Christophe Charle

Champ littéraire et champ du pouvoir : les écrivains et l'Affaire Dreyfus

To understand the political engagements of writers in the Dreyfus case, one must consider their situation in the existing fields of literature and politics. The dominatedpole of the literary camp (the poetic avant-garde) was mainly pro-Dreyfus. The dominant pole, on the other hand, which was composed of the French Academy and the writers who surrounded it, was anti-Dreyfus. The middle sector (novelists and those who wrote for the boulevard theater) was equally divided, the naturalist movement for example. Knowledge of the political roles played by these different groups is essential to the understanding of their choices. The avant-garde initiated the struggle in order to assert the purist values which it upheld in literature. The Academy, on the other hand, reacted in order to protect the traditional cultural order. Those who were rejected by the dominant pole used their audience in the political arena to launch the affaire, Zola for example. Those who would approach the dominant pole remained neutral or were anti-Dreyfus. On the whole, the case shows that intellectuals were dominated in the political arena and could not, in the end, come to a decision. The social position of intellectuals in France is linked to the growth of their numbers and this is important, for the more numerous they are, the less they can decide.