The Altar of the Soul: Sexuality and Spirituality in the Works of Julien Green

Abstract

Although Julien Green was one of the most prolific and important authors in twentieth-century France, he remains relatively unknown in the United States to all but scholars of French literature. This is some-what ironic, given that the themes he treated during his career, which spanned the entire twentieth century, are either universal (like religion and sexuality), or distinctly American (like the Civil War and the Southern United States). Although Green wrote almost his entire oeuvre in French and lived most of his life in Paris, both his nationality and, according to his own assertions, his heart were American.³ In fact, he rejected the idea of being French and the accolades that the French literary establishment wanted to accord him. This paradox is aptly symbolized in Green’s status as the first American to be elected to the prestigious Académie Française, and also as the first member to try to stop being one of “the Immortals of the French language,” which is what the group’s members are called. In 1996 Green tried to quit because, as he put it, he was “exclusively American” and thus had no need for French honors.⁴

“I was not like others. All of my difficulties can be summed up this way.”¹

Julien Green (Fin de Jeunesse 6: 845)²