Prose as a Social Function: Sartre's Existential Interpretation of Language

Jean-Paul Sartre's existential literary discourse, Qu'est que la Littérature? (What is Literature?), is broken down into five sections. The first section in the collection, entitled "What is Writing?," explores Sartre's referential interpretation of the function of prose. Sartre argues that words possess meaning prior to the act of writing, but the meaning that results from the act differs greatly between prose and poetry. In prose words possess one definitive meaning that centers on the intrinsic function of enacting social change. Poetry, on the other hand, uses words for their aesthetic value alone, and the meaning of words becomes lost within the various interpretations of meaning and emotion infused within the poem by its audience. A prose writer, then, must commit himself to a message, for without a message, the prose writer does not successfully engage in the purpose of his writing to catalyze social change.

The Aesthetic Value of Artwork

In "What is Writing?" Sartre begins by establishing the differences of other art forms from that of writing, specifically focusing on painting and music. The root of the difference is the aesthetic media used in the artwork's creation - color, sound, and words. According to Sartre, colors have a meaning a priori to the meaning applied by the artist. At the same time the artist infuses a new emotional meaning into the colors: "[Colors] are impregnated with these emotions; and in order for them to have crept into these colors, which by themselves already had something like a meaning, [the artist's] emotions get mixed up and grow obscure" (Sartre 26). The problem of art, then, is that the overabundance of meanings infused into the colors and imagery leads to a lack of clarity regarding the artist's purpose, and without purpose there is subsequently no meaning.