On the Most Torn Dephts of History

Philosophy and Literature in Jean Wahl During Wartime

Abstract

Although Jean Wahl is widely regarded as one of the most important philosophers of the 20th century, his literary career as a writer and metaphysical poet has remained relatively unknown. He is an emblematic figure in the history of philosophy. By dwelling on the boundary between philosophical and poetic-literary reflection, Wahl demonstrates through his biography and intellectual work the inseparable nature of these disciplines. In a perpetual state of mutual struggle yet complementarity, both directed towards the search for Truth, philosophy and literature only find their authentic nature when mirroring each other. Through the establishment of the Décades de Pontigny en Amérique and the Collège philosophique, Wahl laid the foundations for an ongoing dialogue between the dominant trends in philosophy and literature, in a spirit of continuous exchange and interdisciplinarity. Having survived deportation and forced exile «at the very edge of the catastrophe» of World War II, Wahl was able to establish the conditions for ongoing intellectual conversation, situating his philosophical reflections and poetics within these biographical events. Recovering original texts from his American exile and wartime will enable us to reconstruct the limits of such a dialogical polemos, and to reach, with Wahl, a philosophical poetics and a philosophy characterised by literary reflection.