Abstract

The Unpopularity of Anatole France

Ever since army officer Alfred Dreyfus' case, which dragged writer Anatole France into the political arena, his socialism had made him abhorrent to all conservative Frenchmen, but at the time of his death he had survived long enough to encounter another sort of unpopularity, which will seem surprising to those who think of him as a consecrated name and an already established classic of modern French literature. He had lived long enough to become the bête noire of all the smart young men who are building up a French literature basely largely upon maudlin Catholicism, eccentric syntax and typography, and a strange combination of homosexualism and sport-mysticism. These aggressive youths, led by a generation masticating the cud of stale controversies dating from the Dreyfus affair and the separation of church and state, constitute today a well-organized opposition to Anatole France and all that he represented. By some mental process, known only to themselves, these young prodigies adored the tub-thumping jingoism of French novelist Auguste Maurice Barrés, the socialist platitudes of Anatole France excited their contempt.