Albert Camus

114 Pages·1969·7.06 MB·English

by  Robert De Luppe

MIN E R VA PRE SSM 76 $1.95
Albert Camus
Luppe
By Robert de
translated from the French by
J.
John Cumming and Hargreaves
Funk & Wagnalls / New York
Albert Camus
© The Merlin Press Ltd. 1966
First published in France by
Editions Universitaires
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 68·22177
First American edition published in 1968
Funk & Wagnalls,
A Division of Reader's Digest Books, Inc.
Printed in the United States of America
CONTENTS
TRANSLATOR'S NOTE VI
PREFACE TO FIFTH EDITION Vll
PREFACE TO SIXTH EDITION IX
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE Xl
1. Camus' Thought. Basic Ideas 1
2. Camus' Thought. Action 19
3. Camus' Aesthetic 35
4. Camus as Novelist. Outsider 41
Th~
5. Camus as Novelist. The Plague 50
6. Camus as Novelist. The Fall 66
7. Camus as a Dramatist 74
8. Lyricism in Camus' Works 85
89
CONCLUSION
91
BIBLIOGRAPHY
I. Works by Camus 91
II. Critical Assessments of Camus' Works 95
TRANSLATOR'S NOTE
IT WAS thought necessary to include an account of Camus'
third novel, La Chute (The Fall), in this English edition: I
am responsible for this and for the extension of the bibliography
to cover some English translations and certain critical articles
not listed by M. de Luppe. The English versions of the quota
tions from Camus' works were made by the present translators.
The English titles of the collections of essays by Camus, Noces
and L'Envers et l'endroit, are those used by Mr Philip Thody
in his translation of the Carnets.
The following abbreviations have been used: MS for Le
My the de Sisyphe, and HR for LJHomme Revolte. Page
references are to the original French editions published by
Gallimard of Paris.
JOHN CUMMING
London, 1965
PREFACE TO THE FIFTH EDITION
MY INTENTION in this essay was to retrace the development of
Albert Camus' ideas, starting from a privileged moment of
insight, which "on a street-corner or in a restaurant's revolving
door" eclipses everyday settings and opens our hearts to the
poetry of the world, and arriving eventually at the controlled
thought of L'Homme Revolte (The Rebel), the schematic
form of La Peste (The Plague), and the restrained anguish of
Les J ustes (The Just) .
Since then, Camus has become even more exact in his
thought, in his analysis and in his style. The landscapes in
L'E xil et Ie Royaume (The Exile and the Kingdom) are more
realistic than even the "hill-top" of Tipasa he had recalled so
warmly only a short time before; the conscience of the juge
penitent in La Chute (The Fall) is more complex than the
charitable soul of Rieux; the mists and gold of Amsterdam
are conveyed more precisely than any previous setting . . .
The path lengthens and the initial ardour is spent; now the
traveller is nostalgic for the place from which he started; he
looks back to measure the distance that he has come; he even
retraces his steps to return to the original source of his inspira
tion. In L'Ete (Summer) he wrote with affection of Tipasa,
his youth and his love of the world. In his preface to the new
edition of L'Envers et l'endroit (Betwixt and Between) he
makes no apology for the simple and deeply-felt images that
inspired him, but speaks of the "unique spring" or "central
point" from which he would never wish to be separated ...
He would like to banish the temporal distance which affects the
CAMUS
written work, and "begin anew" like Meursault in L~ Etranger
(The Outsider): "1 feel a vague conviction that if 1 do not
manage to rewrite Betwixt and Between one day, in spite of so
many efforts to forge a language and renew myths, I shall have
accomplished nothing."
Let us try once more, with Camus, to understand that initial
inspiration which nourishes his work.
Paris~ December 1958
PREFACE TO THE SIXTH EDITION
THE ACCIDENTAL death of Albert Camus in January 1960
appears to set a final seal on his work at the very moment when
it seemed possible to see a desire for renewal through a "return
to the initial sources of inspiration". The year 1960, so Camus
confided to Giacomo Antonini (See the special number of the
Nouvelle Revue Fran(aise), was to be devoted to a major novel,
Le Premier Homme (The First Man) : "I have drawn up an
outline and set to work in earnest. It will be a long task. But I
shall finish it." If this sketch ever sees the light of day, we shall
be able to continue our affectionate discourse and take up again
the broken thread of Camus' life and thought.
Whatever the fate of his unpublished works may be, the
shocked reaction to the news of his harsh death is a sure con·
finnation of the position his other writings have won him.
Paris, May 1960
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
ALBERT CAMUS was born on 7th November 1913 at Mondovi
(Province of Constantine) in Algeria, where his family were
agricultural workers. His father, who was killed at the front in
1914, was French, while his mother was of Spanish origin. He
studied at Algiers University under difficult conditions: he was
in turn a salesman of car accessories, a meteorologist, a clerk in
a firm of ship-brokers and at the Prefecture. He was also an
es
enthusiastic sportsman. After becoming a Licencie Lettres in
philosophy he was awarded the diplOme d'etudes suphieures,
a higher degree, for a dissertation on St Augustine and Plotinus.
Sickness prevented him from sitting for his agregation.
His passionate interest in the theatre was already evident:
he founded the Theatre du Travail and then L'Equipe and
both produced and acted in plays. He staged a work entitled
Revolte dans les Asturies (The Revolt in the Asturias) and
written in collaboration with his friends, which depicts the
rebellion of the Oviedo miners in Spain, in 1934. He adapted
Andre Malraux's Le Temps du Mepris (A Time of Contempt),
Andre Gide's Le retour de l'enfant prodigue (The Return of
the Prodigal) and the Prometheus of Aeschylus; he staged
Charles Vildrac's Paquebot uTenacity" (TheSteamshipuTena
city"), Ben Jonson's The Silent Woman, Jacques Copeau's
adaptation of The Brothers Karamazov (in which he took the
part of Ivan), and Pushkin's Don Juan.
He travelled more or less haphazardly, visiting Spain, Italy
and Czechoslovakia-countries which appear in his early