360
PARTISAN REVIEW
The other tendency in European literature comes from the con–
tinent, especially from France and the countries occupied by the
Nazis. This springs from the literature written during the Occupation.
It is a literature of resistance, of hope, of faith, active and full of
energy, which is yet not imprisoned within the limited and material
aims of any political party. It is a poetry of writers such as Eluard,
Aragon, Jouve, Emmanuel, Seghers, and others who have integrated
their personal vision with an understanding of the absolutely essential
tasks confronting the poet as the most fully conscious member of soci–
ety. In these writers the gulf which separated the private, personal,
antisocial aspect of the poet and the political aspect seems to have been
bridged. The tendency is toward integration of the idea of the sepa–
rate personality with that ·of the social being.
As
a result of this
integration, these writers are not the intellectual by-products of poli–
tics. In other words, they aim at the expression of personality and the
freedom of the imagination, while they also recognize their respon–
sibility toward society. They create an ideal above politics, which
political
movement~
should seek to interpret in action.
An acute observer who has recently returned from France,
pointed out to me: "The French writers are still faithful to the prin–
ciples of the Spanish Republic." It is interesting that their close con–
tact with the Nazis should have had this result. In the postwar society
obses~ed
and overwhelmed with material problems, it may well be
that only thinkers and creative writers can keep steadily before the
world the idea that, besides the organization and distribution of ma–
terial resources, it is necessary to remember that we are human, with
all the limitations and all
th~
grandeur, the full social responsibility
and the necessity of freedom, which this implies.
