Metaphysics and Absurdity

Informationen zum Autor A graduate of University of Chicago and University of California, Berkeley, H. Gene Blocker has taught philosophy in Scotland, West Africa, China, Japan, and the US. Blocker has written widely in aesthetics, non-western philosophy, ethics, and social and political philosophy. Klappentext The central concern of absurdist writers is the metaphysical distancing of word and object, thought and reality, essence and existence. In this book, Blocker argues that the literary problem of absurdity is basically a metaphysical problem of being, focusing on the metaphysical distinction of being as essence and being as existence. Each of the four central chapters of the book compares philosophical prose with the fiction writing of four major absurdist writers-Camus, Sartre, Ionesco, and Beckett. The book contrasts what Ionesco described as the "heavy" and "light" aspects of absurdity. This opposition is parallel to the contrast between the negative, pessimistic reading of Western writers-with their emphasis on "existence"-and the positive, optimistic view of Eastern, especially Buddhist authors, with their emphasis on "essence."

Product details

• Authors: H Gene Blocker, H. Gene Blocker, Blocker H. Gene
• Publisher: Rowman and Littlefield
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Release: 16.02.2013, delayed
• EAN: 9780761860235
• ISBN: 978-0-7618-6023-5
• No. of pages: 212
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > General and comparative literary studies; Non-fiction book > Philosophy, religion > Philosophy: general, reference works; Sartre, French, Beckett, Camus, PHILOSOPHY / Metaphysics, LITERARY CRITICISM / European / French, LITERARY CRITICISM / Modern / 20th Century, Existence, Ionesco, Philosophy: metaphysics & ontology, Philosophy: metaphysics and ontology, Literary studies: from c 1900 -, Literary studies: fiction, novelists & prose writers, Literary studies: fiction, novelists and prose writers, Literary studies: c 1900 to c 2000, LITERARY CRITICISM / Novel as Form, Absurdity