Agustí Bartra and Albert Camus: Sic et Non

Abstract

Within the conceptual framework of the traditionally fruitful relationship between literature and philosophy down through the centuries, an intertextual analysis between the poem «Sísif» [«Sisyphus»] by modern Catalan poet Agustí Bartra (1908-1982), published in his last collection of verse El gall canta per tots dos [The cock crows for the two of us] (1982), and the essay Le mythe de Sisyphe. Essai sur l’absurde (1942) by Albert Camus. Through Bartra’s poem based on Camus’s thought, a historical survey is made of the enriching intellectual and literary relationship between Bartra and Camus sustained over a little more than four decades and not exempt of points of conflict and disagreement.

Keywords: Agustí Bartra, Albert Camus, modern poetry, modern philosophy, debate of ideas, textual reprise, myth.