CAMUS: A COLLECTION OF CRITICAL ESSAYS

Edited by Germaine Bree.
182 pages
Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1962.

Comments and outlines by Bob Corbett
June 2003

This is a useful collection of essays which appeared in collection shortly after Camus's death. Some deal with his life and work in an overview fashion, others with specific works. Some of the essays focus on philosophical analysis and criticism, others are limited to litrary criticism.

There is an excellent analysis of the Camus/Sartre "split," and the very last essay is a rather disappointing and startlingly reserved "In Memorium" from Jean-Paul Sartre.

I would think that about 1/4 the essays in this volume were either written specifically for this volume, or just shortly before Camus's death. Others are older essays which haven't been reworked, but just copied from some journal or other where they appeared before.

I have made my own comments essay by essay rather than trying to give a picture of the whole. The essays are varied and author's not at all in agreement, thus trying to arrive at any "single" view of Camus from this volume would not be fair to the authors or very useful.

Thus the individual essays and my comments and or sketches of content:

Bob Corbett corbetre@webster.edu

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Bob Corbett corbetre@webster.edu