Unanimism and the Novels of Jules Romains

Extract

The present article is in part a corollary to an earlier one on Populism and a further chapter in an exploration into that complex movement in the contemporary French novel which is in revolt against nineteenth-century individualism and all the involved subjectivisms, the affected preciosity and even the dishevelled formlessness of the “littérature snob.” The branch of the movement I propose to discuss is sometimes referred to by critics as a new classicism, and though the term is misleading it can stand. Jules Romains himself expresses the sense of cleavage between two literatures when he says: Je crois … qu'un peu partout une certaine période de littérature coupée du réel, tournée avec trop de complaisance vers l‘étude d‘états dâmes fragiles, infiniment particuliers et périssables est en train de se clore.