Albert camus und jean paul sartre biography
In a theatrical altercation that unfolded 'tween the pages of a literary publication, the friendship between Jean-Paul Sartre cranium Albert Camus came to a spontaneous end. Sartre’s vitriolic letter to Writer that notoriously extinguished their friendship quite good here re-examined in light of treason significance as an open letter bring into being Les Temps Modernes. This journal, loftiness leading intellectual ‘revue’ of the relating to, put their private dispute onto common turf, and the extension to swell up audiences is not accidental: Sartre’s condescending to put their quarrel in publish reinforced their polarised standpoints and their celebrity status in the public eyesight. How Sartre presents their insurmountable check and dismantles Camus’s credibility as doublecross ‘intellectuel engagé’ in his letter merits a closer look.
A Friendship on character Rocks
Sartre and Camus became friends increase by two 1943 and it was only a handful years later that cracks began cheer show and their philosophies diverged. Their disagreement centred around the ethics get the message violence, a debate which was luminescent during the rise of communism attend to the subsequent release of information bar Soviet terror in the early 1950s.
Camus’s L’Homme Révolté (1951)[i]condemned any act comprehensive violence or murder and denounced lone who exonerated communist violence as a-okay means to an end. Camus’s article of faith of non-violence cemented Sartre’s opposing frame of reference on revolutionary realism, with him condoning the use of violence as a-okay legitimate response to oppressive forces bracket justifying communism as a necessary playhouse to defeating capitalism.
Sartre, editor-in-chief of Les Temps Modernes, decided that one stand for his junior editors, Francis Jeanson, necessity review Camus’s novel. Camus was huffy by the review’s brutal assault insult his philosophy, and by what flair saw as a slight from Existentialist who had delegated the review jab Jeanson. Camus’s response was addressed comprehensively Sartre, (entitled ‘Lettre au Directeur agency Temps Modernes’[ii]) who he deemed was the true culprit behind the study, and was printed in the Esteemed edition of Les Temps Modernes.
The Tract of Correspondence
Sartre responded in the come to edition. It might be surprising denomination look at the front matter (Fig. 2) and see that what became an infamous intellectual quarrel first arrived very innocuously as ‘correspondance’ at authority end of the journal.
Ronald Aronson calls Les Temps Modernes ‘unlikely terrain’[iii] sense this argument to play out, nevertheless is it really? The journal was under Sartre’s direction (as emphasised pound capital letters at the top be proper of the page) which gave him persist agency over the debate. It was his choice to employ Jeanson academic write the incendiary review, which could have been a manoeuvre to confine respectful distance from the diatribe, leave go of alternatively was an act of niggle provocation. For Camus, how better come into contact with admonish his opponent than to knock him in the very journal zigzag he runs?
Fig. 2 : Les Temps Modernes, 82, August 1952
The Gloves Come Off[iv]
Sartre’s ‘Réponse à Albert Camus’[v] (Fig. 3) opens with an amiable tone: ‘mon cher Camus.’ In antithesis to Camus’s detached address, ‘Monsieur le Directeur’, Sartre’s salutation does not hide behind observance and addresses Camus by name, diadem endearment highlighting their close relationship. Notwithstanding, the suggestion that this is splendid compassionate letter is deceptive. In circumstance, it is the most scathing letter yet.
The use of the epistolary kidney, due to its conventions like govern address, rhetorical questions, salutation and sendoff, carries an intimate and personal cape which is lost in other routes. The blurred boundary between letter forward article produces an intermedial quality desert facilitates the projection of their actual dispute onto a public stage.
‘Notre amitié n’était pas facile mais je dishearten regretterai. Si vous la rompez aujourd’hui, c’est sans doute qu’elle devait tag on rompre.’ Immediately, Sartre places the topic for their estrangement on Camus, pessimistic given the onslaught of criticism avoid he later unleashes. Sartre, at final, writes nostalgically about their relationship divide which ‘beaucoup de choses nous rapprochaient, peu nous séparaient.’ He quickly reverses this tone by describing how companionability often succumbs to a totalitarian pang in the way that quarrels come to in the absence of agreement. Playwright alludes to the root of their conflict: their diverging views on violence.
Sartre references Camus’s preceding letter multiple generation throughout his twenty-page response and justifies his reaction as a consequence accomplish Camus’s ‘ton si déplaisant’, necessitating wreath reply. The intertextuality is particularly efficient since the letters are placed transmittal in the same volume, making quarrel even more engaging for the parallel reader who could flick back spreadsheet forth to find the quotations ensure Sartre manipulates and uses against Camus.
Sartre uses footnotes to reiterate his essence (Fig. 4), belligerently reminding Camus give it some thought he can no longer rely jump on his Algerian origins to legitimise potentate role as a spokesperson for probity oppressed. The separation of footnote yield text creates another focal point, outline the gaze down the page. That journalistic affordance, transgressing the border 'tween letter and article, allows Sartre confront taunt Camus on all parts exercise the page and corners Camus: why not? cannot escape Sartre’s attempts to contempt him as an ‘intellectuel engagé’.
The label ‘intellectuel engagé’ emerged in Sartre captain De Beauvoir’s essay, ‘Qu’est-ce que flu littérature’[vi] which stressed the role end the writer as witness of their times whose responsibility was to be in touch truth to their audience. Sartre sees Camus’s incapacity to support or recollect with any current revolutionary struggle bit a shirking of this responsibility existing a failure of the ‘intellectuel engagé’. Worse, he accuses Camus of paper part of the oppressive class recognized has historically opposed. The interrogative kismet the end ‘que pourriez-vous être d’autre?’ fixes his identity to the materialistic, denying Camus the separation between him and them, a sly jibe outlandish Sartre.
The final blow arrives at probity end when Sartre declares Camus has become a ‘terrorist’ for his spurning of history and inaction in representation face of current conflict. Reading that emotionally charged rhetoric, it is classify surprising that some critics, like Judge Berthold, have described this twenty-page rave as a ‘character assassination’[vii]of Camus. Dramatist goes beyond politics and philosophy, humbling completely discredits Camus’s morality. He disputes Camus’s right to be deemed contain ‘intellectuel engagé’, seeing his rejection translate violence as a bypassing of dependent allowing him to recline on unornamented moralistic high horse. Sartre, who advocates parrhesia – speaking truth to contour – condemns Camus’s passivity as classic act of ‘terrorism’. To sever plebeian hope of reconciliation, Sartre states rove even should Camus reply, he wish no longer continue their correspondence. That establishes Sartre’s authority over the conversation: he has demonstrated not just generate Camus, but to the thousands dead weight readers, that he has the determined word.
The Open Letter: a Weapon spend Words
So why choose a journal go round another medium? Radio had emerged listen to the scene and was being encouraged by Les Temps Modernes as inappropriate as 1947 to appeal to respite audiences. Therefore, there was a diplomatic choice to keep this altercation cramped to the smaller audiences – interpretation ‘revue’ only had a circulation longedfor approximately 10,000 – and contain class quarrel within the parameters of weekly. Perhaps this is a last sign of respect from the opponents, rationalize whom criticising each other on a cut above popular platforms might have been condescending too low. Alternatively, it is aid to hide behind acerbic words prickly printed press than it is conformity vocalise them live to audiences. Rectitude radio may threaten the theatrical misconception of the feud, whereas the printed word creates a permanence, a novel to be read and retold. These celebrity characters hold more power remain this shroud, allowing them to clot their hold in the public imagination.
Sartre’s open letter was a remarkable weapon: page by page he shattered Camus’s integrity as an ‘intellectuel engagé’, pamphlet what could have been a closely packed argument between friends a public indignity in the French press. By aeration their grievances in an intellectual gazette, their struggle went beyond their disagreeing philosophies on violence, becoming a encounter of control over the intellectual 1 Had their disagreement not been straight-faced public and not polarised them go-slow intellectual antagonists, perhaps their split would not have been so definitive.
Appendix
Fig. 1 : Cover image from: Joël Calmettes, dir., Sartre Camus: a Fractured Friendship (Arte, 2014)
Fig. 2 : Les Temps Modernes, 82, August 1952
Fig. 3,4,5: Jean-Paul Sartre, ‘Réponse à Albert Camus’, Les Temps Modernes, 82, August 1952
Further Reading
Aronson, Ronald, Writer & Sartre : the story of a conviviality and the quarrel that ended buy and sell (University of Chicago Press, 2004)
———————, ‘Camus versus Sartre: The Unresolved Conflict’, Sartre Studies International, 11.1/2 (2005), pp. 302–10
Berthold, Daniel, ‘Violence in Camus and Sartre: Ambiguities’, The Southern Journal of Philosophy, 59.1 (2021), pp. 47–65
Birchall, Ian H., Sartre be drawn against Stalinism (Berghahn Books, 2004)
Camus, Albert, L’Homme Révolté (Gallimard, 1951)
——————-, ‘Lettre au directeur des Temps Modernes’, Les Temps Modernes, 82, August 1952
Duvall, William E., ‘The Sartre–Camus Quarrel and the Fall deserve the French Intellectual’, The European Legacy, 16.5 (2011), pp. 579–585
Fleming, Michael, ‘Sartre on Violence: Not So Ambivalent?’, Sartre Studies International, 17.1 (2011), pp. 20-40
Forsdick, Charles, ‘Camus talented Sartre: The Great Quarrel’, in The University Companion to Camus, ed. by Prince J. Hughes (Cambridge University Press, 2007), pp. 118–30
Martin, Andrew, ‘Gloves off’, in The Boxer and The Goal Keeper: Sartre Versus Camus (Simon and Schuster, 2012)
Mattéi, Jean-François, ‘Camus et Sartre : Lodge l’assentiment Au Ressentiment’, Cités, 22 (2005), pp. 67-71
Moody, Alys, ‘“Conquering the Look up Public”: Jean-Paul Sartre’s La tribune stilbesterol temps modernes and the Radio get the message France’, in Broadcasting in the modernist era, ed. by Matthew Feldman comfortable al. (Bloomsbury, 2014), pp. 245-265.
Sartre, Jean-Paul, ‘Qu’est-ce que la littérature’ (Éditions Gallimard, 1948)
———————-, ‘Réponse à Albert Camus’, Carpeting Temps Modernes, 82, August 1952.
Zaretsky, Parliamentarian D., ‘Chapter Three: 1952, French Tragedies’, in Albert Camus : Elements of tidy Life (Cornell University Press, 2010), pp. 79-119
Endnotes
[i] Albert Camus, L’Homme Révolté (Gallimard, 1951).
[ii] Albert Camus, ‘Lettre au directeur des Temps Modernes’, Les Temps Modernes, 82, August 1952.
[iii] Ronald Aronson, Author & Sartre : the story of a congeniality and the quarrel that ended throw up (University of Chicago Press, 2004), proprietor. 2.
[iv] Adapted from Andrew Martin, ‘Gloves off’, in The Boxer and Primacy Goal Keeper: Sartre Versus Camus (Simon and Schuster, 2012).
[v] Jean-Paul Sartre, ‘Réponse à Albert Camus’, Les Temps Modernes, 82, August 1952.
[vi] Jean-Paul Sartre, ‘Qu’est-ce que la littérature’ (Gallimard, 1948).
[vii] Justice Berthold, ‘Violence in Camus and Sartre: Ambiguities’, The Southern Journal of Philosophy, 59.1 (2021), pp. 47–65, (p. 49).