From Kharms to Camus: Towards a Definition of the Absurd as Resistance

Abstract

These days, the philosophical and metaphysical concept of the absurd enjoys a less than stellar reputation. Not that it ever had widespread appeal, 2 but the years have not been kind to it. A brainstorming session on the most common associations with absurdism would surely yield the likes of 'bleakness', 'pointlessness', and 'despair'. Frequently conflated with nihilism, 3 it is routinely assumed to be some sort of conceptual wasteland fraught with moral relativity 4 and plagued by an inescapable sense of sterility, one heightened by its 'built-in obsolescence' 5 and its hopelessly paradoxical nature. 6 The literary and dramatic counterpart of absurdismand here the emphasis rests