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Theatre of the Absurd
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Arts & Culture

Theatre of the Absurd

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Article History
Category: Arts & Culture
Date:
c. 1950 - c. 1965
Significant Works:
The Bald Soprano
The Myth of Sisyphus
Waiting for Godot
The Lesson
Rhinoceros
Related Artists:
Samuel Beckett
Albert Camus
Harold Pinter
Eugène Ionesco
Jean Genet
See all related content →

Theatre of the Absurd, dramatic works of certain European and American dramatists of the 1950s and early ’60s who agreed with the Existentialist philosopher Albert Camus’s assessment, in his essay “The Myth of Sisyphus” (1942), that the human situation is essentially absurd, devoid of purpose. The term is also loosely applied to those dramatists and the production of those works. Though no formal Absurdist movement existed as such, dramatists as diverse as Samuel Beckett, Eugène Ionesco, Jean Genet, Arthur Adamov, Harold Pinter, and a few others shared a pessimistic vision of humanity struggling vainly to find a purpose and to ...(100 of 402 words)

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