Page 73 - NyghtVision Magazine Volume 2 #2
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THE BEAUTY OF SADNESS                                                                                            66

















































           here that I find beauty.                           To keep the sadness alive and so to breathe
           In the decade before his death, Albert Camus       life  into beauty, I must create. Incessantly.
           wrote a number of plays. One, called “Calig-       Endlessly. To keep the sadness alive. To nur-
           ula”, always stood  out  amongst  the  rest  for   ture and sustain the beauty. To rebel, as Ca-
           me. Camus’ interpretation of Caligula and his      mus would say, against the silence of the uni-
           murderous activities is unique. Camus’ Calig-      verse. To assert love, and hope, and beauty,
           ula isn’t a mad man driven to murder because       amidst a world  in which  all things  and all
           of some twisted  psychological  defect.  His       emotions  die. It is how  we  fashion our hu-
           need to murder those he loves goes far deeper      manity in our rebellion against death, silence,
           than that. In the final scene of the play, just    meaninglessness, knowing all the while that
           before he is killed, Caligula is asked why he      death murders even our rebellion and steals
           murdered those he loved. He replies:               our humanity. Because time even steals our
                                                              grief. The only way to hold on to the moment
           “Most people imagine that a man suffers be-        is  to  cherish  it, worship  it, create  within  it,
           cause, out of the blue, death snatches away        and, finally, to mourn each moment, until I
           the woman he loves. But his real suffering is      am no more. As Camus’ Caligula murdered, I
           less  futile, it comes from the discovery that     create because for me, if I do not create, I can-
           grief, too, cannot last. Even grief is vanity.”    not hold the moment, I cannot rebel against
           To keep the grief alive, Caligula must murder      death, I cannot feel the pain of beauty pass-
           over and over again.                               ing…….






 nyghtvision magazine                                           volume 2, number 2, summer 2012
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