For some time now French critics have been talking about a "crisis" in their literature. "Crisis" is a violent word, and there has possibly been some overdramatization in its use; but there can be no doubt about the seriousness of the situation that has evoked this word: French literature suggests a countryside overrun by generations of industrious cultivators until the point of diminishing returns seems reached, where the soil continues to yield crops only after exacting very much more drastic methods of cultivation and ever more painful labor. By the turn of the century, some traditional genres already appeared exhausted, and recently French critics have been declaring that the language itself demands new means of expression.

The background of Qu'est-ce que la littérature?, then, is this continuing crisis in French literature, one which is still apparent on the contemporary literary scene. For in retrospect it seems clear...