The Cambridge Introduction to Theatre and Literature of the Absurd

Abstract

Michael Y. Bennett's accessible Introduction explains the complex, multidimensional nature of the works and writers associated with the absurd - a label placed upon a number of writers who revolted against traditional theatre and literature in both similar and widely different ways. Setting the movement in its historical, intellectual and cultural contexts, Bennett provides an in-depth overview of absurdism and its key figures in theatre and literature, from Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter to Tom Stoppard. Chapters reveal the movement's origins, development and present-day influence upon popular culture around the world, employing the latest research to this often challenging area of study in a balanced and authoritative approach. Essential reading for students of literature and theatre, this book provides the necessary tools to interpret and develop the study of a movement associated with some of the twentieth century's greatest and most influential cultural figures.

Taking the absurd seriously

“…This may be what Shoham (1974: xvii) described as the little explored ‘no-man’s-land between sociology and existentialism’. It is also what Bennett (2015: 16) takes from reading Camus’s The Myth of Sisyphus : ‘Humans do live in an “absurd situation”, but neither the world nor humans are absurd: it is only the union of the world and humans that is absurd’.…”

“…Conceivably, during the emergence of capitalism with the development of the factory system and other forms of mass collective labouring, experience, let alone recognition, of the absurd were negligible when set against collective experiences of alienation. The literature, theatre and sociology of the absurd emerged only by the late capitalism of the 1950s and 1960s partly in reaction to the underlying contradictions of modern capitalist societies – including underlying limits of scientific reason and its application in workplaces and government bureaucracies – as well as the horrors of successive world wars (Bennett, 2015; Esslin, 2001).…”

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

“…141 Moreover, the Russian writer never seemed keen on getting overtly mixed up in politics, even in the comparatively safe context of his utopian project for a domestic journal. 142 Camus too considers the acknowledgement of absurdity a sine qua non, but he turns Kharms's equation on its head; his 'belief and trust in reason' 143 lead him to argue instead for the instrumentalization of rationality (in due moderation, as we have seen) against absurdity. Furthermore, this, Camus contends, should be done in a decidedly concrete way: although more existentialist (and atheistic) in nature than any of Kharms's more perfunctory statements, his call for a 'protracted protest against death' 144 is to be answered as much by a general rebellion against the absurdity of the human condition as by a steely defiance of repression of any kind and a strong disavowal of the nihilistic principles which, according to Camus, prop up totalitarian ideologies and regimes.…”

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

“…141 Moreover, the Russian writer never seemed keen on getting overtly mixed up in politics, even in the comparatively safe context of his utopian project for a domestic journal. 142 Camus too considers the acknowledgement of absurdity a sine qua non, but he turns Kharms's equation on its head; his 'belief and trust in reason' 143 lead him to argue instead for the instrumentalization of rationality (in due moderation, as we have seen) against absurdity. Furthermore, this, Camus contends, should be done in a decidedly concrete way: although existentialist (and atheistic) in nature than any of Kharms's more perfunctory statements, his call for a 'protracted protest against death' 144 is to be answered as much by a general rebellion against the absurdity of the human condition as by a steely defiance of repression of any kind and a strong disavowal of the nihilistic principles which, according to Camus, prop up totalitarian ideologies and regimes.…”

“… Ibid., pp. 125,143. 65 Conceptions of the Absurd, p. 1.66 Ibid., p. 68. Though it is unfortunate that most critics of absurdist literature and drama focus almost exclusively on that 'negative, self-destructive movement'(Ibid.…”