Absurdist fiction - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Absurdist fiction
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Absurdist fiction is a genre of literature, most often employed in novels, plays or poems, that focuses on the experiences of characters in a situation where they cannot find any inherent purpose in life, most often represented by ultimately meaningless actions and events. Common elements in absurdist fiction include satire, dark humour, incongruity, the abasement of reason, and controversy regarding the philosophical condition of being "nothing."[1] Works of absurdist fiction often explore agnostic or nihilistic topics. While a great deal of absurdist fiction may be humorous or irrational in nature, the hallmark of the genre is neither comedy nor nonsense, but rather, the study of human behavior under circumstances (whether realistic or fantastical) that appear to be purposeless and philosophically absurd. Absurdist fiction posits little judgment about characters or their actions; that task is left to the reader. Also, the "moral" of the story is generally not explicit, and the themes or characters' realizationsif any are often ambiguous in nature. Additionally, unlike many other forms of fiction, absurdist works will not necessarily have a traditional plot structure (i.e., rising action, climax, falling action, etc.). The absurdist genre grew out of the modernist literature of the late 19th and early 20th century in direct opposition to the Victorian literature which was prominent just prior to this period. It was largely influenced by the existentialist and nihilist movements in philosophy and the Dada and surrealist movements in art.

Contents
1 Examples 2 See also 3 References 4 External links

Examples
Franz Kafka - The Metamorphosis (1915), The Trial (1925) Luigi Pirandello - Six Characters in Search of an Author (1921) Svetoslav Minkov - The Lady With the X-Ray Eyes (1934) Albert Camus - The Stranger (1942), The Plague (1947), The Fall (1956) Eugne Ionesco - The Bald Soprano (1950), Rhinoceros (1959) Samuel Beckett - Waiting for Godot (1952) Harold Pinter - The Birthday Party (1958) Edward Albee - The American Dream (1961) Joseph Heller - Catch-22 (1961) Kurt Vonnegut - Cat's Cradle (1963) Tom Stoppard - Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead (1966) Luke Rhinehart - The Dice Man (1971)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absurdist_fiction

06-Mar-13

Absurdist fiction - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Tom Robbins - Still Life with Woodpecker (1980) Patrick Sskind - Perfume (1985) Paul Auster - The New York Trilogy (1989) Lemony Snicket - A Series of Unfortunate Events (1999 - 2006) Gregory Burke - Gagarin Way (2001) M. John Harrison - Light (2002) Gary Shteyngart - Absurdistan (2006) Rhys Hughes - The Postmodern Mariner (2008) David Hoenigman - Burn Your Belongings (2009)[2]

See also
Absurdism Absurdist humor Existentialism Literary nonsense Theatre of the Absurd List of genres

References
1. ^ Cornwell, Neil (2006), The Absurd in Literature, New York, NY: Manchester University Press, ISBN 9780-7190-7409-7 2. ^ Burn Your Belongings, by David Hoenigman / Word Riot Review (http://www.wordriot.org/template_2.php?ID=1674)

External links
Fiction of the Absurd (http://alangullette.com/lit/absurd/) Bust Down the Door and Eat All the Chickens - A Journal of Absurd and Surreal Fiction (http://www.absurdistjournal.com/) Absurdist Monthly Review Magazine (http://amr.obook.org/index.php) The Gone Lawn Excavation Project: contemporary absurdist authors, journals & presses (http://www.gonelawn.net) Fookleyur: absurdist, pataphysician, non-sequitur poet (http://www.fookleyur.com) Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Absurdist_fiction&oldid=538413224" Categories: Absurdist fiction Literary genres This page was last modified on 15 February 2013 at 15:33. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. See Terms of Use for details. Wikipedia is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absurdist_fiction

06-Mar-13