The Novel and Literature in the Existentialist Philosophy of Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus;An Exploration of the Possibilities of Interrelation

Abstract

The novel, in its general form, is considered a companion to philosophical thought. This explains why many philosophers and writers have turned to novelistic genres to express their philosophical ideas. This has constituted a qualitative shift in contemporary philosophical thought, having been imbued with philosophical principles shaped by World War II. These principles have made contemporary thought more mature, conscious, original, and distinct from the classical novel, especially as it has manifested itself in intellectual and humanistic stances that have inspired contemporary literature and permeated contemporary philosophical trends in aesthetics. Among these trends is the existentialist approach of the French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, who revealed a new style of novelistic writing that tends toward literary expression that touches upon truth and mimics existential experience. He based this novelistic writing on a new style of literature and the novel. The philosopher Albert Camus agrees with him in the same vein, and even more intensely, as he was able to create this cross-fertilization between philosophy and literature through reality in a style predominantly imaginative. The Screaming One.