La littérature de langue bretonne de l’entre-deux-guerres

Abstract

The Breton literature of the interwar period became both a real and radical rejection of the literary works of previous generations. The modernity of the nationalist Breton authors was taking shape through the kitschisation of the typical and folkloric elements found in earlier works. Hence, an aesthetic and ideological gap opened up within the Breton movement (called emzao). This article seeks to understand this gap by analysing the way in which the Breton-language literary and socioliterary world functioned from the 1920s to 1930s. Why and how was the rejection of kitsch folklore mobilised as a powerful tool in Brittany’s attempt to emerge as a nation?

Keywords

• Breton literature
• literary networks
• literary regionalism and nationalism
• socioliterature