Malraux, reader of Déclin de l’Occident by Oswald Spengler

Based on recent studies on Der Untergang des Abendlandes, this paper analyzes Malraux’s ambiguous relationship with Oswald Spengler. Malraux shares Spengler’s rejection of an ethnocentric and linear vision of history. Like Spengler, he considers cultures to be, up to a certain degree, closed systems. But his texts on art and the “metamorphosis” are humanistic answer to Spengler’s cultural pessimism, in line with Malraux’s engagement in the fight against fascism.