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Paul Sérant and the extreme right's rhetoric of antithesis

University of Chichester, UK, h.frey{at}chi.ac.uk

The starting point for this article is Paul Sérant's novel, Le Meurtre rituel (1950). It is a significant work for political and cultural historians because it reveals a dominant rhetorical perspective common to many other literary and non-literary texts written by extreme right-wing intellectuals in France. In particular the article highlights how Sérant's novel exemplifies the group's fascination with the idea of polarity: that is to say dramatic comparisons between seemingly contradictory concepts. Certainly, this aspect of Sérant's novel foreshadows the thesis presented in his better-known historiography, Le Romantisme fasciste (1959). It also perpetuates themes which were common in the work of Henry de Montherlant and Drieu la Rochelle, among others.

The dominant `polarity' theme running through Le Meurtre rituel supported Sérant's encouragement for a U-turn from the corrupt political space of Fourth Republic France to a new and rich spiritual zone. The article explores how this lesson was commonly taken up in the 1950s by other right-wingers who, like Sérant, also searched for the `sacred' in a variety of esoteric schools of thought. It will also highlight the historical roots of the esoteric drift and examine its after-e fects, notably its influence on thinkers associated with the 1970s nouvelle droite. However, Sérant did not manage to execute all of the inversions encouraged in his rhetoric. The article concludes with consideration of Sérant's failed exchange: his retention of the anti-Semitic trope of ritual murder in the novel.

Key Words: anti-Semitism • French esoteric groupings • French extreme right-wing literary culture • historiography of fascism • Henry de Montherlant • nouvelle droite (roots of) • Louis Pauwels • representations of the Holocaust in French literature • Paul Sérant • totalitarian language

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