num_pages: 302
description: Nobel prizewinner and co-founder of French existentialism Camus was a playwright as well as a novelist and essayist. This book presents four of his plays, including the best known, “Caligula.” All were written in the 30s and 40s, with WWII in the backgound. Three of the plays wrestle with the violent politics of that era, and all four with la condition humaine. *Caligula. Caligula is young emperor of Rome. So far he has been a just and good leader. But the recent death of his sister and lover Drusilla has caused him to see things in a new love does not last, man is profoundly alone, all men—even emperors—must die, and most human beings spend their lives denying or trying to escape from these verities. Since there is no hope and the gods are a sham, everything is possible—even the impossible. And as emperor, Caligula is in a unique position to attempt the “impossible.” So he starts governing capriciously and outrageously like Fate itself, whimsically executing people, enacting reckless new laws, antagonizing virtually everybody but especially the patricians. Reminding the Romans that their comfortable security is a façade beneath which they hide their terror of death, he rips away the façade by subjecting them to arbitrary, unpredictable and often lethal actions. In the end, of course, the patricians work up their courage and kill him, but not before he realizes that his actions have reinforced his loneliness and failed to bring him the godlike satisfaction—the “impossible”—that he sought.
language: English
title: Caligula and Three Other Plays
titlecomplete: Caligula and Three Other Plays
genres: Fiction, Plays, French Literature, Theatre, Classics, 20th Century, France, Philosophy, Drama, Literature
ratings_count: 1847
publisher: Alfred A. Knopf