Loneliness and humanism: Breuil, Anouilh and Sartre in Sérgio Milliet’s Diário Crítico

Abstract

This article focuses on the study of humanism portrayed in Sérgio Milliet’s essays and reviews in Diário Crítico from a particular point of view: as a weapon against the loneliness of the modern man. In his texts, the Brazilian critic defines man’s place in the world in crisis from the works of Roger Breuil, Jean Anouilh and Jean-Paul Sartre, from which he draws a stoic attitude in the figures of Brutus, Antigone and Hugo. These characters inspire the ideal human behavior which favors perennial values like loyalty to a loved one (Antigone), a government regime (Brutus) or an ideology (Les Mains sales). In all of these works we can see the persistent association between humanism and stoicism in the name of a world under construction.