The Absurd beyond Modernism

Abstract

While the absurd is usually associated with the modern subject, it is the purpose of this project to show how it is still relevant today. The concepts of end times, ecological disaster, and post-democracy are pressing concerns of the new millennium that emphasise the futility of being and a lack of political agency. Absurdity describes a similar condition, the feeling of purposelessness that results from the observation that life has no inherent meaning. A fundamentally modern condition of religious dispossession, this feeling is predominantly frustration, since it is impossible to determine the meaning of life through reason. In these cases, crisis seems unavoidable, insurmountable, and permanent, and these attitudes can be observed in works of art since modernism. The thesis aims to define the absurd by the special examination of works closely associated with the concept, which will allow the identification of a specific literary and artistic tradition originating in the nineteenth century and continuing to the present. This is achieved through the rigorous examination of works by Søren Kierkegaard, Albert Camus, Michel Houellebecq, and Bruce Nauman. Despite the fact that works reflecting the absurd respond to distinct historical conditions, they all express frustration at the limitations of human agency, and the incomprehensibility of life.