist party to rally to the Maoist revolution, its literary conceptions evolve to be more in conformity with the new political orientation. Then opens the era of "textual Maoism," illustrated by the publication of new texts in agreement with Mao Zedong thought[6]. A decade later, while Tel Quel definitively distances itself from the revolutionary movement, the ambition to link aesthetic revolution and political revolution is finally abandoned. In 1981, Sollers declares:
I was in that utopia, which I no longer have at all now, that the revolution of language and the revolution in action are things that must absolutely march in step. It's an idea that comes from the formalists or the surrealists in a certain way. It's the illusion of European avant-gardes in the 20th century, which must be completely abandoned[7].
This will to link the two projects appears very circumstantial, it is stated at the moment when the journal wishes to engage alongside revolutionary movements, it is then abandoned when political commitment disappears. From then on, the link that Tel Quel defends between the two projects appears rather as the justification of their very recent will to approach the Communist Party. Their aesthetic conceptions do not condition their adhesion to a revolutionary movement, quite the contrary, it is rather their political commitment that influences these.
It is doubtless within the Situationist International that one finds most clearly this will to link aesthetic revolution and political revolution. In 1967, Raoul Vaneigem writes: "Reconstruct life, rebuild the world: one same will[8]." The situationists fully claim the surrealist heritage while refusing to repeat its errors and notably the recuperation by bourgeois society that surrealist art experienced[9]. Desire, passion, play are the elements that allow revolutionizing art so that artistic creation is the work of all. If the project is very similar, the modalities of realizing it differ however. The surrealists' aesthetic revolution is based on poetry and painting, while for the situationists, it passes through the irruption of aesthetics into daily life through the practice of "dérives," the construction of "situations," a new urbanism... But if the situationists have avoided the pitfall of recuperation that surrealist art experienced, is it not, as Susan Rubin Suleiman points out, at the price of abandoning even the aesthetic component of their initial double project[10]? The evolution of the movement shows, indeed, that the situationists have devoted the essential of their activity to an exclusively political reflection. And, in 1972, the dissolution of the Situationist International means the total abandonment of the political project.
By giving themselves as watchwords to "transform the world' (Marx) and to "change life" (Rimbaud), the surrealists intend, in their turn, to closely link artistic revolution and poetic revolution. However, the link between aesthetic revolution and political revolution takes, among them, a very particular dimension. Indeed, their aesthetic positions integrate an ethical dimension that conditions their political commitment.
One of the first axioms of surrealism is the radical refusal of rationalism. This reason, which has triumphed in the field of Western thought, has, according to the surrealists, led to the occultation of the sensible world. Now it is this sensible world that must be at the very origin of artistic creation by allowing the free expression of imagination, dream, the unconscious... The rupture is all the more radical as to this refusal of one of the basic principles of all Western thought is joined the adoption of an aesthetics carrying values little prized by early 20th century society. Surrealist aesthetics is based on a rehabilitation of desire, passions, the marvelous. Thus, it is characterized by an ethical component that clashes with the values of Western societies, and notably French society of the early 20th century. By valuing freedom, desire, the marvelous, surrealist ethics is at the antipodes of bourgeois values centered on a morality of work and interest, on the enjoyment of material goods, on order and discipline, on Christian asceticism... The rupture is radical with the thought and dominant values of Western societies.
Another element of this rupture concerns the very conception of the artistic function. Indeed, the surrealists also call into question the traditional vision of artistic creation. The will to desacralization of art, already present among the Dadaists, is accompanied by a will to "democratization" of the poetic and artistic function. By relying on Lautréamont: "poetry must be made by all. Not by one," the surrealists affirm that art is not reserved for the artist invested with a particular genius, a gift inaccessible to common mortals. Each man, each woman possesses creative virtualities hitherto inhibited by society. Automatic writing, collage must allow each to express their creative faculties. According to André Breton,
the proper of surrealism is to have proclaimed the total equality of all normal human beings before the subliminal message, to have constantly maintained that this message constitutes a common heritage of which it is up to each to claim their share and which must at all costs cease shortly to be held as the apanage of a few. All men, I say, all women deserve to convince themselves of the absolute possibility for themselves to resort at will to this language [...]. It is indispensable for this that they return to the narrow, erroneous conception of such particular vocations, whether they be artistic or mediumistic[11].
For Max Ernst:
It's all over, that goes without saying, with the old conception of "talent," finished too the divinization of the hero. As every "normal' man (and not only "the artist") carries, as we know, an inexhaustible reserve of images buried in his subconscious, it's a matter of courage or the liberation procedure employed (such as "automatic writing") to bring to light, through explorations in the unconscious, unfalsified finds, "images' that a control has not discolored[12].
Surrealist ethics which claims an art accessible to all, a democratized artistic creation, can hardly find its place within a society that values hierarchy, elitism. An ethics that intends to rehabilitate desire, dream, passions cannot be satisfied with a society that values rationalism, Christian asceticism. Their vision of the world, which opposes bourgeois morality, leads the surrealists to the search for a society more in conformity with their aspirations and draws them toward revolutionary movements. Thus, surrealist aesthetics, by integrating an ethical dimension, appears as determining in the politicization of the movement's members.
However, this will to transform the world and change life has not been without ambiguities. Automatic writing, collage, considered as the means to favor an art "made by all, not by one," have been somewhat neglected over the years. And surrealist art has resulted, like the others, in the consecration of a few great artists and poets. This consecration, obtained from official artistic instances, has gone hand in hand with a deliberate occultation of the revolutionary potential of the surrealist message[13]. While remaining very attached to their original utopia, the surrealists seem however to have accommodated themselves very well to this consecration. In 1948, André Breton returns to this desire qualified as "juvenile" which continues however to animate him but which had, formerly, drawn the wrath of André Gide before the prospect of "putting genius within everyone's reach[14]":
Automatic writing, with all that it entails in its orbit, you cannot know how dear it remains to me. I believe however that nothing has been less understood. That will come... [...] In favor of automatism as I envisaged it at the start, I will still maintain that as a method of expression put within everyone's reach, and of which nothing was kept secret, it remains what has been invented best to confound literary and artistic vanity, of which not a day passes that we do not see it take an even more revolting turn[15].
As for the concretization of their will to transform the world, it has not been without disillusionments. Their commitment alongside the Communist Party[16] is, very quickly, a source of disenchantment: the surrealists discover that the abhorred values quickly reappear within the communist movement, that the freedom they claim is hardly compatible with the totalitarian system being set up in the East. They then approach the anarchist movement but, if the libertarian ideal better responds to their expectations, the political activism of anarchists in the fifties is hardly mobilizing anymore. If the movement has never abandoned its will to transform the world, the revolutionary component of surrealism has, over the years, great difficulty finding its place within a revolutionary movement. Their revolutionary commitments then give way to mobilizations in favor of the defense of human rights: denunciation, from 1934, of fascist and Nazi perils, of repression against dissidents from communist countries but also participation in the struggle in favor of conscientious objection and for Algeria's independence.
The surrealists' political journey thus translates all the difficulty of wanting both to "transform the world" and "change life."
UNIVERSITY OF FRANCHE-COMTÉ
1 — . Cf. Jean Maitron, Histoire du mouvement anarchiste en France : Des origines à 1914, Maspéro, 1983, t. I, 485 p., Thierry Maricourt, Histoire de la littérature libertaire en France, Albin Michel, 1990, 491 p. ; M. Monférier, « symbolisme et anarchie », Revue d'histoire littéraire de la France, n° 65, avril-juin 1965, pp. 233-238 ; Christophe Charle, Naissance des intellectuels : 1880-1890, Minuit, 1990, 272 p. ; Carole Reynaud Paligot, Les Temps Nouveaux 1895-1914. Un hebdomadaire anarchiste au tournant du siècle, Mauléon, Acratie, 1993, 123 p. ; Cf. l'introduction de Jean-Pierre Rioux à la réédition du Joujou patriotique de Remy de Gourmont, J.-J. Pauvert, 1967, 128 p. ↩
2 — . Philippe Sollers, « Réponses », Tel Quel, n° 43, 1970, p. 73. ↩
3 — . Cf. Philippe Forest, Histoire de Tel Quel 1960-1982, Seuil, 1995, 645 p., p. 215. Louis Pinto, « Tel Quel. Au sujet des intellectuels de parodie », Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales, n° 89, septembre 1991, pp. 66-77. ↩
4 — . Cf. François Hourmant, Le Désenchantement des clercs. Figures de l'intellectuel dans l'après-Mai 68, Rennes, Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 1997, 260 p. et « Les volte-face politiques de Tel Quel 1968-1978 », Vingtième siècle. Revue d'histoire, n° 51, juillet-septembre 1996, pp. 112-128. ↩
5 — . Ph. Forest, ibid., pp. 315-316. ↩
6 — . Ibid., pp. 379-484. ↩
7 — . Tel Quel, n° 88, 1981, p. 13. ↩
8 — . Traité de savoir-vivre à l'usage des jeunes générations, Gallimard, 1967, p. 94. ↩
9 — . Cf. Susan Rubinb Suleiman, « Les avant-gardes et la répétition : l'Internationale situationniste et Tel Quel face au surréalisme », Les Cahiers de l'IHTP, « Sociabilités intellectuelles », n° 2, mars 1992, pp. 197-205. ↩
10 — . Ibid., p. 202. ↩
11 — . « Le message automatique », Minotaure, n° 4, décembre 1933, p. 62. ↩
12 — . « Qu'est-ce que le surréalisme ? », Ecritures, 1934, Gallimard, 1970, p. 229. ↩
13 — . Ainsi, malgré son titre « La Révolution surréaliste », présentée au Centre Georges Pompidou au printemps 2002, a occulté la dimension révolutionnaire du surréalisme. ↩
14 — . A. Breton, Combat, 16 décembre 1948. ↩
15 — . A. Breton, interviewé par A. Patri, Paru, mars 1948, repris dans Entretiens, Gallimard, 1973, pp. 262-263. ↩
16 — . Contrairement à ce qui est souvent affirmé, les surréalistes n'ont pas été exclus du Parti communiste. Début 1927, certains d'entre eux décident d'adhérer mais leur période militante est de courte durée. Breton est très déçu par les réunions de sa cellule. De plus, il est violemment pris à partie par un militant qui l'accuse de passer son temps en oisif et en noceur dans les cafés parisiens. Au bout de quelques semaines, découragé, il cesse de participer aux réunions. Il ne renouvelle pas son adhésion l'année suivante. En 1933, il est exclu de l'Association des écrivains et des artistes révolutionnaires, animée par les communistes. Cf. Carole Reynaud Paligot, Parcours politique des surréalistes 1919-1969, CNRS éditions, 1995, 339 p. ↩