On Sartre’s View Of Existential Literature

Let-Paul Sartre, was the most striking French thought cultural characters in twentiethcentury. He had high performers not only in philosophy, but also in the theory of literatureand art fields. If his literature works reflected his philosophy thought, then literary theoryand literary criticism as a flexible speculative activities and there was even closerrelationship with his philosophy thought.“What is literature?” fully and directly showed his literary thought of existentialism.This paper related Sartre’s concrete literature criticism, illustrated Sartre’s existentialinterpretation of literature system and evaluated it objectively, based on this treatise. Morethan once Sartre has stated the permeable relationship between philosophy and literature,he put philosophy as a target, and literature as a tool. While, most of the time,“means”which can achieved “target” was more important than “target” itself.“Freedom”and“intervention”two core ideas of Sartre’s literature theory.Literature itself was a way toexpress freedom, author ultilized words to express freedom, so words had a vagueorientation. When reading those articles, readers redefined “freedom” along with its ownsubjective consciousness, at the same time, made works a second life. After the creation ofauthor and recreation of readers, freedom was completely expressed, that is the “qualifiedliterature” in Sartre’s eyes. Sartre’s famous “intervention” theory was discussed in thispaper. Sartre thought literature works should not purely be created for art. Writers shouldrevealed social life by writing. In fact, Sartre’s “intervention” theory was the literaryexpression of his “action” philosophy.In addition, put forward several rough ideas onSartre’s existential literary view. For Sartre’s literary theory, we should not blindly agreewith or abandon, but to absorb the positive and beneficial factors within it, which canguide literature practice better.In China, Sartre’s existential study was regarded as “beast” in1950s and1960s, andregarded as forefront subject from1980s-1090s, which through a long and bumpy journey.At present, China has not only the strong strength of translating Sartre’s treatises, but alsoan academic research team on Sartre. This paper aimed to study the meaning of Sartre’sexistential literary theory and explore the potential value of Sartre’s literary theory, inorder to provide Sartre’s theory study with supplement and hope to inspire the concreteliterature practice.