The Dynamics of the Absurd in the Existentialist Novel

The Dynamics of the Absurd in the Existentialist Novel
Author: Richard E. Baker
Publisher: Peter Lang Incorporated, International Academic Publishers
Total Pages: 158
Release: 1993
Genre: Literary Collections
ISBN:

In 1942, the French author Albert Camus, in an essay titled The Myth of Sisyphus, wrote a comprehensive analysis of the absurd to explain his novel The Stranger. Using Camus's essay as a matrix for the absurd, this book is a rigorous examination of other contemporary existentialist writers and their novels: the French writer Jean-Paul Sartre provides us with his important absurdist text Nausea; the Spanish writer Miguel de Unamuno, Mist; and the two American writers Richard Wright, Native Son and Walker Percy, The Last Gentleman. Since The Dynamics of the Absurd in the Existentialist Novel is a comparative study, different authors are invoked from various cultures to demonstrate the vast viability of Camus's criteria for the absurd and to determine the interpretive results which can be gleaned from its application.

Albert Camus and the Political Philosophy of the Absurd

Albert Camus and the Political Philosophy of the Absurd
Author: Matthew H. Bowker
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2013
Genre: Absurd (Philosophy).
ISBN: 9780739181362

In Albert Camus and the Political Philosophy of the Absurd: Ambivalence, Resistance, and Creativity, Matthew H. Bowker takes an interdisciplinary approach to Albert Camus' political philosophy by reading absurdity itself as a metaphor for the psychosocial dynamics of ambivalence, resistance, integration, and creativity. Decoupling absurdity from its ontological aspirations and focusing instead on its psychological and phenomenal contours, Bowker discovers an absurdist foundation for ethical and political practice.

The A to Z of Existentialism

The A to Z of Existentialism
Author: Stephen Michelman
Publisher: Scarecrow Press
Total Pages: 410
Release: 2010-04-01
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1461731798

Existentialism is the philosophy of human existence, which flourished first in Germany in the 1920s and 1930s and then in France in the decade following the end of World War II. The operative meaning of existentialism here is thus broader than it was circa 1945 when the term first gained currency in France as a label for the philosophy of Jean-Paul Sartre. However, it is considerably less broad than the view proposed by commentators in the 1950s and 1960s who, in an attempt to overcome Sartre's hegemony, discovered the seeds of existentialism far and wide: in Shakespeare, Saint Augustine, and the Old Testament prophets. In this dictionary, existentialism is understood as a decidedly 20th-century phenomenon, though with roots in the 19th century. Effort has been made to understand the philosophy of existentialism, as all philosophies should be understood, as part of an ongoing intellectual tradition: an evolving history of problems, concepts, and arguments. The A to Z of Existentialism explains the central claims of existentialist philosophy and the contexts in which it developed into one of the most influential intellectual trends of the 20th century. This is done through a chronology, an introductory essay, a bibliography, and more than 300 cross-referenced dictionary entries offering clear, accessible accounts of the life and thought of major existentialists like Jean-Paul Sartre, Martin Heidegger, Martin Buber, Karl Jaspers, Gabriel Marcel, Simone de Beauvoir, Albert Camus, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, as well as thinkers influential to its development such as Wilhelm Dilthey, Henri Bergson, Edmund Husserl, and Max Scheler. This book affords readers an integrated, critical, and historically-sensitive understanding of this important philosophical movement.

A Study Guide for "Existentialism"

A Study Guide for
Author: Gale, Cengage Learning
Publisher: Gale, Cengage Learning
Total Pages: 40
Release: 2016
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1410345475

A Study Guide for "Existentialism," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Literary Movements for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Literary Movements for Students for all of your research needs.

Reading the Absurd

Reading the Absurd
Author: Joanna Gavins
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Total Pages: 224
Release: 2013-06-27
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0748669272

What is the literary absurd? What are its key textual features? How can it be analysed? How do different readers respond to absurdist literature?Taking the theories and methodologies of stylistics as its underlying analytical framework, Reading the Absurd tackles each of these questions. Selected key works in English literature are examined in depth to reveal significant aspects of absurd style. Its analytical approach combines stylistic inquiry with a cognitive perspective on language, literature and reading which sheds new light on the human experience of literary reading.By exploring the literary absurd as a linguistic and experiential phenomena, while at the same time reflecting upon its essential historical and cultural situation, Joanna Gavins brings a new perspective to the absurd aesthetic.

The Rebel

The Rebel
Author: Albert Camus
Publisher: Vintage
Total Pages: 320
Release: 2012-09-19
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0307827836

By one of the most profoundly influential thinkers of our century, The Rebel is a classic essay on revolution that resonates as an ardent, eloquent, and supremely rational voice of conscience for our tumultuous times. For Albert Camus, the urge to revolt is one of the "essential dimensions" of human nature, manifested in man's timeless Promethean struggle against the conditions of his existence, as well as the popular uprisings against established orders throughout history. And yet, with an eye toward the French Revolution and its regicides and deicides, he shows how inevitably the course of revolution leads to tyranny. Translated from the French by Anthony Bower.

Camus and Sartre

Camus and Sartre
Author: Ronald Aronson
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 312
Release: 2004-01-03
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780226027968

Until now it has been impossible to read the full story of the relationship between Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre. Their dramatic rupture at the height of the Cold War, like that conflict itself, demanded those caught in its wake to take sides rather than to appreciate its tragic complexity. Now, using newly available sources, Ronald Aronson offers the first book-length account of the twentieth century's most famous friendship and its end. Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre first met in 1943, during the German occupation of France. The two became fast friends. Intellectual as well as political allies, they grew famous overnight after Paris was liberated. As playwrights, novelists, philosophers, journalists, and editors, the two seemed to be everywhere and in command of every medium in post-war France. East-West tensions would put a strain on their friendship, however, as they evolved in opposing directions and began to disagree over philosophy, the responsibilities of intellectuals, and what sorts of political changes were necessary or possible. As Camus, then Sartre adopted the mantle of public spokesperson for his side, a historic showdown seemed inevitable. Sartre embraced violence as a path to change and Camus sharply opposed it, leading to a bitter and very public falling out in 1952. They never spoke again, although they continued to disagree, in code, until Camus's death in 1960. In a remarkably nuanced and balanced account, Aronson chronicles this riveting story while demonstrating how Camus and Sartre developed first in connection with and then against each other, each keeping the other in his sights long after their break. Combining biography and intellectual history, philosophical and political passion, Camus and Sartre will fascinate anyone interested in these great writers or the world-historical issues that tore them apart.

The Search for Selfhood in Modern Literature

The Search for Selfhood in Modern Literature
Author: M. Roston
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 255
Release: 2001-09-05
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0230597173

The scientific achievements of the modern world failed to impress the leading writers of this century, leaving them instead profoundly disturbed by a sense of lost values and of the insignificance of the individual in a universe seemingly indifferent to human concerns. In The Search for Selfhood in Modern Literature Roston explores the strategies adopted by such mid-century authors as Greene, Salinger, Osborne, Baldwin and others in their attempt to cope with the spiritual vacuity - strategies including the emergence of the anti-hero and of literary existentialism - and offer in the course of the investigation fascinatingly new insights into their work.

Papers

Papers
Author: Alessandra Raed
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation
Total Pages: 86
Release: 2020-09-28
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 166410058X

Papers is a compilation of essays and articles in Drama and English literature. It reflects the author’s experiences, views, and studies in the areas of drama (theatre, production and performance), and writing (journalism and creative writing). The works from other authors cited and/or mentioned in this book are referenced.

Re-Thinking Character in the Theatre of the Absurd

Re-Thinking Character in the Theatre of the Absurd
Author: Carmen Dominte
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Total Pages: 198
Release: 2020-09-23
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1527559882

Using the character as a central element, this volume provides insights into the Theatre of the Absurd, highlighting its specific key characteristics. Adopting both semiotic-structuralist and mathematical approaches, its analysis of the absurdist character introduces new models of investigation, including a possible algebraic model operating on the scenic, dramatic and paradigmatic level of a play, not only exploring the relations, configurations, confrontations, functions and situations but also providing necessary information for a possible geometric model. The book also takes into consideration the relations established among the most important units of a dramatic work, character, cue, décor and régie, re-configuring the basic pattern. It will be useful for any reader interested in analyzing, staging or writing a play starting from a single character.