The Engaged and the Enraged

The distinction between the commitment of the engaged writer and the outcry of the enraged writer is not merely verbal. Engaged literature—the term is reminiscent of numerous, now dated discussions among French intellectuals in the early postwar years, particularly of Jean-Paul Sartre’s essay What Is Literature?, in which he asked writers to become engaged, without calling for any specific political affiliation. Enragemeat—this mood found its most harmless expression ten years later among the “angry young men,” as for example the playwright John Osborne. Today, they are no longer young, and not all of them remain angry.

Perhaps the distinction can be made clear by naming names. Engaged—Brecht; enraged — Celine. Engaged — Malraux; enraged — Mailer. Engaged—Sartre; enraged—Genet. That four of these six writers are French is no accident. The French intellectual tradition of involvement in public life dates back to the Enlightenment, to such pola...