34
PARTISAN REVIEW
recent preface, one that is already famous: "Communism restores to the
individual his inherent fertility."
What is true of individuals is equally true of peoples. There is
nothing I so much admire about the U .S.S.R. as I do the great care it
takes to respect and to protect the peculiarities of each small state com–
prised in the great Soviet Union,-a respect for the language, manners,
customs and culture peculiar to each. This flatly contradicts the reproach
that is commonly hurled at Communism and the U.S.S.R., when they are
accused of attempting to plane down, level and standardize all humanity
throughout the enormous reaches of Russia, while merely waiting for an
opportunity to do the same to the entire world.
It is as a man of letters that I speak; and I would speak here only
of culture and of literature; but it is, as a matter of fact, in literature
that this triumph of the general in the particular, of the human m the
individual, attains its fullest realizatioq. What could be more specifically
Spanish than Cervantes, more English than Shakespeare, more Russian
than Gogo!, more French than Rabelais or Voltaire--and at the same
time, what could be more universal, more deep-rootedly human, as I re–
marked more than thirty years ago? It is through a process of self-parti–
cularization that each of these great writers achieves a common and utter
humanity. It is,· accordingly, as a Frenchman that I speak; and I do not
believe that I could do better than to examine from the French point of
view the grave problem that we all are facing today.
First of all, I should like to cast a brief general glance over our
literature.
I was speaking of Rabelais a moment ago. He brings into French
letters an element of tumult that is not to be found after his time. I have
said that he is highly representative of our country. He is still more
representative of his age. Our literature immediately afterward grew calm,
temperate and wise. What impresses me as being that literature's outstand–
ing characteristic, all in all, is its tendency to detachment and self-perfec–
tion through an avoidance of the contingencies, accidents and material
difficulties of life.
I am referring here, needless to say, to our so called classic literature.
Authors, spectators or readers, and actors (by which I mean, the charac–
ters of novels or tragedies) are all alike free of economic hardship. To
speak of the well-to-do to the well-to-do has been the man of letter's busi–
ness; and if he himself does not happen to be so favored, there is no need
of our knowing about it. Nor is there any need of our bothering about
becoming acquainted with that poverty upon which the good fortune of
the lucky ones is based. Literature, pure thought are to be sheltered from
such troublesome questions as these. Racine's marvelous tragedies, for
