FINDING YOURSELF IN RUINS

Transcription

1 FINDING YOURSELF IN RUINS ALBERT CAMUS RETURN TO TIPASA LECTURE 8 AUGUST 13, 2015

2 LECTURE OUTLINE 1. Albert Camus 2. Summary of Return to Tipasa 3. Camus and Tipasa, or You and Nature 4. Love and Justice

3 ALBERT CAMUS 1913, Born in Algiers Pied noir, poverty, colonialism in French-Algeria , World War II and French Resistance 1941, The Stranger & Myth of Sisyphus , The Plague & The Rebel Social justice activism, esp. against death penalty 1956, The Fall 1960, Dies in a car accident

4 SUMMARY OF TIPASA Camus returns to Algeria for the second time since WW2 Goes to Tipasa (old Roman city, now in ruins) First return there was a disappointment (it wasn t the same anymore) Second visit, more modest goal Has a transcendent moment that refreshes him

5 HOW TO THINK ABOUT THIS Camus has an emotional attachment to Tipasa How should we think of this moment? Mystical view Rationalist view Poetic view

6 TIPASA AS NATURE Tipasa as a mix of human and natural Camus s view of Algeria Ever the same sky & always the same sea too (199) Description of Chenoua Connects land, sky, and sea As refuge and harbor to Camus Controversial claim from a pied noir

7 I wanted to see again Chenoua, that solid, heavy mountain cut out of a single block of stone, which borders the bay of Tipasa to the west before dropping down into the sea itself. It s seen from a distance, long before arriving, a light blue haze still confused with the sky. But gradually it is condensed, as you advance toward it, until it takes on the color of the surrounding waters, a huge motionless wave whose amazing leap upward has been brutally solidified over a suddenly calm sea [H]ere is the old mossy god that nothing will ever shake, a refuge and harbor for its sons, of whom I am one. (200)

8 TRANSCENDENT MOMENT I had found exactly what I had come seeking (200) Hears the silence of the world and himself Happy torrents Camus is now the sea, his own harbor Slight changes, the moment passes In the middle of winter I at last discovered that there was within me an invincible summer (202) Transcendental experience

9 From Chenoua a distant cock s crow alone celebrated the day s fragile glory It seemed as if the morning were stabilized, the sun stopped for an incalculable moment. In this light and this silence, years of wrath and night melted slowly away. I listened to an almost forgotten sound within myself as if my heart, long stopped, were calmly beginning to beat again. And awake now, I recognized one by one the imperceptible sounds of which the silence was made up: the figured bass of the birds, the sea s faint brief sighs at the foot of the rocks, the vibration of the trees, the blind singing of the columns, the rustling of the wormwood plants, the furtive lizards. I heard that; I also listened to the happy torrents rising within me. It seemed to me that I had at last come to harbor, for a moment at least, and that henceforth that moment would be endless. (200-1)

10 BEAUTY AND JUSTICE Missed something. What is it? Justice and beauty in conflict? nothing is true that forces one to exclude Isolated beauty ends up simpering, solitary justice ends up oppressing (198)

11 LOVING AND ADMIRING Transcendent moment satisfies both for Camus Necessity of loving the long fight for justice exhausts the love that nevertheless gave birth to it (201) Must retain a freshness in yourself

12 LOVE AND JUSTICE I haven t been able to disown the light into which I was born and yet I have not wanted to reject the servitudes of this time (202) Exclusion fails because we lose ourselves in the act Modern paradox need for doubleness

13 [F]ew epochs require as much as ours that one should be equal to the best as to the worst, I should like, indeed, to shirk nothing and to keep faithfully a double memory. Yes, there is beauty and there are the humiliated. Whatever may be the difficulties of the undertaking, I should like never to be unfaithful to either one or the others. (203)

14 CONCLUSION His conscience speaks I cannot stand apart from my people But perhaps someday I shall be able to disown our garish tombs and go and stretch out in the valley, under the same light, and learn for the last time what I know. (204)