Camus

Albert Camus was born on November 7, 1913 in Mondovi, Algeria to a French Algerian settler family. His mother was of Spanish extraction. His father, Lucien, died in the Battle of Marne in 1914 during the First World War. Camus lived in poor conditions during his childhood in the Belcourt section of Algiers.

In 1923, Camus was accepted into the lycée and eventually to the University of Algiers. However, he contracted tuberculosis in 1930, which put an end to his football activities (he had been a goalkeeper for the university team) and forced him to make his studies a part-time pursuit. He completed his licence de philosophie (BA) in 1935; in May of 1936, he successfully presented his thesis on Plotinus, Neo-Platonisme et Pensee Chretienne for his diplome d'etudes superiures (roughly equivalent to an M.A. by thesis).

Camus joined the French Communist Party in 1934, apparently for concern over the political situation in Spain (which eventually resulted in the Spanish Civil War) rather than support for Marxist-Leninist doctrine. In 1936, the independence-minded Algerian Communist Party (PCA) was founded. Camus joined the activities of Le Parti du Peuple Algerien, which got him into trouble with his communist party comrades. As a result, he was denounced as "Trotskyite", which did not endear him to communism.

In 1934, he married Simone Hie, but the marriage ended due to Simone's morphine addiction. In 1935, he founded The atre du Travail - "Worker's Theatre" - (renamed Theatre de l'Equipe in 1937), which survived until 1939.

In 1940, Camus married Francine Faure and he began to work for Paris-Soir magazine. In the first stage of World War II, the so-called Phony War stage, Camus was a pacifist. However, he was in Paris to witness how the Wehrmacht took over. On December 19, 1941, Camus witnessed the execution of Gabriel Peri, an event which Camus later said crystallized his revolt against the Germans. Afterwards he moved to Bordeaux alongside the rest of the staff of Paris-Soir. In this year he finished his first books, The Stranger and The Myth of Sisyphus. He returned briefly to Oran, Algeria in 1942.

During the war Camus joined the French Resistance cell Combat, which published an underground newspaper of the same name. This group worked against the Nazis, and in it Camus assumed the moniker "Beauchard". Camus became the paper's editor in 1943, and when the Allies liberated Paris Camus reported on the last of the fighting. He eventually resigned from Combat in 1947, when it became a commercial paper. It was here that he became acquainted with Jean-Paul Sartre.

After the war, Camus became one member of Sartre's entourage and frequented Cafe de Flore on the Boulevard St. Germain in Paris. Camus also toured the United States to lecture about French existentialism. Although he leaned left politically, his strong criticisms of communist doctrine did not win him any friends in the communist parties and eventually also alienated Sartre.

In 1949 his tuberculosis returned and he lived in seclusion for two years. In 1951 he published The Rebel, a philosophical analysis of rebellion and revolution which made clear his rejection of communism. The book upset many of his colleagues and contemporaries in France and led to the final split with Sartre. The dour reception depressed him and he began instead to translate plays.

In 1957 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature, officially not for his novel The Fall, published the previous year, but for his writings against capital punishment in the essay "Reflexions Sur la Guillotine". Camus was the youngest recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature, after Rudyard Kipling.

Camus died on January 4, 1960 in a car accident near Sens, in a place named "Le Grand Frossard". He was interred in the Lourmarin Cemetery, Lourmarin, Vaucluse, Provence-Alpes-Cote d'Azur, France.

Writings:

The Stranger (1942) - A novel in which Camus explores the basic ideas of his theory of absurdism; namely, that the world is essentially meaningless and therefore, the only way to arrive at any meaning or purpose is to make it ones self. Thus it is the individual and not the act that gives meaning to any given context.

The Rebel (1951) - Camus treats both the metaphysical and the historical development of the revolution in modern society. He tries to relate figures like Marquis de Sade, Max Stirner (whom he misrepresents to some extent), Friedrich Nietzsche, Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Karl Marx in one big picture of men in revolt. One of the main points is that the urge for revolt always comes from an urge for justice. Another theme is the idea that once a revolution gets established it will become more tyrannic than the original government because the ideal of an utopia justifies everything.

Main Ideas:

Camus particularly is considered the originator of absurdism, a philosophy related to Existentialism. Absurdism contends that human beings are basically irrational and human suffering is the result of vain attempts by individuals to find reason or meaning in the absurd abyss of existence.

Camus claimed that the only true philosophical question was that of suicide. That is, should we bother living at all or simply kill ourselves? Camus argued that historically most people have either believed that life is meaningless and concluded in favor of suicide, or have created some artificial meaning like religion to fill their lives. Camus claims that there is a third option: we can realize that life is meaningless and nevertheless keep living. People who opt for this third option are "absurd heroes."

The Rebel, the Don Juan, and the Artist are three figures that Camus identifies as absurd heroes. Each of these people finds meaning in his or her own pursuits and thus lives up to the example of the Greek mythical figure Sisyphus, who was "condemned" to push a boulder up a hill for eternity fully aware that the boulder would simply fall down the hill as soon as he seemingly finished his task.

Influence:

Camus' main influence was his invention of the idea of absurdism. Although he shared many beliefs that are similar to those of existentialism, many would argue Camus was an absurdist rather than an existentialist. Many readers have come to consider him the most profound, honest, and effective advocate of liberal humanism of our time. His name, ideas, and writings have been invoked during every major political or cultural crisis since his death. His literary masterpieces L'etranger and La chute are judged by many critics and scholars to be among the best works of prose fiction in the 20th century.

This information taken from the Encarta Encyclopedia and here.