Acte gratuit
An acte gratuit ( French for "arbitrary action") is an absurd , mostly violent and destructive spontaneous act without meaning or comprehensible motivation. In modern French literature , the term stands for a symbolic revolt against any kind of determinism and causality . Wilpert emphasizes spontaneity: it is "a sudden, impulsive (...) act from spontaneous inspiration".
example
In his novel Les caves du Vatican (1914) André Gide gives a concise example of what he also called “l′acte autochtone” in Le Prométhée mal enchaîné (1899): out of a playful pleasure in an action that promotes immediacy and freedom from purpose Having reached the dream, the hero Lafcadio pushes the unknown dealer Fleurissoire out of a moving train.
classification
The term acte gratuit is characteristic of the new ethical lack of commitment and the high esteem of total individual availability at the beginning of the last century - under Nietzsche and Bergson's influence. The rebellion behind the acte gratuit against any kind of determinism and causality and ultimately against human existence in general was thematized in other works, e.g. B. in Sartre (La nausée) or Camus (L′étranger) , whereby the metaphysical humor inherent in the acte gratuit is still noticeable.
See also
literature
- Alain Goulet: Les caves du Vatican. Étude méthodologique. Paris, Larousse 1972
- Martin Raether: The acte gratuit. Revolt and literature. Hegel , Dostojewskij , Nietzsche, Gide, Sartre , Camus , Beckett (= Studia Romanica. 37). Winter, Heidelberg 1980 ISBN 3533029212
- Elisabeth Lenk: Ethics of the Aesthetic. Using the example of “acte gratuit”. Lecture at the Kunstmuseum Bern on November 26, 1989. Benteli, Bern 1991, ISBN 371650663X
- Marcel Arland & Bernard Groethuysen & Jacques de Lacretelle & Jacques Maritain : L'Acte gratuit. Edited by André Berge (1902–1995); Afterword by Michel Carassou. o. O. (Saint-Nazaire) 1985 (series: Arcane 17) ISSN 0297-3979 Recueil de lettres adressées en 1926 aux Cahiers du mois ISBN 2-903945-18-9 (French)
- Hans Blumenberg: Working on the Myth. Frankfurt a. M., Suhrkamp 1979 (Blumenberg analyzes the final stage of the Prometheus myth in Gide: The acte gratuit turns the being that is not willing to do anything 'for free' into the human being "- p. 682).
- Till R. Kuhnle: From “acte gratuit” to absurdism. In: ders .: Chronos and Thanatos. On the existentialism of the “nouveau romancier” Claude Simon. Niemeyer, Tübingen 1995, ISBN 3-484-55022-8 (= Mimesis; 22), 103-110.
- René Habachi: Une philosophie ensoleillée. Essais on relation. Cariscript, Paris 1991, ISBN 2876011670 (French - However, this is about a purely theological discussion, an old topic, namely how far people can relate to “God” out of “free will”, or vice versa , in which We can speak of “God's will”, which is presented per se as unconditional, gracious.)
- Hélène Baeyens: L'acte gratuit. Le paradoxe de la liberté absolue et du déterminisme. Saint-Martin-d'Hères, IEP 1994 (French)
Web links
- RÉVOLUTION PERSONNALISTE ET COMMUNAUTAIRE (French, file format “.doc”; 924 kB), via Emmanuel Mounier
notes
- ↑ Gero von Wilpert : Specialized Dictionary of Literature (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 231). 8th, improved and enlarged edition. Kröner, Stuttgart 2001, ISBN 3-520-23108-5 , p. 5.