Chapter 13 Mensch to Übermensch: Asceticism and the Ascetic Ideal in A Happy Death and The Stranger

In: Brill's Companion to Camus
Author:
Simon Lea
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Simon Lea’s chapter examines Camus’s early exploration of the central ideas of Nietzsche’s philosophy: amor fati, eternal recurrence, and the Übermensch. Lea argues that these ideas are pivotal to understanding The Stranger and its precursor A Happy Death. In The Rebel, as Ure examines in this collection (chapter 7), Camus accuses Nietzsche of promoting an excessive form of life affirmation that replaces slavish revenge with the deification of man and his fate. However, a decade and half earlier, Camus embraces a much more positive view of amor fati, eternal recurrence, and the Übermensch. Nietzsche was a constant presence in Camus’s life and his attempts to consider and correct his ‘spiritual ancestor’ had a great influence on his literary and philosophical output.

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