JeanPaul_Sartre_JeanPaul_Sartre_Basic_Writing

Writing281insubstantial whim and will not be raised to ontological dignity insofar as it will not beincarnate in a work whose absolute nihilism—without being the overriding goal 5 —isits immediate and necessary condition. Thus, while the subject of a literature that isposed as its own end is yet undetermined, one thing is certain: its autonomy is notexperienced at this time as the necessary status of a social activity, nor even as theresult of the writer’s permanent struggle against the powers that be; it is an affirmationof art as the only absolute, hence the condemnation of all practical enterprise—aimingat any objective, at a given date, in a given society. Absolute-art produces its owntemporality—as an inner temporalization imposed by the work on the public. But therefusal to serve, sustained by the young authors’ internalized, aristocratic disgust forbourgeois activities, immediately rises above practical temporality. In other words,there are only eternal works, and those that are not eternal at their inception, even ifdistinguished by some purely aesthetic quality, can in no way be called works of art.But while this notion of absolute-art is generated by the interference of the aristocraticimperative with several other imperatives we have enumerated, while it is basedindirectly on contempt, or perhaps because it is, the work-to-be-written does notseem a gift to the new generation and does not demand any generosity of the artist.Absolute negation in these youngsters comes, in fact, from the bourgeois certaintythat generosity is a mirage, a booby trap invented by the nobility for its conquerors;they looked for and found interested motives behind generous actions. Besides, towhom would the work be given? The only real public is the bourgeoisie, who want aclass literature. To be given a disinterested work, they would at least have to imagineaccepting it, which is by definition impossible. And why give anything to men whenyou have contempt for them all, and when the novel or poem expresses absolutenegation, its author’s regret at belonging to humanity?The fact is that the work is not a donation, it is not addressed to anyone, and whenMusset gives his sufferings to readers, these young puritans are horrified by hisstriptease. This is the same literary current that will soon account for the success ofthe idea, now outdated, that literature is a form of prostitution. At that moment,turning its negation against itself, literature would condemn itself because it wouldeventually be read. No, the author is not generous; what he seeks in art, and in therigorous impersonality of the work, is his personal salvation. His refusal to be manwill become objectified in the inhumanity of absolute-art: the inaccessible beauty ofhis product will turn the negative into something positive.Thus the notion of the panoramic overview takes on a third meaning generated bythe other two. In the eighteenth century, the writer must survey society because—in