Zugl.: Basel, Univ., Diss.

The aim of the essay is to show that Albert Camus’ novel The Fall despite the seriousness of the subjects it deals with can be read as a satirical work. To support thisargument a brief explanation of the term satire will be made and the definitions itholds will likewise be discussed.A careful textual analysis shows that satirical ruses are evident in The Fall.Another aim of the paper is to depict how the satirical devises that are used, confront and discuss the objects of “attack”. The essay will focus on finding satirical instances in relation to two major themes that are targeted in the novel: Christianity and modernity. The research method is based on a close reading and the support of secondary sources. The conclusions made, based on argumentative and analytical explorations, are that The Fall in fact can be read as a satirical novel; that the book, through mockery and satire, tries to criticize Christian and Modern values.

The scope and purpose of this thesis is an evaluation of Camus' literary and philosophical works and their implication to the concept of political revolt. His examination of the origins and effects of modern political revolutions provided insight to the nature of the twentieth century totalitarianism. His ideas also helped to explain the modern emergence of "irrational" terror and political oppression.

La Mort heureuse, la première tentative romanesque d’Albert Camus publiée à titre posthume en 1971, est fréquemment négligée dans les critiques de son œuvre à cause de l’acceptation générale de l’échec littéraire de ce roman. Cependant, il contient beaucoup d’éléments bien travaillés et présente clairement la philosophie de la vie du jeune écrivain durant ces années. Dans ce travail, nous avons essayé de tirer les particularités de cette philosophie du texte en examinant l’évolution de son personnage principal. Dans sa quête du bonheur et d’une vie remplie, nous avons découvert une vision étendue de la relation absolue entre le bonheur, le temps et la vie aussi qu’une litanie d’autres thèmes qui se répètent à travers toute la carrière de Camus. Cette thèse bouche alors un grand trou dans la critique camusienne en remettant en valeur ce roman et son message.

Thesis advisor: Jeffrey Bloechl / Per Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus, existentialism is the profound truth that the world lacks inherent meaning and thus, we are radically free to choose, to live life as we please. While these assertions are both true and liberating and the theoretical level, these axioms leave individuals disoriented. They never answer the question: how does one live within an absurd world? Thus, these authors never give us a way of coping with the harsh repercussions of absurdity. To answer this question, this project turns to intersubjectivity and the work of Emmanuel Levinas. Levinas’s theory of the other demonstrates that we are not merely beings in a vacuum; the world is conditioned by the interpersonal. Relating to the Other allows us to see that we are not alone in our suffering, for the Other and the individual mutually witness one another. Such connections provide a means of coping with absurdity, allowing us both solidarity and insight into the truly absurd nature of the world. Thus, the application of Levinas’s intersubjectivity to existentialism serves to save Camus’s notion of absurdity from its more nihilistic tendencies, allowing us to accept and apprehend absurdity without falling into despair or ignorance. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2018. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Departmental Honors. / Discipline: Philosophy.

L’objectif principal de cette étude est de mettre à jour l’œuvre de Sébastien Le Camus († 1677), un nom derrière lequel se cache également celui de son fils, Charles Le Camus († 1717), lui-même compositeur. Les 32 airs connus du père ont été rassemblés dans un recueil d’auteur posthume publié en 1678 à l’initiative du fils. En faisant appel à la métaphore du cercle avec ce recueil au centre, nous parcourons, en périphérie, l’ensemble des sources écrites qui permettaient la diffusion du genre de l’air, sérieux et spirituel, dans la seconde moitié du XVIIe siècle et au début du XVIIIe siècle : les recueils collectifs musicaux et poétiques imprimés chez Ballard, les manuscrits conservés en France et à l’étranger, un roman – Clélie de Madeleine de Scudéry – et un périodique, le Mercure galant. Les 211 airs de Sébastien et Charles Le Camus collectés à ce jour ont été détachés de ces sources pour être maintenant rassemblés dans un catalogue (vol. 3) et dans une édition musicale moderne (vol. 4). La dynastie en miniature amène à s’interroger à la fois sur l’objet « partition » et sur la notion d’auteur, questionnée puis mise au centre de notre étude (vol. 1 et 2). En maniant finement cette notion plastique, nous offrons au musicien et au musicologue une analyse tant du contexte de création des airs que du matériau musical en tant que tel. Cette analyse, qui propose un va-et-vient entre la théorie et la pratique contemporaines de nos auteurs, amène à voir l’air comme un genre en mouvement dont la vie dépend tant de son succès dans les réseaux de sociabilité que de sa faculté à être composé, décomposé et recomposé pour s’adapter aux circonstances de son exécution. / The main goal of this study is to unveil the work of Sébastien Le Camus († 1677), behind whose name one also finds that of his son, Charles Le Camus († 1717), himself a composer. A collection of the father’s 32 known airs was published posthumously in 1678 upon the son’s initiative. By means of a metaphor, where that collection is at the centre of a circle, we navigate on the circle’s periphery through the set of written sources that allowed for diffusion of the genre of the French air, both secular and sacred, in the second half of the 17th century and at the beginning of the 18th century: The collections of airs and song-texts published by Ballard, the manuscripts kept in France and abroad, a novel – Clélie by Madeleine de Scudéry – and a periodical, the Mercure galant. The 211 airs by Sébastien and Charles Le Camus collected to date, extracted from those sources, are now gathered in a catalogue (vol.3) and in a modern music edition (vol.4). The miniature dynasty leads to explore the « score » as an object as well as the notion of author, first questioned and then set at the core of our study (vol.1 and 2). By subtle handling of that flexible notion, we offer to musicians and musicologists an analysis of both the airs’ creation context and the music material itself. This analysis, based on a constant dialogue between the theory and the practice of our authors’ time, leads to viewing the air as a dynamic genre whose life depends on its success within social milieus as much as on its ability to be composed, decomposed and recomposed according to the requirements of its performance context.

Albert Camus' posthumously published novel, Le Premier Homme, shows a new facet of this great twentieth-century writer's art. Intensely personal, the novel speaks of the coming of age of a "pied-noir" (French Algerian) boy and his search for roots as an adult. Simultaneously, Camus endeavors to tell the story of his ancestors, the French Algerians. The purpose of this thesis is to examine protagonist Jacques Cormery's search for roots by: 1) discussing the formative elements of his identity uncovered in the nostalgic voyage in time through an anecdotal construction of his childhood and the history of his ancestors, 2) linking recurring themes to selected works which will include: L'Envers et l'endroit, L'Etranger, La Peste, and L'Exil et le Royaume, emphasizing the prevalent intertextual allusions, and 3) drawing parallels between the text and Camus' biography, and his artistic and philosophical vision. First, I demonstrate how themes common to Le Premier Homme and Camus' previous work are interwoven. Throughout the body of his work one finds images of poverty as well as the themes of silence, "strangers/outsiders", the mother/son relationship and communion with nature. I identify and analyze the primary influences in the formation of Camus' "first" (or original) man. These include: the father (as forgotten and enigmatic), the surrogate fathers whom Jacques finds in the uncle and the teacher, and the grandmother. Additonally, I establish the autobiographical underpinnings of Camus' thinly veiled protagonist, Jacques Cormery, by comparing the story in the novel with Camus' biography. A discussion of style deals with influences and the writer's narrative technique. Examples of his use of ambiguity, paradox, and irony are cited in addition to some of the unique imagery. Finally, I demonstrate that this vivid resuscitation of Jacques Cormery's childhood world as autobiography reflects some of the sources of Albert Camus' vision. The novel underscores the lessons of poverty, Camus' admiration for the poor working class "pied-noirs" who live in the present, Sisyphean models, and the notion of ambiguity.

Albert Camus' 40. Todestag ist Anlaß, die literarische, kulturelle und politisch-soziale Bedeutung des Autors für die ehemals sozialistischen Länder zu dokumentieren. Camus' Interesse für diese Länder und die Unbestechlichkeit seines Urteils konnten von den oppositionellen Kräften als wirksame Unterstützung wahrgenommen werden; das belegen die Beiträge von acht LiteraturwissenschaftlerInnen, ÜbersetzerInnen und Kulturschaffenden, die an der Rezeption Camus' maßgeblich beteiligt waren und sind. Dabei wird deutlich, daß sich in der Auseinandersetzung mit Camus' Werk eine politische Haltung kundtat, die nicht selten eine Lebenshaltung und -entscheidung war.

This essay examines The Myth of Sisyphus (1942), The Plague (1947), and The Rebel (1951). I have chosen these three works in an effort to triangulate Camus' intellectual development, his persistent interest in literature, and the historical background against which these take place. Sisyphus and The Rebel are Camus' two major philosophical essays. The former belongs to Camus' "First Cycle" of writing, in which he focused on the concept of "the Absurd"; the latter belongs to Camus' "Second Cycle", in which he focused on the theme of "revolt." Camus wrote The Myth of Sisyphus during the Nazi occupation of Paris, an event which he witnessed and experienced and which also served as the inspiration for his novel The Plague. Though the two books are connected by this event, thematically The Plague belongs to Camus' Second Cycle. For this reason, it serves as an illuminating work, demonstrating the importance of fiction to Camus' intellectual process and his particular way of thinking. From Sisyphus to The Rebel, Camus' argument for fiction comes down to the opportunity it offers to describe life rather than explain it. In his opinion, the best novelists exhibit the very philosophy that should generally govern human behavior. These novelists limit themselves to what they can be sure of – namely, their personal experiences; they patiently explore what it is like to live on this earth – how human beings deal with each other, manage their environments, and cope with the often tremendous complexities of life. Not co-incidentally, Camus' fiction took special interest in death of all kinds – from murder to sickness to suicide – in order to remind his readers that life is finite. According to Camus, writing fiction is a way to keep the reader conscious of the human condition, because good fiction plainly exhibits life as it is and death as our common fate. By reflecting on good literature, readers may form their own life ethic.

<p>In my dissertation, I connect the role of literature and its interpretations with France's current occultation of its colonial and imperial past and present. The dissertation puts forth a re-consideration of an excluded work and of some hexagonal classics across time-periods.</p><p>The first chapter focuses on an excluded author from the Canon, The Baron de Lahontan (1683-1716). His Dialogues avec un sauvage (1703) are unique because the strident critique of the clergy, the wealthy and the aristocracy is free from patriotic and essentialist concerns. Today his works are claimed by some Amerindian scholars (such as George Sioui) as illustrative of Amerindian values, but largely ignored by French educational and publishing institutions. . I then examine briefly Diderot's Supplément au Voyage de Bougainville (1773). The comparison of Diderot's Supplément with Lahontan's Dialogues underline that Diderot critique of colonialism was not the primary objective of this work and was limited to issues of sovereignty and pointedly left aside the issue of commerce and indirect political influence.</p><p>The second chapter is on the work of Flaubert, Salammbô. I propose that Flaubert' Salammbô (1862) paints a world in which a collective consciousness based on class begins to emergeI also propose basing myself on Sartre's work on the author, that in Salammbô Flaubert finds a space in which to unfold his own contradictions (as symbolized in the novel by those of Salammbô herself) regarding his belonging to and hatred of the French bourgeoisie.</p><p>In the third chapter, I examine the works of Maupassant as a journalist and novelist in the context of colonialism. As a journalist he defended the interests of an emerging class of colons as a journalist by engaging in a complicated manipulation of public opinion. Maupassant was also the author of classic novel Bel-Ami (1885) which can be read as a ruthless indictment of the financial motivations behind France's colonial expansion. One of my arguments is that Maupassant's fiction in relation to the colonial renewal of the 1880's was what Balzac's novels were to emerging capitalism: his powers of observation transcend his political beliefs.</p><p>The ultimate chapter is about Camus's L'étranger (1942), Le premier home (written in 1959 published posthumously in1994) and his relation with Sartre. I examine how the historical events shaped Camus's fiction and how after his death they contributed to his standing in the literary field today. In L'étranger Camus does not acknowledge Arab characters by name, nor is the violence inflicted upon them considered neither central nor worthy of particular concern. I argue that Camus standing today as progressive and humanitarian thinker despite writing for the French colonial empire is indicative of France's inability to come to terms with its colonial past. </p><p>My re-visitation of the above works has led me examine the notion of progress in history and how its political corollary, the division between progress and reaction, later between left and right does not incorporate the issue of colonialism. I also attempted to assess the colonial and imperial projects as endeavors motivated primarily by economic gains of specific social groups which used race and identity as justifications and cover ups. This interpretative framework based on the theories put forth by Jean-Paul Sartre in his works on colonialism, racism and Flaubert.</p><p>This dissertation contributes a novel critique of hexagonal canonical works and proposes a re-evaluation of the extensive influence of political imperatives on the elaboration and status of works of literature.</p> / Dissertation