Gertrude Stein, Bernard Faÿ, and the Vichy dilemma
- Categories
- Book/Boek
- Creator
- Will, Barbara
- Publish Year
- 2011
- Shelfmark
- VS 9 STE [2011] - B
- Thesaurus
- schrijvers, joodse vrouwen, tweede wereldoorlog, nationaal socialisme, Frankrijk, biografische gegevens
- Description
- In 1941, the Jewish American writer and avant-garde icon Gertrude Stein embarked on one of the strangest intellectual projects of her life: translating for an American audience the speeches of Marshal Philippe Pétain, head of state for the collaborationist Vichy government. Stein translated speeches in which he outlined the Vichy policy barring Jews and other 'foreign elements' from the public sphere while calling for France to reconcile with Nazi occupiers. This book pursues the question why and under what circumstances would Stein undertake this project? .Barbara Will outlines the formative powers of the relationship between Stein and Faÿ's political and aesthetic ideals, especially their reflection in Stein's writing from the late 1920s to the 1940s. Will treats their interaction as a case study of intellectual life during wartime France and an indication of America's place in the Vichy imagination. The book forces a reconsideration of modernism and fascism, asking what led so many within the avant-garde toward fascist and collaborationist thought.