Les Temps modernes
Encyclopedia
The first issue of Les Temps modernes (Modern Times), the most important cultural review of the period after World War II, appeared in October 1945. It was known as the review of Jean-Paul Sartre
. It was named for a film
by Charlie Chaplin
. Les Temps Modernes filled the void left by the disappearance of the most important pre-war literary magazine, La Nouvelle Revue Française (The New French Review), considered to be André Gide
's magazine, which was shut down after the liberation of France because of its collaboration with the occupation.
Les Temps modernes was first published by Gallimard
and is published by Gallimard today. In between, the magazine changed hands three times: Julliard
(January 1949 to September 1965), Presses d'aujourd'hui (October 1964 to March 1985), Gallimard (April 1985 to the present).
The first editorial board consisted of Sartre (director), Raymond Aron
, Simone de Beauvoir
, Michel Leiris, Maurice Merleau-Ponty
, Albert Ollivier, and Jean Paulhan
. All published many articles for the magazine. Among Sartre's contributions were "La nationalisation de la littérature" ("The Nationalisation of Literature"), "Matérialisme et révolution" ("Materialism and Revolution"), and "Qu'est-ce-que la littérature?" ("What is Literature?"). Simone de Beauvoir first published "Le Deuxième Sexe" ("The Second Sex") in Les Temps modernes.
In the preface to the first edition, Sartre stated the review's purpose: to publish littérature engagée. This philosophy of literature expresses a basic creed of existentialism
--that an individual is responsible for making conscious decisions to commit socially useful acts. Thus, literature in the magazine would have a utilitarian component; it would not be just culturally valuable (art for art's sake). Other intellectuals, such as André Gide, André Breton
, and Louis Aragon
, disapproved of this orientation. Sartre's response: "Le monde peut fort bien se passer de la littérature. Mais il peut se passer de l'homme encore mieux." ("The world can easily get along without literature. But it can get along even more easily without man.")
The works of many new writers who later became famous appeared in Modern Times. They include Richard Wright
, Jean Genet
, Nathalie Sarraute, Boris Vian
, and Samuel Beckett.
Political divisions between board members soon surfaced. Raymond Aron quit in 1945 to become an editor at Le Figaro because of Les Temps Moderne's support of Communism. At the time of the Korean War, Merleau-Ponty resigned. Originally more supportive of Communism than Sartre, he moved progressively to the right as Sartre moved to the left. At the time, Sartre still endorsed Communism in his writings but in private expressed his reservations.
Sartre disapproved of Camus for seeing both sides in the Algerians' rebellion against their French colonial masters (The Algerian War--1954–62). In his bitterness against Camus, Sartre selected Francis Jeanson, who did not like the works of Camus, to review the Camus novel L'Homme Révolté (The Rebel
). When Camus responded to the review with hurt feelings, Sartre put the final blow to a friendship that had lasted for years. He said, "Vous êtes devenu la proie d'une morne démesure qui masque vos difficultés intérieures. . . . Tôt ou tard, quelqu'un vous l'eût dit, autant que ce soi moi." ("You have become the victim of an excessive sullenness that masks your internal problems. . . . Sooner or later, someone would have told you, so it might as well be me.")
Les Temps Modernes enjoyed its greatest influence in the sixties. At this time, it had over 20,000 subscribers. During the Algerian War, it strongly supported the National Liberation Front
, the primary group in the ultimately successful battle against the French. It fiercely denounced the extensive use of torture by the French forces. For this, it was censured and its premises seized.
From its inception to the present day, the review has published 582 regular issues and many special issues. The special issues include Sartre's 1946 description of the United States, an attempt to discredit the myths that many of the French held about this country. In 1955, Claude Lanzmann
described Sartre's Marxist philosophy in an issue called "La Gauche" ("The Left"). An issue on "La révolte hongroise" ("The Hungarian Revolution") (1956–57) denounced Soviet repression. In 1967, at the time of the Six-Day War
, an issue, "Le conflit israélo-arabe" ("The Israeli-Arab conflict"), contained articles by both Israelis and Arabs.
Les Temps Modernes continues to publish articles consistent with the philosophy of Sartre, with the intent of informing its readers about the world as it is. And it continues to publish important authors who are not generally known. In 2001, a special edition was devoted to Serge Doubrovsky
.
The current chief editor of Les Temps Modernes is Claude Lanzmann
.
The editorial board consists of Juliette Simont (Editorial Assistant to Claude Lanzmann), Adrien Barrot, Jean Bourgault, Joseph Cohen, Michel Deguy, Liliane Kandel, Jean Khalfa, Patrice Maniglier, Robert Redeker
, Marc Sagnol, Gérard Wormser, Raphael Zagury-Orly.
It is a bimonthly magazine.
About 3,000 copies are printed.
Jean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre was a French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic. He was one of the leading figures in 20th century French philosophy, particularly Marxism, and was one of the key figures in literary...
. It was named for a film
Modern Times (film)
Modern Times is a 1936 comedy film by Charlie Chaplin that has his iconic Little Tramp character struggling to survive in the modern, industrialized world. The film is a comment on the desperate employment and fiscal conditions many people faced during the Great Depression, conditions created, in...
by Charlie Chaplin
Charlie Chaplin
Sir Charles Spencer "Charlie" Chaplin, KBE was an English comic actor, film director and composer best known for his work during the silent film era. He became the most famous film star in the world before the end of World War I...
. Les Temps Modernes filled the void left by the disappearance of the most important pre-war literary magazine, La Nouvelle Revue Française (The New French Review), considered to be André Gide
André Gide
André Paul Guillaume Gide was a French author and winner of the Nobel Prize in literature in 1947. Gide's career ranged from its beginnings in the symbolist movement, to the advent of anticolonialism between the two World Wars.Known for his fiction as well as his autobiographical works, Gide...
's magazine, which was shut down after the liberation of France because of its collaboration with the occupation.
Les Temps modernes was first published by Gallimard
Éditions Gallimard
Éditions Gallimard is one of the leading French publishers of books. The Guardian has described it as having "the best backlist in the world". In 2003 it and its subsidiaries published 1418 titles....
and is published by Gallimard today. In between, the magazine changed hands three times: Julliard
Éditions Julliard
Éditions Julliard is a French publishing house. It was founded in 1942 by René Julliard.René Julliard was known as a discoverer and publisher of talents, in particular Françoise Sagan and Jean d'Ormesson. After Julliard's death in July 1962, the managing director, Christian Bourgois, took over the...
(January 1949 to September 1965), Presses d'aujourd'hui (October 1964 to March 1985), Gallimard (April 1985 to the present).
The first editorial board consisted of Sartre (director), Raymond Aron
Raymond Aron
Raymond-Claude-Ferdinand Aron was a French philosopher, sociologist, journalist and political scientist.He is best known for his 1955 book The Opium of the Intellectuals, the title of which inverts Karl Marx's claim that religion was the opium of the people -- in contrast, Aron argued that in...
, Simone de Beauvoir
Simone de Beauvoir
Simone-Ernestine-Lucie-Marie Bertrand de Beauvoir, often shortened to Simone de Beauvoir , was a French existentialist philosopher, public intellectual, and social theorist. She wrote novels, essays, biographies, an autobiography in several volumes, and monographs on philosophy, politics, and...
, Michel Leiris, Maurice Merleau-Ponty
Maurice Merleau-Ponty
Maurice Merleau-Ponty was a French phenomenological philosopher, strongly influenced by Karl Marx, Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger in addition to being closely associated with Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir...
, Albert Ollivier, and Jean Paulhan
Jean Paulhan
Jean Paulhan was a French writer, literary critic and publisher, director of the literary magazine Nouvelle Revue Française from 1925 to 1940 and from 1946 to 1968. He was a member of the Académie Française...
. All published many articles for the magazine. Among Sartre's contributions were "La nationalisation de la littérature" ("The Nationalisation of Literature"), "Matérialisme et révolution" ("Materialism and Revolution"), and "Qu'est-ce-que la littérature?" ("What is Literature?"). Simone de Beauvoir first published "Le Deuxième Sexe" ("The Second Sex") in Les Temps modernes.
In the preface to the first edition, Sartre stated the review's purpose: to publish littérature engagée. This philosophy of literature expresses a basic creed of existentialism
Existentialism
Existentialism is a term applied to a school of 19th- and 20th-century philosophers who, despite profound doctrinal differences, shared the belief that philosophical thinking begins with the human subject—not merely the thinking subject, but the acting, feeling, living human individual...
--that an individual is responsible for making conscious decisions to commit socially useful acts. Thus, literature in the magazine would have a utilitarian component; it would not be just culturally valuable (art for art's sake). Other intellectuals, such as André Gide, André Breton
André Breton
André Breton was a French writer and poet. He is known best as the founder of Surrealism. His writings include the first Surrealist Manifesto of 1924, in which he defined surrealism as "pure psychic automatism"....
, and Louis Aragon
Louis Aragon
Louis Aragon , was a French poet, novelist and editor, a long-time member of the Communist Party and a member of the Académie Goncourt.- Early life :...
, disapproved of this orientation. Sartre's response: "Le monde peut fort bien se passer de la littérature. Mais il peut se passer de l'homme encore mieux." ("The world can easily get along without literature. But it can get along even more easily without man.")
The works of many new writers who later became famous appeared in Modern Times. They include Richard Wright
Richard Wright (author)
Richard Nathaniel Wright was an African-American author of sometimes controversial novels, short stories, poems, and non-fiction. Much of his literature concerns racial themes, especially those involving the plight of African-Americans during the late 19th to mid 20th centuries...
, Jean Genet
Jean Genet
Jean Genet was a prominent and controversial French novelist, playwright, poet, essayist, and political activist. Early in his life he was a vagabond and petty criminal, but later took to writing...
, Nathalie Sarraute, Boris Vian
Boris Vian
Boris Vian was a French polymath: writer, poet, musician, singer, translator, critic, actor, inventor and engineer. He is best remembered today for his novels. Those published under the pseudonym Vernon Sullivan were bizarre parodies of criminal fiction, highly controversial at the time of their...
, and Samuel Beckett.
Samuel Beckett
Samuel Barclay Beckett was an Irish avant-garde novelist, playwright, theatre director, and poet. He wrote both in English and French. His work offers a bleak, tragicomic outlook on human nature, often coupled with black comedy and gallows humour.Beckett is widely regarded as among the most...
Political divisions between board members soon surfaced. Raymond Aron quit in 1945 to become an editor at Le Figaro because of Les Temps Moderne's support of Communism. At the time of the Korean War, Merleau-Ponty resigned. Originally more supportive of Communism than Sartre, he moved progressively to the right as Sartre moved to the left. At the time, Sartre still endorsed Communism in his writings but in private expressed his reservations.
Sartre disapproved of Camus for seeing both sides in the Algerians' rebellion against their French colonial masters (The Algerian War--1954–62). In his bitterness against Camus, Sartre selected Francis Jeanson, who did not like the works of Camus, to review the Camus novel L'Homme Révolté (The Rebel
The Rebel
The Rebel is a 1951 book-length essay by Albert Camus, which treats both the metaphysical and the historical development of rebellion and revolution in societies, especially Western Europe...
). When Camus responded to the review with hurt feelings, Sartre put the final blow to a friendship that had lasted for years. He said, "Vous êtes devenu la proie d'une morne démesure qui masque vos difficultés intérieures. . . . Tôt ou tard, quelqu'un vous l'eût dit, autant que ce soi moi." ("You have become the victim of an excessive sullenness that masks your internal problems. . . . Sooner or later, someone would have told you, so it might as well be me.")
Les Temps Modernes enjoyed its greatest influence in the sixties. At this time, it had over 20,000 subscribers. During the Algerian War, it strongly supported the National Liberation Front
National Liberation Front (Algeria)
The National Liberation Front is a socialist political party in Algeria. It was set up on November 1, 1954 as a merger of other smaller groups, to obtain independence for Algeria from France.- Anticolonial struggle :...
, the primary group in the ultimately successful battle against the French. It fiercely denounced the extensive use of torture by the French forces. For this, it was censured and its premises seized.
From its inception to the present day, the review has published 582 regular issues and many special issues. The special issues include Sartre's 1946 description of the United States, an attempt to discredit the myths that many of the French held about this country. In 1955, Claude Lanzmann
Claude Lanzmann
Claude Lanzmann is a French filmmaker and professor at European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland.-Biography:Lanzmann attended the Lycée Blaise-Pascal in Clermont-Ferrand. He joined the French resistance at the age of 18 and fought in Auvergne...
described Sartre's Marxist philosophy in an issue called "La Gauche" ("The Left"). An issue on "La révolte hongroise" ("The Hungarian Revolution") (1956–57) denounced Soviet repression. In 1967, at the time of the Six-Day War
Six-Day War
The Six-Day War , also known as the June War, 1967 Arab-Israeli War, or Third Arab-Israeli War, was fought between June 5 and 10, 1967, by Israel and the neighboring states of Egypt , Jordan, and Syria...
, an issue, "Le conflit israélo-arabe" ("The Israeli-Arab conflict"), contained articles by both Israelis and Arabs.
Les Temps Modernes continues to publish articles consistent with the philosophy of Sartre, with the intent of informing its readers about the world as it is. And it continues to publish important authors who are not generally known. In 2001, a special edition was devoted to Serge Doubrovsky
Serge Doubrovsky
Serge Doubrovsky is a French writer and 1989 Prix Médicis winner for Le Livre brisé. He is also a critical theorist.-Biography:Along with publishing seven volumes of autobiography, he is known as a critical theorist...
.
The current chief editor of Les Temps Modernes is Claude Lanzmann
Claude Lanzmann
Claude Lanzmann is a French filmmaker and professor at European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland.-Biography:Lanzmann attended the Lycée Blaise-Pascal in Clermont-Ferrand. He joined the French resistance at the age of 18 and fought in Auvergne...
.
The editorial board consists of Juliette Simont (Editorial Assistant to Claude Lanzmann), Adrien Barrot, Jean Bourgault, Joseph Cohen, Michel Deguy, Liliane Kandel, Jean Khalfa, Patrice Maniglier, Robert Redeker
Robert Redeker
Robert Redeker is a French writer and philosophy teacher. He was teaching at the Pierre-Paul-Riquet high school, in Saint-Orens-de-Gameville, and at the École Nationale de l'Aviation Civile...
, Marc Sagnol, Gérard Wormser, Raphael Zagury-Orly.
It is a bimonthly magazine.
About 3,000 copies are printed.
External link
- Revue Les Temps Modernes, Les éditions Gallimard