The Rebel

Introduction

Camus published the long essay in 1951 after several years of work. It traces “metaphysical revolt” from the Marquis de Sade and Ivan Karamazov to Nietzsche and the Surrealists, then “historical revolt” from the French Revolution to the Russian terrorists of 1905, whom Camus calls “fastidious assassins”, and to the twentieth-century states that killed in the name of history. Revolt keeps its truth only if it respects limits; Camus closes with a plea for measure, “thought at the meridian”, which he associates with the Mediterranean. A hostile review in Les Temps modernes in 1952, followed by Sartre’s own reply to Camus, ended their friendship publicly.

Connections

Criticizes

• Phenomenology of Spirit1807 · Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
• The Communist Manifesto1848 · Karl Marx

More works by Albert Camus

• 1942The Myth of Sisyphus