Download absurd

ABSURDITY
IN ART
A prologue to
Stoppard’s Rosencrantz &
Guildenstern are Dead
Le poète est un menteur
qui dit toujours le verité
-----Jean Cocteau
Art is a lie that
allows us to see truth
--------Picasso
Contents
Magritte & Surrealism
 Lewis Carrol & Nonsense Poetry
 Existentialism
 Tom Stoppard


Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead

The Movie
Rene Magritte
Belgian painter
 1898-1967
 Produces “intentional
mysteries”; doesn’t
explain them; doesn’t
answer questions raised
 Surrealism
 Magic Realism

Surrealism
 Surrealism:
the
search for a
reality above or
within the
surface reality
by suspending
logic, reason,
and morality
Magic Realism
 Seeks
to enrich
our idea of what
is “real” by
incorporating
various
imaginative
dimensions
LEWIS CARROLL
English
Mathematician
 Professor at Oxford
 1832-1898
 Alice in
Wonderland, 1871
 Nonsense Poetry

Nonsense Poetry

A form of
nonsensical, light
verse that has
strong rhythms,
created words, & a
lack of logical and
consecutive
development
Alice in Wonderland
There was a book
lying near Alice on the
table,…she turned over
the leaves, to find some
part that she could read,
“for it’s all in some
language I don’t know,”
she said to herself.
It was like this...
Jabberwocky
‘Twas brilling, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe
All mimsy were the borogroves
And the mome raths outgrabe.
Jabberwocky
Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The fruminous Bandersnatch!”
Jabberwocky
He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the maxome foe he sought
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood a while in thought.
Jabberwocky
And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame.
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!
Jabberwocky
One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it for dead, and with its head
He went galumping back.
Jabberwocky
“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
Oh frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”
He chortled in his joy.
Jabberwocky
“Twas brilling, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe
All mimsy were the borogroves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
Alice in Wonderland
It seems very pretty, she said when
she had finished it, “but it’s rather hard to
understand!” (You see she didn’t like to
confess, even to herself, that she couldn’t
make it out at all.) “Somehow it seems to
fill my head with ideas---only I don’t
exactly know what they are! However,
somebody killed something; that’s clear, at
any rate---”
Metaphor in Alice
“The last level of metaphor in the
Alice books is this: that life, viewed
rationally and without illusion, appears to
be a nonsense tale told by an idiot
mathematician…We all live slapstick lives,
under an inexplicable sentence of death,
and when we try to find out what the
Metaphor in Alice
castle authorities want us to do, we are
shifted from one bumbling bureaucrat to
another. We are not even sure that
Count West-West, the owner of the
castle, really exists.”
------Martin Gardner
The Annotated Alice
Existentialism
20th century
philosophical movement
 Sartre, Kierkegaard,
Nietzsche, Camus
 Existence precedes
essence
 I exist. Because I exist,
I think; I feel; I perceive

Existentialism
Choice is always possible;
Not choosing is impossible
 Uncertainty is certain
 Absurd universe; no clear
purpose for existence; no
moral imperatives;humans
must create morality
 One constant that all
humans share: DEATH

Theatre of the Absurd

Portrays the
senselessness &
absurdity of the
human condition

Reveals the illogical
& purposeless nature
of existence
Theatre of the Absurd

Provides concrete images
of situations that
epitomize humanity’s
fundamental helplessness
in a contradictory &
alienating universe

Exposes the inadequacy of
reason and language
Absurd Theatre
Portrays essential human realities: death,
self, time, loneliness, communication, &
freedom
 Emphasizes situation rather than event
 Has no clear moral or message
 Usually lacks a coherent plot
 Merges fantasy with reality; filled with
irrational events

Absurd Theatre
Strips language of its traditional poetic &
utilitarian functions
 Creates a space for silence
 Uses characters who lack appropriate
motivation for actions
 Conveys meaning through masks, sounds,
ritual, gestures, costumes, stylized action
 Presents images meant to elicit subjective
responses

TOM STOPPARD



Czech born English
playwright
R & G, his first
staged play, 1967
Script doctored
Shakespeare in Love
Recipe for Play






Take one famous tragedy. Shake well.
Scoop out the main characters who float to the
top. Set aside.
Pick out the two smallest characters remaining.
Blow these up with hot air.
Let them float though your play as heroes.
Toss main characters in lightly and in small
amounts.
Serves all who enjoy laughing while they think.
THEMES & MOTIFS
Themes
Motifs
Death
 Identity
 Alienation
 Life as a game
 Exits & entrances
 Acting versus
reality


Games
 Messengers
 Boats
 Home
 Wheel
 Direction
 Coins
The Movie
Written/directed by
Stoppard in 1992
 More scenes from
Hamlet than included
in play
 Look for additions,
alterations, and
deletions from play

Keep in Mind...
Expect weirdness
& confusion
 Consider what
play HAS; not
what it is missing
 Laugh! It’s
supposed to be
funny

The End