What Is Literature?

1948 book by Jean Paul Sartre

What Is Literature? , also published as Literature and Existentialism,) is an essay by French philosopher and novelist Jean Paul Sartre, published by Gallimard in 1948. Initially published in freestanding essays across French literary journals Les Temps modernes, Situations I and Situations II, essays "What Is Writing?" and "Why Write?" were translated into English and published by the Paris based literary journal Transition 1948. The English translation by Bernard Frechtman was published in 1950.

Sartre distinguishes the art of writing prose from other forms of art such as poetry, painting, or a musical composition. In the latter group, the viewer subjects the piece of art to the viewer's own interpretation, and the work becomes an object. Meanwhile, prose remains attached to the social, political and historical contexts of the writer, and prose becomes a signifier rather than an object. Sartre describes the poet as "outside of language." The poet refuses to utilize language, and instead manipulates and disassociates words from the structure of language in an expression to change his internal economy of the world. Contrarily, prose is utilitarian. The speaker interpolates, persuades, insinuates a particular aim. The prose writer recognizes the loaded nature of words, and deliberately works within the framework of language with resolute will. Sartre rails against aesthetic purism, saying that style determines the value of prose, but beauty is not its main intent. Sartre proclaims, "our great writers wanted to destroy, to edify, to demonstrate." Sartre stresses that the underlying purpose of prose is to communicate meaning, despite the fallibility of its cause over time, because great prose is directly linked to the writer's external economy. Sartre considers it a mistake to divorce literature from the author, and accuses his critics of only appreciating literature after its authors are dead; thus supposedly removed from history, their work can be consumed without being considered "committed", or inherently political or philosophical.

Sartre believes that prose communicates ideas, and is an appeal by the individual to feel essential from the world. The prose writer reveals or discloses his experience of the world to others. This contrasts with the poet, who performs acts of perceiving rather than disclosing. The art of writing is deeply linked to freedom and thus ventures into the fields of politics and democracy. The poet frees himself by disassociation, and the prose writer fulfills a duty to utilize language for the end of a conceived free society.