In the lustrum after World War Two the word 'commitment' got almost as much work as 'existential' in literary magazines. The words represented opposite attitudes to the writer's stance in relation to the world around him. A literary existentialist owed a little, but not much, to Kierkegaard's belief in the free and responsible individual discovering his spiritual essence through acts of will. In practice, existentialist writers favoured individual freedom of action against the limits imposed by 'society', expressing rebellious feelings outwardly by (according to Mary McCarthy) wearing long dark-belted coats of shaggy material, and in their work by exalting individual values against those of the mass. The work of committed writers, in contrast, was rooted not only in the visible world but also in the rapidly changing pattern of social habits and attitudes. Thoroughgoing existentialists believed in the virtues of irresponsibility, but for others the question of the degree and nature of commitment nagged like an aching tooth.

LRB 20 December 1990 | PDF Download