“Tell all the truth but tell it slant,” wrote Emily Dickinson. One way to get an oblique angle on today's truth is to frame it with a narrative borrowed from ancient history, from folklore or myth.
In 1938, in Algeria, Albert Camus wrote the first draft of his play Caligula. Appalled and fascinated by modern dictators' twinning of brutality with glamour, he turned to first-century Rome for a story to give shape to his response. It was finally performed in 1945, Camus having lived in France under German occupation, working courageously for the resistants' journal Combat. His Caligula is brilliant and crazy, a despot whose absolute power gives him an absolute licence that frightens him to death. Camus had been expelled from the Communist party for his outspokenness before experiencing Nazi censorship. Only by time-travelling to ancient Rome could he set himself free to explore, with painful clarity, his thoughts on freedom.
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