Theatre of the Absurd

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-	The Theater of the Absurd, a term coined by the critic Martin Esslin, refers to a movement in dramatic literature in post-war Paris during the 40s and 50s. Contributing playwrights included Samuel Beckett (an Irishman who wrote in French), [[Eugene Ionesco]], [[Arthur Adamov]], [[Fernando Arrabal]], [[Jean Genet]], and [[Jean Tardieu]]. Its roots can be found in the `nonsense` literature of [[Lewis Carrol]], Strindberg's dream plays, and the novels of [[James Joyce]], and the [[Dada]] and [[Surrealism | Surrealist]] movements in the period between [[World War I]] and [[World War II]].	+	The Theater of the Absurd, a term coined by the critic Martin Esslin, refers to a movement in dramatic literature in post-war Paris during the 40s and 50s. Contributing playwrights included Samuel Beckett (an Irishman who wrote in French), [[Eugene Ionesco]], [[Arthur Adamov]], [[Fernando Arrabal]], [[Jean Genet]], and [[Jean Tardieu]]. Its roots can be found in the `nonsense` literature of Lewis Carrol (''Alice in Wonderland''), Strindberg's dream plays, and the novels of [[James Joyce]], and the [[Dada]] and [[Surrealism | Surrealist]] movements in the period between [[World War I]] and [[World War II]].
	The term, Theater of the Absurd, derives from the philosophical use of the word absurd by such [[existentialist]] thinkers as [[Albert Camus]]. Camus argued that humanity had to resign itself to recognizing that a fully satisfying rational explanation of the universe was beyond its reach; in that sense, the world must ultimately be seen as absurd. In his `Myth of Sisyphus,` Camus defined the human situation as mostly meaningless and absurd.		The term, Theater of the Absurd, derives from the philosophical use of the word absurd by such [[existentialist]] thinkers as [[Albert Camus]]. Camus argued that humanity had to resign itself to recognizing that a fully satisfying rational explanation of the universe was beyond its reach; in that sense, the world must ultimately be seen as absurd. In his `Myth of Sisyphus,` Camus defined the human situation as mostly meaningless and absurd.

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Current revision

The Theater of the Absurd, a term coined by the critic Martin Esslin, refers to a movement in dramatic literature in post-war Paris during the 40s and 50s. Contributing playwrights included Samuel Beckett (an Irishman who wrote in French), Eugene Ionesco, Arthur Adamov, Fernando Arrabal, Jean Genet, and Jean Tardieu. Its roots can be found in the `nonsense` literature of Lewis Carrol (Alice in Wonderland), Strindberg's dream plays, and the novels of James Joyce, and the Dada and Surrealist movements in the period between World War I and World War II.

The term, Theater of the Absurd, derives from the philosophical use of the word absurd by such existentialist thinkers as Albert Camus. Camus argued that humanity had to resign itself to recognizing that a fully satisfying rational explanation of the universe was beyond its reach; in that sense, the world must ultimately be seen as absurd. In his `Myth of Sisyphus,` Camus defined the human situation as mostly meaningless and absurd.

These playwrights relied heaviliy on poetic metaphors to express their inner subjectivity; the images of absurdist plays tend to suggest fantasy and dream/nightmare-like scenarios to express the playwright's interpretation of an interior reality. For example, Ionesco's play Rhinoceros expresses the spread of Nazism as the characters turn into rhinoceroses. The horrors and traumas of World War II and the following nuclear age had a deep affect on these writers; the war showed that values and conventions were impermanent and invalid, and that human life was both precarious, arbritary, and meaningless.

At the same time, the Theatre of the Absurd is a reaction to the disappearance of the religious dimension form contemporary life. The Absurd Theatre can be seen as an attempt to restore the importance of myth and ritual to the modern by making man aware of the ultimate realities of his condition, by instilling in him again the lost sense of cosmic wonder and primeval anguish. The Absurd Theatre hopes to achieve this by shocking man out of an existence that has become trite, mechanical and complacent. It is felt that there is mystical experience in confronting the limits of human condition.