Modernity and engaged literature

A rapprochement between Habermas and Sartre

Abstract

This paper makes a rapprochement between Jürgen Habermas’ theory of modernity and the concept of engaged literature under Jean-Paul Sartre’s perspective. It demonstrates how the Habermasian theory is built in dialogue with the tradition of thought, in order to highlight the novelty brought about his concept of “communicative action”, understood as the fundamental mode of social action. Thus, modernity is seen as the emancipation from the distinct value sphere of the world life, which are articulated as realizations of the framework, according to which the communicative act is performed. The paper discusses how Sartre recognized in literature a bridge between the ephemeral and the enduring. the autonomy of art as value sphere resonates in the role reserved for literatur by Sartre in his book What is literature? that means participation of writers in the affairs of their time.