Existentialism in Literature

[JohnAvg]

In which author's work existentialism appears through as basic concept of thought?

[ThomH]

What do you mean by a 'basic concept of thought'?

[billl]

if you do a search for "existentialism" and "existentialist" you will find some threads about this. You specifically used the word "literature," so maybe this thread will have some ideas for you:

http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?t=43955

[JohnAvg]

I mean having existentialistic thought when you look into society, people and life itself.Dostoyevsky is one example of an existentialist author.

[fintan]

Camus and Satre tend to be cited as the twin peaks of French existential literature. I'd recomend "The Fall", but don't look for advice or answers (even though the book may appear to conceal some) because in this feild of thought, you will never find anything satisfactory.

[Michael T]

We are reading The Fall by Camus at the moment for the November book read. Check out the posts. Better still, get hold of a copy quick and join in! :)

[blazeofglory]

I am reading Dostoevsky, Kafka and I read Sartre and could not comprehend him well, and of course I have read a little bit of Nausea and later on I have started reading Being and Nothingness of Him I found it philosophically appealing yet it was too much intricate and I left it unfinished; for since I am a busy person and have time in the evening and morning reading a serious book of this magnitude and size is really hard

[DanielBenoit]

Sarte was one of the only writers to explicitly write fiction based on existentialism. And though Camus would disagree, he too was explicitly an existentialist (though he would probably prefer the word absurdist) writer.

As for writers with existential themes he have tons of them all over the map, my favorites being the obvious choice of Dostoyevsky, Kafka, Kundrea and Beckett. Though practically every major writer in the 20th century (especially the early 20th century) dealt with existential themes at one time or another, from Mann to Joyce, Prous to Faulkner. Existential and postmodernist themes are almosts everywhere in most contemporary literature, both explicitly and implicitly.

[OrphanPip]

The term existentialism was invented by the French philosophical school lead by Sartre and De Beauvoir, and which Camus split off from. So, their works tend to be the first explicitly existentialist writings since they were the ones who established what it means to be an Existentialist.

The term existentialist has been applied retroactively to Kafka, Dostoevsky, and many other writers. As well as to philosophers like Nietszche and Kierkegaard. Like Daniel said, existential themes are quite common in 20th century fiction.

I recommend the play No Exit by Sartre, The Stranger/Outsider by Camus, and Notes From Underground by Dostoevsky.

[isidro]

Surely Charles Dickens would fit into this category would he not? By the definition alone it seems an absolute certainty.

[DanielBenoit]

Surely Charles Dickens would fit into this category would he not? By the definition alone it seems an absolute certainty.

Well, not really. Just because a work is bleak, doesn't make it existential. Dickens's works still apply a traditional moral outlook and characterization.

Existential literature is specially charactarized as a focus on troubled induviduals, questioning their own place in the universe, and coming to the conclusion that they are very little in the face of the cosmos. Some of them are murderers (Raskilnikov from Crime and Punishment, Merusault from The Stranger), some of them are anti-social (The Underground Man from Notes from the Underground), while others are decentralized products of the modern working-class (Gregor Samsa from The Metamorphosis).

There are many 'existential' characters throughout literature, Hamlet being the best example. But that doesn't make Shakespeare or his works existentialist (which came waay after he had died). Existentialism is special because it embodies a particular time and place in history, that is, the closing of the 19th century and the opening of the 20th in which Enlightment values had begun to loose their validity, and modernist aesthetics was rapidly emerging, all of this as a result of the disfigurizaiton and decentralization of the industrial modern world. This anxiety only increased with the advent of two world wars, which eventually brought about postmodern thought, an even more pessimistic outlook than even that of the modernists and existentialists.

[Gladys]

I recommend two early plays of Henrik Ibsen, Brand and Peer Gynt, as entertaining examples of the existential Christian and the existential aesthete, respectively. Dostoevsky's The Idiot is an excellent, if complex, instance of the former.

Having just finished Camus The Fall, I found it rather dry: more philosophy than literature. The Stranger is better. Better still, read the father of existentialism himself, in Kierkegaard's short homily The woman who was a sinner, a fragment of which is at Three Christian Discources (books.google.com.au/books?id=E5WaKdcr1BIC&pg=PA137&lpg=PA137&dq=Kierkegaard+%22able+to+pray+aright+to+you%22&source=bl&ots=KE2w6-q5Q8&sig=Rf0IRI23bI_KizOyUqqHWkz05eA&hl=en&ei=Wi0BS7jCL6f66gP8xKXcCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CAgQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=&f=false).

[blazeofglory]

I have read a few short stories by Sartre, Nausea, his novel and a few essyays. I have started with his book Being and nothingness a few years ago I could not comprehend the book, maybe on account of my inttelectual immaturity and lack of language skills those days. I am thinking about reading it once more and I hope now I am a bit maturer

[mansoor7]

If you want to understand existentialism go through Sartres book Being and Notingness.

[Anjali Purohit]

Though he would not have been aware of the label, Dostoevsky's 'Notes from the Underground' is considered to be a precursor of existentialist thought. In modern times of course Sartre and Camus come first to mind. Being and Nothingness, I would think is more a statement of the Existentialist position (as a philosophy) while his Nausea fits more into the 'Literature' slot. Don't know if it might count as a prime example of this philosophy but I was personally very moved by Camu's Plague'.

[neilgee]

I ploughed through a large [500+ page] biography of Satre only last year. One of the things that decided me to read it was the thought that at least I'd understand what existentialism was by the end of it, but I was thwarted as both Satre and Camus denied the label and refused to have anything to do with any existentialist movement in their lives.

I found all this denial abit confusing, but at least thanks to DanielBenoit's post I now understand how we define a work as existential:thumbs_up

[DanielBenoit]

I ploughed through a large [500+ page] biography of Satre only last year. One of the things that decided me to read it was the thought that at least I'd understand what existentialism was by the end of it, but I was thwarted as both Satre and Camus denied the label and refused to have anything to do with any existentialist movement in their lives.

I found all this denial abit confusing, but at least thanks to DanielBenoit's post I now understand how we define a work as existential:thumbs_up

Thanks :)

The fallout between Camus and Satre was pointless and was purely personal. Now of course there are some major and minor differences in their philosophy, but existentialism is not an ideology, it is a collection of thoughts which all have a common theme. Some of them arrive at opposing conclusions, but they are still considered existential. To clear things up for everyone, here are what is considered to be the most important existential philosophers and writers:

Forerunner:
Blaise Pascal

Key Figures:
Soren Kierkegaard
Friedrich Nietzsche
Fydor Dostoyevsky
Franz Kafka
Martin Heidigger
Martin Buber
Lev Shestov
Jean-Paul Satre
Karl Jaspers
Albert Camus
Simone de Beauvoir
Samuel Beckett
Eugene Ionesco

[Lust Hogg]

Personally, Kierkegaard would be the most important out of that list. I say that not because he has historical prcedence over many of the others, but his species of thought laid the foundation for others. If you neglect him, a thorough and comprehensive understanding of "Existentialsm" is not attainable.

[Neha Khan]

It was not only Sartre who wrote fiction based on existentialism, Keirkegaard's 'Fear and Trembling' , 'Sickness unto Death', nietzsche's 'Thus Spoke Zarathusra' are just a few to name. Besides Camus' 'Myth of Sysiphus' is one of the representative works of his idea of 'absurdity' based on existentialism.

[Jozanny]

I think The Plague is one of Camus' stronger novels in its own right, and brings several themes to bear, not just man's *irrational* existence within the universe; I do know there has been some successful critiques against the existentialist mode by contemporary and accomplished writers and thinkers, but I cannot recall what I was reading that pointed this out, and wish I could, because there is still something romantic embodied in Sartre's outcry, which carries with it a certain false pretense, to my mind, but I am not currently equipped to argue these points.

The Plague, however, works, and I intend to reread it soon, and I think Hurt does a very good job as the doctor in the movie version. It is an interesting adaptation, and some may not accredit it too highly, but it brings the implied themes of the novel home with a visual strength.

[?NIETZSCHE'XIST]

Kurt Vonnegut - Cat's Cradle
William Burroughs - Naked Lunch
Tom Robbins - Still Life with Woodpecker

I don't know if one would consider any of them 'Existential' but there are definitely existential themes throughout all of them.

JMW