Cinquante ans de la critique francienne

The cinquantenaire of Anatole France's death is a milestone calling for a fresh assessment of somewhat whimsical critical trends in Francean criticism. His art celebrated its triumphs during the master's long lifetime. However, his popularity culminating shortly after World War I sharply declined following his death. In general, only in the fifties and especially in the sixties did a young generation of critics start a process of gradual rehabilitation of France's art and humanism seeking for France a more stable place in literary history. The article sums up and evaluates the conclusions of major critics and offers thus an up-to-date critical bibliography of major Francean studies. It also comments on the constantly changing intellectual and artistic climate as one of the main sources of the outlined critical peripeties. Like Voltaire's heritage, France's work may continue attracting champions of ironic lucidity, Epicureans and æsthetes with an Apollonian taste. On the other hand, its irreverent irony, skepticism and non-committed paganism will always irritate the romantics, all sympathizers of intransigent political religious or aesthetic doctrines and all those who take themselves and their holy causes too seriously. (In French) (DB)