Archéologie de la biographie chez Jean-Paul Sartre

This article explores the early conditions and motivations for biographical writing and reasoning in Jean-Paul Sartre’s literary project. When the Second World War broke out and called into question his initial prospects for becoming a renowned writer, his awakening to historical and political involvement justified a revision of his ontological premises. Carnets de la drôle de guerre (1940/1983), along with other sources and prior texts of his, operate like an archaeology of the biographical method, prepare a conversion to concrete realities in prelude to his Marxist existentialism, and herald the journalism of Les Temps modernes revamping the post-war intellectual life. This article advances that, rather than a subsidiary genre of expression, biography is a pivotal approach that connects the distinct facets of Sartre’s activities. Notional existences are described through life stories, and conversely, singular traits are made into universal types. It is thus crucial to examine the momentum that ultimately made Sartre a committed social thinker in works like Critique de la raison dialectique (1960) by turning his attention to life plans articulated in the essays on Baudelaire, Genet and Flaubert.