The Routledge Companion to Absurdist Literature (Routledge Literature Companions)

The Routledge Companion to Absurdist Literature is a field-defining collection. The editor and contributors are not only investigating the so-called "Theatre of the Absurd," but wading deeply into absurdist fiction, absurdist poetry, and black, Latin/x, female, LGBTQ+, and non-Western Absurdist voices. Cover Half Title Title Page Copyright Page Dedication Table of Contents Notes on Contributors Introduction: What Is Absurdist Literature? And Is that What We Are Calling It Now? Part I: Origins Section 1 What Led to Absurdist Literature? 1 Historical Precursors, I: Ancient Tragicomedy and Pastoral Plays 2 Historical Precursors, II: Nonsense! From Carroll and Lear Through Wilde and Sitwell to the Postmodern 3 Historical Precursors, III: Gogol and Dostoevsky 4 Bartleby and Beckett 5 Kafka as Literature of the Absurd 6 OBERIU: The Absurd as a Critique of Poetic Reason 7 The Absurd: Dada and Surrealism 8 T. S. Eliot and the Group Theatre Section 2 Philosophical Origins: Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Sartre, and Camus 9 Nietzsche's Absurd Tragedy 10 Kierkegaard and the Absurd 11 Sartre and the Absurd 12 Camus and Absurdity Part II: Absurdist Literature Section 3 Samuel Beckett 13 Show Not Tell: The "Absurdist" Theatre of Samuel Beckett 14 Beckett's Fiction 15 Credo Quia Absurdum Est: The Subversion of the Rational in Samuel Beckett's Early Poetics 16 Samuel Beckett's Television Plays 17 Samuel Beckett's Radio Plays Section 4 1950s: The First Wave 18 Arthur Adamov 19 Jean Genet 20 Eugène Ionesco 21 Harold Pinter and the Theatre of the Absurd Section 5 1960s: The Emergence of a So-Called "Movement" – Absurdist Literature in English 22 Edward Albee, Absurdist 23 Amiri Baraka 24 Jack Gelber 25 Arthur Kopit 26 He Brought Her Heart Back in a Box: Adrienne Kennedy's Absurdist Dreamwrighting 27 Tom Stoppard and the Absurd 28 Guerrilla Theatre as Absurd Performance 29 Understanding the Absurd Under the Shadow of Late Capitalism: Philip K. Dick, Thomas Pynchon, and Kurt Vonnegut 30 Arrabal's Panic Allowances for the Absurd 31 Friedrich Dürrenmatt 32 St. Sisyphus: Günter Grass's Absurdist Social Democracy 33 (Re)Considering Sławomir Mrożek Part III: Absurdist Legacies Section 6 Feminist, LGBTQ+, and Multiethnic Absurdist Literature 34 Amusing and Shocking: Caryl Churchill's Absurdist Drama 35 Split Britches and the Camp Absurd 36 "Beckett Just Seems So Black to Me": Suzan-Lori Parks as Absurdist Playwright 37 (Multi)Ethnic Absurdist Theater Section 7 World Absurdist Literature 38 Luminaries of the Aesthetics of the Absurd in Latin America 39 Response and Resistance: A Bird's-eye View of the Absurd in the Spanish-Speaking Caribbean 40 Middle Eastern Absurdist Literature 41 Indian Theatres of the Absurd: Cultural Politics of Transformation 42 Postcolonial Absurdist Literature 43 Decolonisation and the Theatre of the Absurd 44 Absurdist Cinema, Television, and Adaptations Around the World Index The Routledge Companion to Absurdist Literature is the first authoritative and definitive edited collection on absurdist literature. As a field-defining volume, the editor and the contributors are world leaders in this ever-exciting genre that includes some of the most important and influential writers of the twentieth century, including Samuel Beckett, Harold Pinter, Edward Albee, Eugene Ionesco, Jean Genet, and Albert Camus. Ever puzzling and always refusing to be pinned down, this book does not attempt to define absurdist literature, but attempts to examine its major and minor players. As such, the field is indirectly defined by examining its constituent writers. Not only investigating the so-called “Theatre of the Absurd,” this volume wades deeply into absurdist fiction and absurdist poetry, expanding much of our previous sense of what constitutes absurdist literature. Furthermore, long overdue, approximately one-third of the book is devoted to marginalized writers: black, Latin/x, female, LGBTQ+, and non-Western voices. The Routledge Companion to Absurdist Literature is the first authoritative and definitive edited collection on absurdist literature. As a field-defining volume, the editor and the contributors are world leaders in this ever-exciting genre that includes some of the most important and influential writers of the 20 th including Samuel Beckett, Harold Pinter, Edward Albee, Eugene Ionesco, Jean Genet, and Albert Camus. Ever puzzling and always refusing to be pinned down, this book does not attempt to define absurdist literature, but attempts to examine its major and minor players. As such, the field is indirectly defined by examining its constituent writers. Not only investigating the so-called Theatre of the Absurd, this volume wades quite deeply into absurdist fiction and absurdist poetry, expanding much of our previous sense of what constitutes absurdist literature. Furthermore, long overdue, approximately one-third of the book is devoted to marginalized black, Latin/x, female, LGBTQ+, and non-Western voices.