Literature in the Grip of the Dialectic: Merleau-Ponty on Literary Engagement in the Cold War (1953–1955)

In this article, I offer a close reading of Merleau-Ponty's Les Aventures de la dialectique (1955). This work of political philosophy, which culminates in a long chapter on Sartre that sealed the rupture between the two thinkers, also reflects on the politics of literature. While their quarrel has been widely discussed, the role of literature in this regard has received little attention. I will show how the notion of literary engagement, coined in 1945, was renegotiated during the Cold War through competing views of history. Adopting an intellectual-historical approach, I analyse how engagement is entwined with political conjunctures and philosophical positions.