Absurd, Theatre of the

The term comes from Martin Esslin's brilliant 1961 book of the same title. In the plays of Samuel Beckett and Eugène Ionesco, and to a lesser extent others, Esslin found nonsensical and ridiculous events that have sufficient metaphysical resonance to suggest the ultimate absurdity, or meaninglessness, of human existence. Reflecting philosophical Existentialism, absurd writing represents an advance on the literature incidentally composed by the existentialist philosophers. If the latter...