FOR WHOM DOES ONE WRITE?
population had to be illiterate, and the only public of the writer was
limited to the college of other writers. It is inconceivable that one can
practice freedom of thought, write for a public which extends beyond
the restricted collectivity of specialists, and restrict oneself to describ–
ing the content of eternal values and a priori ideas. The good con–
science of the medieval clerk flowered on the death of literature.
However, in order for writers to preserve
this
happy conscience
it is not quite necessary that their public
be
reduced to an established
body of professionals. It is enough for them to be steeped
in
the
ideology of the privileged classes, to be completely permeated with
it, and to be unable even to conceive of any other. But
in
this case
their function is modified; they are no longer asked to be the
guardians
of dogma but merely not to disparage it.
As
a second
example of the adherence of writers to established ideology, one
might, I think, look back to the seventeenth century in France.
The secularization of the writer and his public was in process
of being completed in that age. It certainly had its origin in the
expansive force of the written thing, its monumental character, and
the appeal to freedom which is hidden away in any work of the
mind. But external circumstances also contributed to it-the spread
of education, the weakening of spiritual power, the appearance of
new ideologies which were expressly intended for temporal power.
However, secularization does not mean universalization. The writer's
public still remained strictly limited. Taken as a whole, it was called
society,
and
this
name designated a fraction of the court, the clergy,
the magistracy, and the rich bourgeoisie. Considered individually,
the reader was called a "gentleman" (
honnete homme)
and he exer–
cised a certain function of censorship which was called
taste.
In short,
he was both a member of the upper classes and a specialist.
If
he
criticized the writer, it was because he himself was able to write.
The public of Corneille, Pascal, and Descartes was Madame de
Sevigne, the Chevalier de Mere, Madame de Grignan, Madame de
Rambouillet, and Saint-Evremond. Today the public, in relation to
the writer, is in a state of passivity; it waits for ideas or a new art
form to be imposed upon it. It is the inert mass wherein the idea
will assume flesh. Its means of control are indirect and negative;
one cannot say that it gives its opinion; it simply buys or does not
buy the book; the relationship between author and reader is anal-
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