Années noires
Pierre Drieu la Rochelle is a profoundly contradictory figure in literary history, whose work has often been received through ideological lens. He was a prolific author of plays, novellas, poems, novels, essays, and journalistic pieces. Biographically, it is noteworthy that, on the one hand, from the 1930s onward, Drieu became an influential advocate of French fascism and a protagonist of intellectual collaboration. On the other hand, he married a Jewish woman in his first marriage, never ceased to flirt with communism, and used his connections to the German embassy to protect close friends like Jean Paulhan from persecution. His aesthetic merit is undisputed, although the evaluation of his work is invariably intertwined with his political and moral compromise. Drieu's work reveals a deep inner conflict and disorientation, characterized by alternating self-loathing, hatred of others, and war fantasies.
Andreas Geisler's scientific project, documented in the monograph L'écrivain à cheval: Pierre Drieu la Rochelle's narrative work between modernity, anti-modernity and postmodernity (Brill Fink, 2024) aims at a comprehensive rereading of Pierre Drieu la Rochelle's prose. The central concern of the work is to establish a carefully balanced relationship between Drieu la Rochelle's work and the man, thereby revealing those layers that have thus far remained hidden behind the dominance of the author's biographical and political context. Geisler's work was completed at the University of Bonn. The impetus for the work arose in a seminar at the University of Heidelberg, where Catherine Péant sparked Geisler's interest in the contradictory literary output of the années noires awakened. Paul Geyer, the supervisor of the project in Bonn, also established contact with Jean-François Louette at the Sorbonne.
This article is written in German and can be found at https://rentree.de. Automatic translations into English and French are available. English, French.