Andre Gide: The Ethic of The Artist

Extract

Writing so soon after Gide’s death, one would like to remember only his charm, the music of his prose and, above all, the prayers addressed to God in Numquid et Tu. Yet the influence of such a writer does not cease with his life; as long as French is read the sinuous harmonies of that prose will ceaselessly convey a definite message.

That ‘message’ renders neutrality impossible. Gide, by subordinating a moral code to aesthetics, of which he declared it ‘a dependency’, raised fundamental questions which it would be inexcusable to evade. While he repudiated any wish to make ‘converts’, books are not published in a vacuum. Moreover the Journal reveals that, at times, Gide was fully conscious of the power of corruption which he wielded. In fact, if his basic postulate be accepted—the necessity of the full development of one’s individuality, unhampered by ethical considerations—a pagan moral code has been adopted. This invalidates the undoubtedly sincere advice which he gave to his readers to cast aside his book —to free themselves from his influence as well as from that of others.

While this fundamental clash between Gide’s ethic and that of the Christian is continually touched on by Mr Thomas in his book published just before the French writer’s death, it might be argued that, because of the chronological presentation and a certain, perhaps inevitable, lack of synthesis, the idea will be insufficiently clear to the ordinary reader, less familiar than Mr Thomas with the texts.