Studies in 20th Century Literature Volume 10 Issue 1 Article 6 9-1-1985 Paulhan Before Blanchot: From Terror to Letters Between the Wars Steven Ungar University of Iowa Follow this and additional works at: https://newprairiepress.org/sttcl Part of the French and Francophone Literature Commons This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License. Recommended Citation Ungar, Steven (1985) "Paulhan Before Blanchot: From Terror to Letters Between the Wars," Studies in 20th Century Literature: Vol. 10: Iss. 1, Article 6. https://doi.org/10.4148/2334-4415.1174 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by New Prairie Press. It has been accepted for inclusion in Studies in 20th Century Literature by an authorized administrator of New Prairie Press. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Paulhan Before Blanchot: From Terror to Letters Between the Wars Abstract Readers of Blanchot's writings make up at least three generations which, in turn, point to the relevance of locating his practices of modernity in relation to literary and social history. An initial inquiry sets Blanchot's early writings against those of Jean Paulhan in the 1936 period of the Popular Front, rather than in the early part of the Second World War, as is commonly supposed. By pushing the early writings back to the period between the wars, we can better understand the place of political concerns in Blanchot's subsequent narratives and essays. Keywords Blanchot, modernity, literary history, social history, Jean Paulhan, Popular Front, Second World War, politics This article is available in Studies in 20th Century Literature: https://newprairiepress.org/sttcl/vol10/iss1/6 Ungar: Paulhan Before Blanchot: From Terror to Letters Between the Wars PAULHAN BEFORE BLANCHOT: FROM TERROR TO LETTERS BETWEEN THE WARS STEVEN UNGAR University of Iowa La terreur n'est autre chose que la justice prompte, severe, inflexible.