Neither a great man nor a great writer, Henri Barbusse aspired to greatness in the sincerity of his convictions, the ambition of his experiments, the constancy of his commitment. A youthful revolt against convention, the impact of the Dreyfus affair, the traumatic experience of trench warfare in the First World War left Barbusse a disillusioned pacifist and a social rebel. The inadequacies of the Allied peace settlement and the example of the successful revolution in Russia led him to espouse the Communist cause as the only movement adhering in deed as well as word to goals of social equity and peace. As critic of capitalist injustice and imperialist adventure, as a leader of the anti-Fascist movement, as theorist of proletarian literature, as experimental artist, he remained loyal to that cause for the rest of his life. An early prototype of the committed intellectual, Barbusse attempted to reconcile his aesthetic principles and moral values with the exigencies of political activism.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.77098 |
| Date | January 1980 |
| Creators | Weems, Constance Dulles. |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Doctor of Philosophy (Department of History) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 000111852, proquestno: AAINK52180, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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