Prometheus Illbound

By ANDRÉ GIDE
LITERAL TRANSLATION FROM THE FRENCH BY LILIAN ROTHERMERE
LONDON CHATTO AND WINDUS 1919

The work of art is the exaggeration of an idea, says Gide in the epilogue of the “Prometheus Illbound.” This is really the explanation of the whole book and of many other books of Gide.
His world is a world of abstract ideas, under the action of which most of his characters move as marionettes. “Time and space are the boards, which, with the help of our minds, have been set up by the innumerable truths of the universe as a stage for their own performances. And there we play our parts like determined, convinced, devoted and voluptuous marionettes.”
That is the reason why there is a determinist atmosphere in his books and that even the disinterested act appears as the reaction of the mind on its own concept. Zeus, the banker, poses this disinterested act because his thought refuses or hesitates to admit it; the same thing happens with Lafcadio in the “Caves du Vatican” when he is on the point of murdering Amédée Fleurissoire.
The tyranny of ideas is the dominating force of his characters. Even his first writings—where one finds some of his best pages, which appear to be purely lyrical explosion—such as “Les Nourritures Terrestres” and “Le Voyage d’Urien,” are really the songs of a mind which leads its life by the concept of eternal desire and detachment—a mind very near that of Nietzsche.
It is because of that tyranny of ideas that Gide is attracted by religious psychology. After all, Alissa of “La Porte Étroite” sacrifices her life and her happiness to her ideas. It is because of that also that one of the most daring books of the time, “L’Immoraliste,” is written in the most moral way: the feelings are only described by their reaction on the brain. And this applies to nearly the whole work of Gide.
Even his concept of heroism is ruled by it. His heroes are monomaniacs of a thought which they believe or create ideal. His “Roi Candaule” is a man stupefied by the idea of his possessions.