Notre travail porte sur le traitement de la question du mal dans des récits français publiés entre 1945 et 1962, soit entre deux procès ayant interrogé la spécificité du mal et de la culpabilité, celui de Nuremberg d’une part, celui d’Eichmann d’autre part. Ces écrits sont des récits de l’après publiés par des écrivains qui ont participé à la guerre (comme Simon ou Camus) ou qui n’en ont reçu que des échos lointains (comme Butor ou Bataille). Le fil conducteur de notre analyse s’appuie sur l’essai de Paulhan, Les Fleurs de Tarbes ou la terreur dans les lettres, lequel nous a permis d’étudier le mal non seulement dans son versant historique au prisme de la terreur nazie et de ses conséquences, mais aussi dans son versant littéraire, entendant alors le terme de terreur dans le sens métaphorique que lui accordent Paulhan et Sade avant lui. La terreur est contrebalancée en permanence dans ces écrits et dans notre travail par son opposé, la rhétorique, et engendre la constitution d’une génération de romanciers « antimodernes » qui accèdent à une modernité esthétique sans renier la tradition romanesque du XIXe. L’approche du mal en termes de terreur et de rhétorique nous permet ainsi de concevoir la spécificité du traitement du mal chez Sartre, Bataille ou dans la littérature de témoignage, mais également de réinterroger sur nouveaux frais le statut du Nouveau Roman au prisme d’une historicité souvent déniée par la critique et de marquer l’oscillation de ce groupe de romanciers entre terreur et rhétorique. Cherchant l’hermétisme, l’exception, les nouveaux romanciers sont par ailleurs en quête d’une rhétorique fédératrice, capable de refonder une communauté brisée par la guerre. / Our work relates to the question of evil in French stories published between 1945 and 1962, therefore between two trials that have questioned the specificity of evil and guilt, namely the Nuremberg trial and the Eichmann trial. These stories, written after the war, were published by writers who either directly took part in the fight (like Simon or Camus), or simply had echos of it (like Butor or Bataille). The heart of our study is the essay of Jean Paulhan entitled Les Fleurs de Tarbes ou la terreur dans les lettres. This essay enabled us to analyse evil, not only in terms of History — by referring to the Nazi terror and its consequences — but also in literary and metaphorical terms, therefore considering the term ‘terror’ according to the definition of Paulhan and Sade. In both these stories and our work, terror is constantly offset by its opposite, rhetoric, which constitutes the basis for a generation of ‘anti-Modern’ writers who aim at esthetical modernity without denying the importance of the novelistic tradition of the 19th Century. The question of evil through the notions of terror and rhetoric leads us to specify the approach of evil in Sartre and Bataille’s novels, or in testimonies. These notions allow us to analyse the status of the Nouveau Roman from an historical perspective, often denied by critics, and to show the constant wavering of this group of writers between terror and rhetoric. The nouveaux romanciers are not only looking for exception, abstruseness, but they are also seeking a common rhetoric, capable of recreating a community otherwise broken by the war.

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La notion de l'absurde a pris dans la pensée et le langage courant un très grand nombre de significations, parfois très éloignées les unes par rapport aux autres. Il est arrivé à au moins deux reprises que le terme « absurde » soit entendu dans le sens d'un courant : dans la philosophie absurde théorisée par Albert Camus en 1942, et dans le Théâtre de l'absurde (Beckett, Ionesco, etc.), qui lui a connu son apogée dans les années cinquante. Ces deux mouvements pourraient être envisagés comme l'expression d'un seul et même courant, l'absurde, qui prend ses racines dans une Europe ébranlée par les horreurs de la guerre et l'affaissement de la religion chrétienne. Pour les contemporains, l'hostilité et le désordre de l'univers, de même que la solitude irrémédiable de l'individu apparaissent comme des vérités à la fois douloureuses et difficile à ignorer. Roman Polanski (1933-), cinéaste à la fois prolifique et éclectique, ouvre à l'absurde de nouveaux horizons, ceux du septième art. L'analyse de son oeuvre (et des éléments autobiographiques qui la sous-tendent parfois) met à jour d'indéniables parentés avec les figures-clés de l'absurde que sont Camus, Kafka, Nietzsche et les dramaturges européens de l'après-guerre. Ces parentés se repèrent tout autant dans les thématiques récurrentes de ses films que dans leurs obsessions formelles. / The idea of absurd has taken a huge amount of different meanings in thought and current speech. Some of these meanings may present important differences with others. There is at least two occurrences where the word “absurd” has been understood as a current: first, in the philosophie absurde, theorized by Albert Camus in 1942, and second, in the Theater of the Absurd (Beckett, Ionesco and others), who had his hours of glory during the 1950s. These two movements can be seen as two branches of a single current, the Absurd, who has its roots in Europe after World War II. The horrors of the conflict and the loss of faith in Christianity pushed the intellectuals and artists of this period to become very sensitive to ideas such as hostility (of men, of world...) and loneliness. Roman Polanski (1933-), film director well-known for the eclecticism of his work, showed very notable acquaintances with Absurd in many of his movies. The analysis of his art (and of the autobiographical elements that sometimes appear in it) proves a clear relation with important figures of the Absurd current, such as Camus, Kafka, Nietzsche, and European playwrights of the post-war era. This relation can be observed in themes as well as in the mise en scène of Polanski's films.

L’imaginaire social français est aujourd’hui dominé par une peur lancinante. Au début du XXIe siècle, les angoisses démographiques et culturelles entretenues par une partie des intellectuels trouvent de nouvelles assises dans la popularisation de la fantasmatique du « grand remplacement », un scénario conspirationniste qui annonce un changement de population sur le territoire français où une civilisation orientale prend peu à peu la place des « idéaux occidentaux ». La littérature a la particularité de mettre en récit des représentations et des débats précis qui circulent dans l’imaginaire social. Cette étude évalue le travail d’invention spécifique à la littérature produit dans trois romans – L’Épuisant désir de ces choses de Renaud Camus, Petit frère d’Éric Zemmour et Soumission de Michel Houellebecq – qui créent, modifient et reconfigurent cette fantasmatique. Ces textes décrivent et anticipent la fin de la Ve République telle qu’elle est aujourd’hui connue, mais de façons différentes. Pour des raisons ethniques, civiques ou métaphysiques, ils laissent entendre que désormais « la France, c’est les autres! ». / A haunting fear pervades the French social imaginary. In the early twenty-first century the demographic and cultural anxieties of certain intellectuals took root in the popularization of the "great replacement" phantasmatic ; a scenario that announced changes in the populations of French territories, a conspiracy that would lead to Eastern culture eventually replacing "occidental ideals". Literature makes it possible for representations and precise debates circulating in the social imaginary to come alive through storytelling. The present study will evaluate the invention work, specific to literature, that was produced in Renaud Camus's L’Épuisant désir de ces choses, Éric Zemmour's Petit frère and Michel Houellebecq's Soumission. The novels in question create, alter, and reconfigure, albeit in different ways, this phantasmatic, describing and anticipating the end of the Fifth Republic as it is known today. Be it for ethnic, civic, or metaphysical reasons, they suggest that, henceforth, "la France, c'est les autres!".

The main objective of this research is to study the affinities between Brazilian writer Graciliano Ramos (1892-1953) and French philosopher and writer Albert Camus (1913-1961). More precisely, we tend to explores the reflections of camusian revolt in three Ramos' prose works: Barren Lives (1938), Anguish (1936) and São Bernardo (1933). The literary and philosophical direction of existentialism is outlined at the beginning of the thesis. Therefore, the first chapter is devoted to an explanation of Camusian existentialism and his philosophical concept of revolt, not only in his philosophical works, but also in his novels. The subsequent chapter focuses on the life and work of Graciliano Ramos. Thereafter the three aforementioned Ramos' novels are analyzed in order to uncover in them motives of existentialism solitude, anguish, revolt against society ─ all of the more or less interlinked by the problem of incommunicability. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

The thesis inquires into the theme of political judgement and aims to rethink it from the perspective of twentieth-century philosophies of existence. It seeks to take up the contemporary challenge of political judgement that remains inadequately addressed within recent theorizing: how, given the modern breakdown of metaphysical absolutes, to reinvigorate the human capacity for political judgement as a practical activity able to confront the ambiguous, plural and complex character of our postfoundational world. Against this background, the thesis aspires to reclaim the distinctly historical orientation of twentieth-century existentialism, in particular the work of Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Albert Camus and Hannah Arendt. It draws on their aesthetic sensibility to resuscitate the human judging ability in its worldly ambiguity and point towards an account of political judgement capable of facing up to the challenges of our plural and uncertain political reality. Retrieving their vigilant assumption of the situated, worldly condition of human political existence and the attendant perplexity of judging politically, the aim of the thesis is to suggest how the existentialists' insights can be brought to bear on contemporary problematics of political judgement that seem to elude the grasp of abstract standards and predetermined yardsticks.

In this dissertation I explain the transition from modernism to postmodernism through the study of the French existentialist novel. I follow theories that demonstrate that the latter owes its success to historiographic metafiction. By setting off the aporias that deeply penetrate modern novels, I demonstrate the obsolescence of the prototype of the realist novel and I explain the impasses towards which the project of a committed literature lead, inscribed in the line of realism and aimed at an almost direct relation with society and history through the mediation of art between 1945 and 1955 in France. / On one hand I consider literature as an object which can be described by the methodologies of history. On the other hand I suggest an analysis of the historicity of the text that is constituted by the dynamic system generated by the interaction, the interdependence, and the correlation of the poetic and aesthetic parameters and the factors of the historical context. My aim is to set off the poetic and aesthetic mecanism of stability and of transformation of literary creation according to the dynamic relation between the vector of the project associated to realism and the one of the prototype associated to the novel. I think that late modernism produces paradoxical configurations of the novel because it is the period in which the project of realism becomes lapsed and the prototype of the realist novel becomes dilapidated. / Among the works that are exemplary of the tension between fiction and history and between project and prototype in the framework of the representation of reality and of the inscription of history in novels, I identified Albert Camus' La Peste, Simone de Beauvoir's Les Mandarins and Jean-Paul Sartre's Les Chemins de la liberte . I conclude that the enterprise of committed literature was an aporias because it was generated from the impoverishment of the project of realism and the obsolescence of the prototype of the novel. Later literature was extricated, firstly, by the radically and extremely metafictional writing of the Nouveau Roman and, secondly, it was changed by postmodern historiographic metafiction. The crisis of history and of the writing of history was solved by works in which there is the acknowledgement and the use of sophisticated mediations to evoke and inscribe history in different ways.

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Thesis (MA (English Studies))--University of Stellenbosch, 2009. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: As existent beings, we identify with the world through our thoughts and perceptions. Man is driven to seek meaning by the very complexities and contradictions of existence. As self-conscious beings, we cannot live without a sense of awareness and understanding. Creativity allows an individual to develop a unique understanding of the nature and destiny of man. This study draws attention to writers who were able to transcend their external environment and immerse themselves in a setting where man’s individuality is fundamental to living an authentic life. Camus, Dostoevsky and Kafka made every effort to live consciously and authentically. They believed that inwardness was not to be defined by an external, social setting, but rather through an intimacy of consciousness. This awareness and unveiling of being enables us to create meaning. These authors removed their social mantles and were willing to sacrifice acceptance in the pursuit of this cause. They believed that every man has a responsibility to live an individual and authentic life. This psychological and even physical isolation is not easy, however, and often causes much suffering. Using existentialism as a framework, this thesis will focus on solitariness, suffering and creativity, all of which point to the importance of individual consciousness rather than living a life of societal pressures and conformity. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: As lewende wesens identifiseer ons onsself met die wêreld deur middel van gedagtes en waarnemings. Die mens word gedryf deur die soeke na betekenis in die kompleksiteit en teenstellings van sy bestaan. As wesens met selfkennis kan ons nie leef met ‘n gebrek aan bewustheid en begrip nie. Kreatiwiteit laat die individu toe om ‘n unieke begrip van die aard en lot van die mens te ontwikkel. Hierdi verhandeling vestig die aandag op skrywers wat verby hul uiterlike omgewings kon uitreik en hulself kon indompel in ‘n mileu waar die mens se individualiteit grondliggend is om ‘n onvervalste lewe te lei. Camus, Dostoevsky en Kafka het alles in hul vermoë gedoen om bewustelik en suiwer te lewe. Hulle het geglo dat die innerlike nie gedefinieer kan word deur die uiterlike, sosiale omgewing nie, maar eerder deur ‘n intimiteit van bewustheid. Hierdie bewustheid en openbaring van bestaan laat ons toe om betekenis te skep. Hierdie skrywers het hul sosiale mantels afgewerp en was bereid om sosiale aanvaarbaarheid op te offer in hul strewe na hierdie doelwit. Hulle het geglo dat elke mens oor ‘n individuele en onvervalste lewe beskik. Die sielkundige en selfs fisieke afsondering is egter nooit maklik nie en het dikwels groot lyding tot gevolg. Met eksistensialisme as raamwerk sal hierdie tesis focus op afsondering, lyding en kreatiwiteit.

The diploma thesis examines the specific work of Albert Camus and Gabriel Marcel, focusing on the question of human values. The aim is to show two forms of existential philosophy concerning human existence in their chosen dramas. The work is divided into chapters. In the first chapter we can find the basic characteristics of existentialism and its development. The second and third chapter deals with Camus' and Marcel's conception of philosophy. In these chapters will present the Camus' problem of suicide, revolt, absurd and sense of being. In the case of Marcel will be dealt with the issue of duality of being and have, relationship I-You, love, hope, death, freedom and faith. Diploma thesis results in subsequent chapters where you can find comparison existential themes in the works of authors.