The Myth of Sisyphus
Cover of the first edition
|
|
| Author | Albert Camus |
|---|---|
| Original title | Le Mythe de Sisyphe |
| Translator | Justin O'Brien |
| Country | France |
| Language | French |
| Subject | Existentialism, Absurdism |
| Published |
|
| Media type | |
| ISBN | |
The Myth of Sisyphus (French: Le Mythe de Sisyphe) is a 1942 philosophical essay by Albert Camus. The English translation by Justin O'Brien was first published in 1955.
In the essay, Camus introduces his philosophy of the absurd: man's futile search for meaning, unity, and clarity in the face of an unintelligible world devoid of God and eternal truths or values. Does the realization of the absurd require suicide? Camus answers: "No. It requires revolt." He then outlines several approaches to the absurd life. The final chapter compares the absurdity of man's life with the situation of Sisyphus, a figure of Greek mythology who was condemned to repeat forever the same meaningless task of pushing a boulder up a mountain, only to see it roll down again. The essay concludes, "The struggle itself [...] is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy."
The work can be seen in relation to other absurdist works by Camus: the novel The Stranger (1942), the plays The Misunderstanding (1942) and Caligula (1944), and especially the essay The Rebel (1951).
The essay is dedicated to Pascal Pia and is organized in four chapters and one appendix.
Camus undertakes the task of answering what he considers to be the only question of philosophy that matters: Does the realization of the meaninglessness and absurdity of life necessarily require suicide?
He begins by describing the absurd condition: life is meaningless and nonsensical, but humans strive constantly for meaning and sense in it. Religious explanations have been disproved by science, but science in turn can only describe existence, it cannot explain why there is existence or what its meaning or purpose is, as Spinoza among others believed it would one day be able to. Once stripped of its common romanticism, the world is a foreign, strange and inhuman place. Yet humans need meaning, even though it appears there is no meaning to be found. Much of life is characterised by such absurd paradoxes: we build our lives on the hope of tomorrow, yet tomorrow brings us closer to death, the ultimate enemy; we live as if we don't know about the certainty of death. Science professes a sensible explanation of the world, but ends in fantastic stories of microscopic galaxies of atoms that cannot be seen. This is the absurd condition and "from the moment absurdity is recognized, it becomes a passion, the most harrowing of all."
...
Wikipedia