Pourquoi Requiem ?

Philippe Forest | Université de Nantes

Camus’s interest in stage adaptations and mainly the problem of evil as it is raised in Faulkner’s Requiem for a Nun tempted the French writer into adapting it for the stage. The reference found in this version to Dostoïevski’s Brothers Karamazov is not meant to assert a Christian faith, but on the contrary to grow away from it. Hence Camus keeps his distance with the part played by Nancy. His adaptation of the Requiem breaks away from the religious interpretations it has been submitted to, so in reality Camus moves along the same line taken by Faulkner, when he was re-writing his first version of the Requiem for a Nun, as Noël Polk has shown. So Faulkner has structured a modern tragedy. The revolt against destiny finally makes it possible to compare the Requiem to Les Justes, making it possible to read it in the light of L’Homme Révolté

Keywords: William Faulkner, Albert Camus, Dostoïevski, the evil, the absurd, redemption, endurance, révolte

Published online: 01 May 2017
https://doi.org/10.1075/rro.52.1.06for

Bibliographie

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Dostoïevski, F.

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(1977) : Œuvres romanesques, t. I, « Bibl. de la Pléiade », Gallimard, Paris.

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Forest, Ph.

(2010) : Le Roman infanticide : Dostoïevski, Faulkner, Camus. Essais sur la littérature et le deuil, « Allaphbed 5 ». Éditions Cécile Defaut, Nantes.

Polk, N.

(1981): Faulkner’s Requiem for a Nun, A Critical Study. Indiana University Press, Bloomington.[ p. 69 ]