/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.1694053]

Quick question:

Is Absurdism just an offshoot of Surrealism, or how does that work? I feel that Absurdism is just Surrealism hyperbolized, but if anyone has actual experience in the genres, little help?

I've become quite interested in the two genres, but am having a hell of a time keeping Borgesian magical realism from Surrealism and Absurdism.

I'm a bit thick, so examples are appreciated.

[Anonymous No.1694093]

Surrealism and Absurdism, like other philosophical/aesthetic movements, are hard to define precisely. I'm in the same boat as you OP, though I was always under the impression that surrealism concerned itself more with desires, images, emotions and thoughts that lurk beneath rational "reality". Hence, SURreal. Underneath the real. Symbols and motifs that are repressed by day-to-day reality and rationality.

I'd probably have to read more existentialism, but I think absurdism is less occupied with rationality. Absurdism is closer to nihilism, in terms of interpreting reality. Again, I might be wrong here. Just wait for some tripfag to lay me out with quotes from Feyerabend.

[Anonymous No.1694097]

>Is Absurdism just an offshoot of Surrealism

I'd argue it's the opposite, to an extent.
Alfred Jarry's Ubu plays, Apollinaire's plays, Malarme's poetry and the artwork of Odilon Redon were pretty influential in surrealist literature (and painting, etc.)

I think absurdism is more "real" than surrealism, as in, not out and out nuts with floating clocks or elephant-shaped sisterns or the like, but just uncanny enough to be unsettling and disturbing.
I'm not sure where I'm going with this. Sorry.

[Anonymous No.1694107]

>>1694093

I follow you. By way of terrible example, I guess I consider surrealism to be like

>I walked to the corner to mail a letter. The mailbox wrenched itself from the ground and ran down the street, screaming.

and Absurdism to be like

>I walked to the corner to mail a letter. The mailbox turned into a tomato and a nearby crow started regurgitating original editions of Schumann's Second Symphony while the sun crooned Manilow.

So...I think we're on the same page.

But >>1694097

I've not read yours yet. Hold on.

[Anonymous No.1694114]

>>1694097

I see where you're going. There's a lot to suggest relationships between "absurd" and "uncanny" in the Freudian sense of the term, where that which is absurd is merely that which we understand, presented in a way that feels familiar but is ultimately revelatory.

So that it illuminates absurdity as a fact of life; we just ignore it. It is suppressed much like the surrealist images mentioned in a previous post.

That's a psychoanalytic reading, though. There are other explanations.

[Anonymous No.1694131]

>>1694107
To take your illustration, I would agree with the surrealism one, but the absurdism would, for me, be more like:

>I walk to the mailbox and get my letters. I have a summons from the Justice Department, a notice from the Department of Clerical Errors and a check from the treasurer of my book club, for $0.08. It can only be cashed by my mother under her maiden name. I already have an appointment with my doctor for the court summons date, I'm hoping to prove I am clinically sane.

Something like that.

[Anonymous No.1694132]

>>1694114

Yeah, that's what I'm aiming at. I'm impressed you got that from my half-assed response.
Personally, I'm more unsettled by the idea of a random and inexplicable murder than a lot of surrealist works.

[Anonymous No.1694149]

>>1694131

Ah, Camus Absurdism, lest I'm mistaken. We may have a difference in terms.

[Anonymous No.1694169]

>>1694053
I do not doubt for a moment I'm missing the point of this image, but, I do not have a phone.

Does it follow that I do not exist?

[Anonymous No.1694177]

>>1694169

Quite honestly, I just saved it in a sleep-deprived stupor early one morning after banging out an essay on the vilification of Modernism in Flanner O'Connor's short stories. No clue, but I'm guessing it's anti-consumerist class-warfare-encouraging teenage pseudo-Marxism.

[Anonymous No.1694182]

>>1694177
Makes perfect sense.

[Anonymous No.1694191]

>>1694177
>implying there's something wrong about class warfare

[Anonymous No.1694196]

>>1694191

When it becomes incessant to the point of parody (e.g. college campuses) it's a bit tiresome.

[Anonymous No.1694199]

>>1694191
>implying class warfare isn't a futile battle fought over and over again mired with constant usurpings and worthless cries for "revolution." Nothing really changes.

Which brings us back to Absurdism...

[Anonymous No.1694207]

>>1694199
I'm not a revolutionary, and I do think it's more or less unending, but the notion that people might act in their class or personal interests and that maybe we shouldn't just go along with it and assume that whatever is good for GM is good for America - that seems like a fairly reasonable notion.

[Anonymous No.1694219]

>dangerously close to losing this thread

GUYS SHUT UP I'M TALKING ABOUT SURREALISM

So, being OP, are there authors you would consider Surrealist and authors you would consider Absurdist (Camus-Absurd or DaDa-Absurd, either works)?

[Anonymous No.1694229]

>>1694219
Stop trying to derail the thread, we're talking about Marxism and class in America.

[Anonymous No.1694234]

>>1694229

...but...that's what freshman year of college is for...

Ah, well, I tried. Carry on.

[Anonymous No.1694237]

>>1694219
I'm actually inclined to think of Cormac McCarthy as being somewhat Absurdist.

[Anonymous No.1694238]

>as though it's not the most important thing

[Anonymous No.1694248]

>CLASSIFYING PUTTING THINGS IN BOXES LABELLING SHITTING IN MOUTHS

WAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH

[scout !!1wBNr3mLJL+ No.1694276]

This thread is really kind of bad, because Absurdism is not the same as theater of the Absurd, and so there seems to be a lot of confusion. Theater of the absurd is a watered-down version of surrealism, in my opinion. And fuck labels, sincerely. Whenever i get into discussions about genre, i start thinking that literature is a totally hopeless waste of time, because otherwise why would it lead to these kind of considerations? Even i'm doing it!

[Anonymous No.1694279]

Surrealism can be used in conjunction with Absurdism; often times, though, it's used just to be surreal -- much like weird-for-weird's sake nonsense.

[Anonymous No.1694282]

Surrealism is an artistic response to absurdism and existentialism thats gains are mostly due (in my ignorant opinion) because of people have shitty attention spans.

[Anonymous No.1694283]

>>1694053
>implying I was phone.

[scout !!1wBNr3mLJL+ No.1694289]

>>1694282
>Surrealism is an artistic response to absurdism and existentialism
What nigger?

[Anonymous No.1694290]

>>1694276
Of course it's a waste of time. Everything is a waste of time. There's no way around it. Just roll with it.

[Anonymous No.1694297]

M C Escher, Alice in Wonderland - surrealism

Kierkegaard, The Stranger - absurdism

[Anonymous No.1694305]

>>1694290
>just roll with it
>roll with it
>roll it

[Anonymous No.1694312]

Isn't Absurdism a philosophy by Albert Camus and Surrealism just a style of art in the late 1920s and 1930s?

[Anonymous No.1694316]

>>1694312
yeah