Variety
Benjamin Fondane and the
Experience of the Bridge
As the translator of Benjamin
Fondane's study of Baudelaire (cf.
page 410 of this. issue) , .I am r?–
sponsible for mtroducmg th.Is
French essayist-now a refugee m
South Amedca-to readers of the
PARTISAN
REVIEW.
Introductions
are generally governed by the
rules of courtesy, and if in making
certain criticisms of Fondane's
piece by way of introducing him
I violate these rules, my justifica–
tion lies in the political tradition
of the
PARTISAN.
For good or
ill,
modern politics is a
sclwol of
rudeness-not
understanding this,
many of the intellectuals were pro–
voked by Sidney Hook's strictures
on Kenneth Burke and Jacques
Maritain, and of course by the
tone of most of the articles in the
"Failure of Nerve'' series. The
exquisite aristocratic tact which
subtly specified the circumstances
under which things could be called
by their right names is today some–
thing we know about largely from
books, not from anybody's public
behavior. And we have to face
the political fact that the right–
wing in literature, which justifies
itself as "aristocratic", is con–
cerned under all circumstances to
call all things by their
wrong
names.
But to return to Benjamin Fon–
dane. His study of
Baudelair~
so fine in many ways-seems to
me striking evidence of the fact
that the ability to grasp the ex–
perience of a poet is not neces–
sarily bound up with the capacity
to make correct generalizations
about it. Fondane, a disciple of
464
Shestov and Kierkegaard, has un–
questionably a real flair for the
profound,
a liking for and a sym–
pathy with experiences of a shat–
terin"' and fundamental character.
Of this rather exceptional
taste
he
tries to make a normative prin–
ciple. Inevitably he falls irito
self-contradiction. After telling us
that the poet has no "mission",
and that art is not a means to any
definite end, and charging T. S.
Eliot with not "daring" to admit
this, Fondane says: "Art, Baude–
laire knew, he was the first to know
it, is only
faking,
the best mea?s
we have, the instrument best suit–
ed for casting a veil over the ter–
rors of the abyss. Neither Kant,
Hegel nor Schopenhauer told us
this." Had they indeed told us
this, I am of the opinion that they
would not at the same time have
denied that art has a "mission",
or is a means to any definite end.
The philosophers who came before
Nietzsche at least did not
try
to
contradict themselves.
As a matter of fact it was Nietz–
sche himself who fathered the view
that art is the best means we have
for casting a veil over the terrors
of the abyss. I would object to this
position even if its proponents
from Nietzsche to Fondane, were
able to hold to it consistently–
naturally it is no argument in its
favor that they are not. The poli–
tics with which Nietzsche but–
tressed the position are out and
out reactionary. Who to-day is so
simple-minded as not to know
which forces stand to profit by the
veiling, rather than the revealing,
of real relations? But it might be
argued that the abyss-in Fon-
