A CLANDESTINE LITERATURE

Press, Volume LXXXI, Issue 24582, 2 June 1945, Page 5

A CLANDESTINE LITERATURE

By FRANCOIS FORESTIER, in the Manchester Guardian.” (Published by arrangement) During the four years of the German and Italian occupation of France the free world heard only at rare intervals of the secret literary activity of the country. The few works, however, that reached Britain made a great- impression. And now that the veil has been lifted it is not without interest to return to these leaflets and books, each one of which owed its appearance entirely to the courage of many men and women. They risked their lives, and their onJ y a ' m was the keeping alive of French thought and literature, the denying to the oppressors of the exof art and of conscience. To grasp the essential characteristics of the literature of the Resistance we must keep in mind the oppression and the atmosphere of anguish that covered all France. Freedom of thought is the one of all freedoms that Nazism most furiously contests, and nothing freely written could come into the open. No one knew what the morrow might bring. Friends disappeared, and we learned later of their death, sometimes under torture. Everyone |£ared this anguish. In spite of it the French worked hand in glove with one another, often without a weird spoken. And all found a strange and peaceful joy in this united struggle of the disarmed. Thought .■Ail tins is revealed in the literature of the Resistance, and first of all the determination to free the life of the sP'nj. Rebellion lives in all these clandestine works. Confronting the brutal force intent on destroying the country, here was the affirmation of the unconquerability of thought. And so this literature is bound up with the whole French tradition. Pascal wrote; “L’homme n’est qu’un roseau, mais e’est un roseau pensant.” (“Man is but a reed, but he is a thinking reed. ’) And this leads quite naturally to Aragon s cry: On aura beau rendre la nult plus sombre, Un prlsonnier peut faire une chanson. (In vain shall the night's darkness be made darker, A prisoner can still compose a song.) “Morrows of Song’’ This revolt, moreover, knew that it was victorious; there was no more doubt of the final victory of the spirit than of the rightness of the stand made. “Nous preparons les lendemains qui chantent” (“We are preparing morrpws of song”), said Peri when condemned to death. And in the "Ballade de celui qui chanta dans les, supplices,” the ballad of one who sang under torture, published in "L’Honneur des Poetes,” Aragon repeats: “Et s’ll etalt a refalre, Je referals ce chemln , . ’’ La voix qui monte des fers Parle pour les lendemaihs. ("And had It to be traced again, I should tread that same path ...” The voice ascending from the irons Spoke for the days to come.) Once more the poet was at one with the man of action. The poem did not aim at justifying somebody else’s action; the poem itself was action, was an aid to the final victory. And the intensity and violence of the emotion always give to the style a compression and a rapidity of ideas that are a characteristic of the literature of the Resistance. The essence of style lies in the rhythm of ideas and emotions, and there is therefore a Resistance style. Solidarity Through Suffering It is not fair to speak only of the poems, and the “Editions de Minuit,” in particular, gave us many works in prose in which we find the same characteristics. This sense of a vast human solidarity won precisely through suffering and struggle recurs everywhere. In “Le Cahier Noir” Francois Mauriac, using the pseudonym of “Forez,” spoke of “those who suffer persecution for justice’s sake, Christians or pagans, Communists or Jews,” and found their universal type in Christ —“for,” he wrote, “the resemblance to Christ comes directly from their sufferings; it is the spit in the face that proves the likeness.” And Paul Eluard defines their type in “Les Armes de la Douleur” (“The Weapons of Suffering”): Tousles hommes pour les hommes. La terre entiere et le temps. (All men for all mankind. The world over, through all ages.) Man’s grandeur in men’s suffering—that might be described as the theme of the Resistance literature. The end is not victory over oppression, but, beyond that victory, man’s regeneration. Vercors’ “Silence de la Mer” shows how .the Nazi > machine can destroy human feeling. The author tells of a German who has remained concerned for the eternal values, a spiritual child of John Sebastian Bach and of Goethe, And even he, at the end of the book, goes off, though in torment, to play his part in Nazi oppression. National and Universal This sense o£» humanity, bom of the struggle waged for respect for human personality, is joined with no disharmony to the feeling of the nation, for eternal France. The ravaged Mother Country, under material and moral oppression, is closer and dearer than ever to the hearts of all the French. Faced with the risk of losing the spiritual and moral values which are her'essence, each person has better realised how necessary she is to his daily life. Aragon gives at once the national and the universal note at the end of the “Ballade de celui qui chanta dans les supplices,” already mentioned: Une autre chanson francalse A ses levres est montee, Finissant la Marseillaise Pour toute I’humanitel (Another song of France Had mounted to his lips. Giving the Marseillaise Its close for all mankind.) 'There again' poetry rejoins reality, and we think of that man condemned to death who shouted to the execution squad on the point of firing, "Idiots! It is for you that I die!” And there is not only the afflrmatipn of liberty and of the world-wide

purpose of the sacrifice made. There is also the affirmation of the values of peace. Those who sigh for the simple pleasures of peace time do so because these too are an aim, which it may be necessary to neglect in the ferocity of the struggle, but which remains nevertheless the final aspiration. The fight is a necessity for the moment in order that the idea may triumph. “Tous mes amis sont morts,” a poem published in "L’Honneur des Poetes,” has this ending: Et 11 me faut aller En cachant ma grand’pelne Avoir courage et haine Jetes dans la melee Mais je voudrais bercer Comme les autres femme* Dans un berceau tresse Un enfant tout en larme* (And 1 must go along Hiding my great distress, With courage and with hate To throw into the fray. But would I. had a babe, As other women have, In a cradle by my side, To soothe amid its tears!) A Lasting Memorial of Resistance Thus the literary work is often a homage rendered to the man of action, as if at times the writer was fillet with regret at'having no. more direct part in the human drama around him. Homage such as the people of Paris sometimes rendered to the dead by laying flowers at the foot of notices pasted on the walls by the Germans giving the names of hostages shot. We find in the Resistance literature common sources of inspiration, deep shared emotions, and a style always compressed and vigorous. It is possible, therefore, to speak of a literature of the French Resistance. In it there is, indeed, a French literary epoch, one might say an epoch of universal literature. For the values defended in these works are values of all mankind. In ages to comd the Resistance will remain perhaps a unique chapter in human history. And alongside the historical narratives will be this literature that will reveal the deep-seated impulse of this moment, an instant prompting of conscience that does honour to mankind. The art these works reveal is a sure guarantee of their perennial life. They deserve honour for having made a lasting memorial of the Resistance, with its intensity, its nobility, and its universal human sympathy. .