Romanticism and Realism in the Fascism of Drieu La Rochelle

Abstract

French fascist ideology has often been described by scholars as being essentially romantic' in nature, as a kind of sentimental, emotional fling whose participants tended to be irrational, subjective, and aesthetic in their approach to rather than realistic, objective, and tough-minded.' It has been argued that this is one reason literary intellectuals like Robert Brasillach, Louis-Ferdinand Celine, Alphonse de Chateaubriant, Abel Bonnard, Lucien Rebatet, and Pierre Drieu La Rochelle were drawn to fascism in 1930's: it was a of romanticism, le romantisme fasciste Paul Serant has called it; a union of politics and aesthetics another scholar has written.2 Thus Robert Brasillach of pro-fascist journal, Je suis partout, described fascism as a kind of poetry and was enchanted by poetic images of Hitler youth around campfires, mass meetings at Nuremberg, and heroic moments of the past. Certainly there is a good deal of truth to this portrait of French fascism and its mystique: a strong current of romanticism3 does run through writings of many French fascist literati. What such a portrait neglects, however, is strong current of realism which also runs through ideology.