Work · Jean-Paul Sartre
What Is Literature?
Sartre examines writing, reading and addressing a public to defend literature engaged in its historical situation.
Understanding the text
Published first in a journal and then in Situations II, the essay also circulates independently.
Key points
- 01
Appeal
Prose addresses a reader's freedom that helps bring the work into existence.
- 02
Situation
No writer chooses a language or audience outside history.
- 03
Commitment
Revealing a world changes what one can subsequently claim not to know.
How to read it
Distinguish prose analysis from contested claims about poetry; compare actual readers with the hoped-for public.
Editions & sources
Summaries and key points are original editorial interpretations. They accompany reading the work and do not replace an edition of the text. Editorial method ↗