La virilità quale categoria ancipite nel programma emancipativo della letteratura frontista

Abstract

As part of a reflection on the role of intellectuals in society and in the cultural system, this paper considers some of the contributions made by engagés writers during the French Popular Front era, with the objective of highlighting the potential and limitations of their commitment. More specifically, it will show how André Gide and André Malraux resorted to the notion of virility as part of an emancipatory program, whose materialistic and authentically universalistic character is called into question. The ambivalence of such a concept aims to illustrate the dialectic between antagonism and affirmative culture within criticism.