Albert Camus - Discours de réception du prix Nobel, 1957
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0:04 - 0:10Sir, Madam, Your Royal Highnesses, Ladies
and Gentlemen, -
0:10 - 0:16In receiving the distinction with which your
free Academy has so generously honoured me, -
0:16 - 0:21my gratitude has been profound, particularly
when I consider the extent to which this recompense -
0:21 - 0:28has surpassed my personal merits. Every man,
and for stronger reasons, every artist, wants -
0:28 - 0:38to be recognized. So do I. But I have not
been able to learn of your decision without -
0:38 - 0:48comparing its repercussions to what I really
am. A man almost young, rich only in his doubts -
0:48 - 0:56and with his work still in progress, accustomed
to living in the solitude of work or in the -
0:56 - 1:04retreats of friendship: how would he not feel
a kind of panic at hearing the decree that -
1:04 - 1:09transports him all of a sudden, alone and
reduced to himself, to the centre of a glaring -
1:09 - 1:17light? And with what feelings could he accept
this honour at a time when other writers in -
1:17 - 1:25Europe, among them the very greatest, are
condemned to silence, and even at a time when -
1:25 - 1:30the country of his birth is going through
unending misery? -
1:30 - 1:37I felt that shock and inner turmoil. In order
to regain peace I have had, in short, to come -
1:37 - 1:44to terms with a too generous fortune. And
since I cannot live up to it by merely resting -
1:44 - 1:51on my achievement, I have found nothing to
support me but what has supported me through -
1:51 - 1:59all my life, even in the most contrary circumstances:
the idea that I have of my art and of the -
1:59 - 2:07role of the writer. Let me only tell you,
in a spirit of gratitude and friendship, as -
2:07 - 2:11simply as I can, what this idea is.
-
2:11 - 2:21For myself, I cannot live without my art.
But I have never placed it above everything. -
2:21 - 2:27If, on the other hand, I need it, it is because
it cannot be separated from my fellow men, -
2:27 - 2:36and it allows me to live, such as I am, on
one level with them. To me, art is not a solitary rejoicing. -
2:36 - 2:43It is a means of stirring the greatest number of people by offering them a privileged picture of
-
2:43 - 2:52common joys and sufferings. It obliges the artist not to keep himself apart; it subjects him to the most
-
2:52 - 3:01humble and the most universal truth. And often
he who has chosen the fate of the artist because -
3:01 - 3:07he felt himself to be different soon realizes
that he can maintain neither his art nor his -
3:07 - 3:18difference unless he admits that he is like
the others. The artist forges himself to the -
3:18 - 3:26others, midway between the beauty he cannot
do without and the community he cannot tear -
3:26 - 3:34himself away from. That is why true artists
scorn nothing: they are obliged to understand -
3:34 - 3:42rather than to judge. And if they have to
take sides in this world, they can perhaps -
3:42 - 3:45side only with that society in which, according
to Nietzsche's great words, not the judge -
3:45 - 3:51but the creator will rule, whether he be a
worker or an intellectual. -
3:51 - 4:00By the same token, the writer's role is not
free from difficult duties. By definition -
4:00 - 4:07he cannot put himself today in the service
of those who make history; he is at the service -
4:07 - 4:13of those who suffer it. Otherwise, he will
be alone and deprived of his art. -
4:13 - 4:20Not all the armies of tyranny with their millions
of men will free him from his isolation, even -
4:20 - 4:28and particularly if he falls into step with
them. But the silence of an unknown prisoner, -
4:28 - 4:34abandoned to humiliations at the other end
of the world, is enough to draw the writer -
4:34 - 4:40out of his exile, at least whenever, in the
midst of the privileges of freedom, he manages -
4:40 - 4:48not to forget that silence, and to transmit
it in order to make it resound by the means of art. -
4:48 - 4:58None of us is great enough for such a task.
But in all circumstances of life, in obscurity -
4:58 - 5:07or temporary fame, cast in the irons of tyranny
or for a time free to express himself, -
5:07 - 5:15the writer can win the heart of a living community
that will justify him, on the one condition -
5:15 - 5:20that he will accept to the limit of his abilities
the two tasks that constitute the greatness -
5:20 - 5:28of his craft: the service of truth and the
service of liberty. Because his task is to -
5:28 - 5:34unite the greatest possible number of people,
his art must not compromise with lies and -
5:34 - 5:43servitude which, wherever they rule, breed
solitude. Whatever our personal weaknesses may be, -
5:43 - 5:49the nobility of our craft will always
be rooted in two commitments, difficult to -
5:49 - 5:58maintain: the refusal to lie about what one
knows and the resistance to oppression. -
5:58 - 6:05For more than twenty years of an insane history,
hopelessly lost like all the men of my generation -
6:05 - 6:11in the convulsions of time, I have been supported
by one thing: by the hidden feeling that to -
6:11 - 6:19write today was an honour because this activity
was a commitment - and a commitment not only -
6:19 - 6:28to write. Specifically, in view of my powers
and my state of being, it was a commitment -
6:28 - 6:32to bear, together with all those who were
living through the same history, the misery -
6:32 - 6:40and the hope we shared. These men, who were
born at the beginning of the First World War, -
6:40 - 6:49who were twenty when Hitler came to power
and the first revolutionary trials were beginning, -
6:49 - 6:55who were then confronted as a completion of
their education with the Spanish Civil War, -
6:55 - 7:02the Second World War, the world of concentration
camps, a Europe of torture and prisons - -
7:02 - 7:11these men must today rear their sons and create
their works in a world threatened by nuclear destruction. -
7:11 - 7:18Nobody, I think, can ask them
to be optimists. And I even think -
7:18 - 7:27that we should understand - without ceasing to fight
it - the error of those who in an excess of despair -
7:27 - 7:33have asserted their right to dishonour
and have rushed into the nihilism of the era. -
7:33 - 7:40But the fact remains that most of us, in my
country and in Europe, have refused this nihilism -
7:40 - 7:47and have engaged upon a quest for legitimacy.
They have had to forge for themselves an art -
7:47 - 7:54of living in times of catastrophe in order
to be born a second time and to fight openly -
7:54 - 7:59against the instinct of death at work in our
history. -
7:59 - 8:07Each generation doubtless feels called upon
to reform the world. Mine knows that it will -
8:07 - 8:13not reform it, but its task is perhaps even
greater. It consists in preventing the world -
8:13 - 8:22from destroying itself. Heir to a corrupt
history, in which are mingled fallen revolutions, -
8:21 - 8:30technology gone mad, dead gods, and worn-out
ideologies, where mediocre powers can today destroy -
8:30 - 8:36all yet no longer know how to convince, where
intelligence has debased itself to become -
8:36 - 8:43the servant of hatred and oppression, this
generation has had, both within and without, -
8:43 - 8:49re-establish, starting from its own negations,
a little of that which constitutes the dignity -
8:49 - 8:54of life and death. In a world threatened by
disintegration, in which our grand inquisitors -
8:54 - 8:59run the risk of establishing forever the kingdom
of death, it knows that it should, in an insane -
8:59 - 9:11race against the clock, restore among the
nations a peace that
is not servitude, reconcile anew labour and -
9:11 - 9:17culture, and remake with all men the Ark of
the Covenant. It is not certain that this -
9:17 - 9:22generation will ever be able to accomplish
this immense task, but already it is rising -
9:22 - 9:30everywhere in the world to the double challenge
of truth and liberty and, if necessary, -
9:30 - 9:39knows how to die for it without hate. Wherever it
is found, it deserves to be saluted and encouraged, -
9:39 - 9:46particularly where it is sacrificing itself.
In any event, certain of your complete approval, -
9:46 - 9:51it is to this generation that I should like
to pass on the honour that you have just given me. -
9:51 - 9:56At the same time, after having outlined the
nobility of the writer's craft, I should have -
9:56 - 10:03put him in his proper place. He has no other
claims but those which he shares with his -
10:03 - 10:11comrades in arms: vulnerable but obstinate,
unjust but impassioned for justice, doing -
10:11 - 10:16his work without shame or pride in view of
everybody, not ceasing to be divided between -
10:16 - 10:23sorrow and beauty, and devoted finally to
drawing from his double existence the creations -
10:23 - 10:29that he obstinately tries to erect in the
destructive movement of history. Who, -
10:29 - 10:38after all this, can expect from him complete solutions
and high morals? Truth is mysterious, elusive, -
10:38 - 10:44always to be conquered. Liberty is dangerous,
as hard to live with as it is elating. -
10:44 - 10:51We must march toward these two goals, painfully
but resolutely, certain in advance of our -
10:51 - 10:58failings on so long a road. What writer would
from now on in good conscience dare set himself up -
10:58 - 11:04as a preacher of virtue? For myself, I
must state once more that I am not of this kind. -
11:04 - 11:08I have never been able to renounce the
light, the pleasure of being, and the freedom -
11:08 - 11:15in which I grew up. But although this nostalgia
explains many of my errors and my faults, -
11:15 - 11:21it has doubtless helped me toward a better
understanding of my craft. It is helping me still -
11:21 - 11:30to support unquestioningly all those
silent men who sustain the life made for them in the world -
11:30 - 11:35only through memory of the return
of brief and free happiness. -
11:35 - 11:44Thus reduced to what I really am, to my limits
and debts as well as to my difficult creed, -
11:44 - 11:51I feel freer, in concluding, to comment upon
the extent and the generosity of the honour -
11:51 - 11:59you have just bestowed upon me, freer also
to tell you that I would receive it as an -
11:59 - 12:08homage rendered to all those who, sharing
in the same fight, have not received any privilege, -
12:08 - 12:14but have on the contrary known misery and
persecution. It remains for me to thank you -
12:14 - 12:21from the bottom of my heart and to make before
you publicly, as a personal sign of my gratitude, -
12:21 - 12:32the same and ancient promise of faithfulness
which every true artist repeats to himself in silence every day.
- Title:
- Albert Camus - Discours de réception du prix Nobel, 1957
- Description:
-
English translation: http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1957/camus-speech.html
EN: Albert Camus' Nobel Prize in Literature acceptance speech, given at Stockholm on December 10, 1957. He was awarded the prize "for his important literary production, which with clear-sighted earnestness illuminates the problems of the human conscience in our times".
FR : Discours d'Albert Camus pour la réception du prix Nobel de littérature, donné à Stockholm le 10 décembre 1957. Le prix lui a été décerné pour « l'ensemble d'une œuvre qui met en lumière les problèmes se posant de nos jours à la conscience des hommes ».
Retranscription complète : http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1957/camus-speech-f.html
- Video Language:
- French
- Duration:
- 12:56
haytham bakroun edited English subtitles for Albert Camus - Discours de réception du prix Nobel, 1957 |