Caligula by Albert Camus

Author in Depth: Albert Camus

Caligula (1939)

Translated from the French by Stuart Gilbert

My Quick Take: This play is absurd in more ways than one: it is part of Camus’ exploration of his philosophy of the absurd, and it also shows the decidedly non-philosophical absurdity of the corruption of absolute power.

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A late addition to my Author in Depth project to read select works of Albert Camus, Caligula is a play that he wrote as one of three works in his Cycle of the Absurd, his earliest writing. The other pieces are The Stranger and The Myth of Sisyphus, both of which I’ve recently read and blogged about. I wasn’t going to read Caligula, his play first written in 1939, revised several times and first performed in 1944, but I thought, what the heck? My disclaimer: What follows is a non-philosopher's take on this play and philosophy in general, but that's the point of this project.

The play is a quick read, but I found myself a touch nonplussed on reading it through, because discerning the absurdist philosophical themes was more tricky than the other works. They were there, but I wasn’t quite sure what Camus wanted to say about the whole thing. It’s the very straightforward story of Caligula, a Roman emperor who lived between AD 24-41 and turned tyrant with his cruelty, murderous ways, and abuse of his peers. Camus’ play finds Caligula after his sister and lover Drusilla has died. Caligula realises the meaninglessness of life and first requests of his Roman guard “the moon,” an absurd request for “the impossible.” Having felt the meaninglessness of life, he seeks to enact this absurd state onto his subjects, forcing their daughters into brothel work, assaulting their wives, and murdering indiscriminately. In the end, he basically allows his own assassination to happen.

Camus says:

“Caligula is the story of a superior suicide. It is the story of the most human and the most tragic of errors. Unfaithful to man, loyal to himself, Caligula consents to die for having understood that no one can save himself all alone and that one cannot be free in opposition to other men.”

I had to do some supplementary reading to make much sense of it. I posit that Caligula came to understand the absurd, and in his own “freedom” he became a tyrant, pushing the logic of the principle that any action is meaningless and equal to any other to its far boundary: killing and corrupting freely, and depriving others of life, rights and freedoms in turn. Camus argues against suicide as a response to the absurd, and I think what he is getting at here is Caligula’s misguided “freedom” and “revolt” in harming other people (“you can’t be free in opposition to other men”). Either Caligula was mocking the absurdity of life by engaging in abhorrent violence (a kind of F-you to the universe) or was misinterpreting absurd freedom and revolt. Perhaps he was unable to live authentically in the absurd and thus his choice of suicide by assassination was “superior” to living the way he was.

Morals and absurdism do not coexist easily, and I’m seeing some discussion in my reading online about this paradox. I mean, I’m going to hope that this notion has traction: “absurdists often argue that it matters how the agent faces the absurdity of their situation and that the response should exemplify these virtues. This aspect is particularly prominent in the idea that the agent should rebel against the absurd and live their life authentically as a form of passionate revolt.” (note this is from Wikipedia, though it has three papers as citations).

So I think Caligula may be Camus’ example of an individual’s absurdism gone wrong at the limits of logic. A cautionary tale. Maybe?

As to the non-Camus definition of absurdism, “ridiculously unreasonable,” or “extremely silly or ridiculous” (Merriam-Webster), the whole play was just over the top! And kind of in a good way, at times. One scene that I won’t forget is when Caligula holds a poetry contest, where each of the nobles have one minute to pen a poem on “Death,” after having just witnessed Caligula killing another nobleman for no good reason. Caligula is to be the judge and timekeeper. His paramour Caesonia intones, deadpan, “Needless to say there will be rewards…and the penalties won’t be too severe.” Stage direction: “Converting his contest into a mad farce, Caligula with his piercing whistle stops each contestant in mid-metaphor.” I can almost see the patricians sweating over writing excellent verse in this absurd contest, fearing Caligula’s punishment. It’s like a poetry Squid Game for aristocrats.

I’m glad that I chose to add this to my reading about Absurdism, because it’s spurred me to consider Absurdism and morality, something that is clearly debated by philosophers. Common sense and human decency, and the need to consider others’ human rights in balance with one’s own is top priority for me and probably most people I know, and getting too precious about philosophical arguments is something I don’t really care to do for this project, but it’s an interesting thought experiment. I find many of Camus’ concepts of the absurd relevant and useful, but I think I can take what works for me from his theory, and leave what doesn’t serve me well.