Edinburgh University Press Reading the Absurd

This title challenges traditional scholarship on absurdist literature, privileging the reader and the genre's stylistic achievements. Since Martin Esslin coined 'the Theatre of the Absurd' to describe experimental drama in the mid-twentieth century, the term 'absurd' has been adopted as a means of discussing a vast array of literary text. Many accounts have focused on the philosophical and thematic concerns of absurd prose fiction, but literary-criticism has failed to agree on the stylistic, generic, and temporal. This volume takes an alternative approach: its core aim is to provide a coherent, linguistically rigorous examination of the discourse features which characterise the absurd in literature. In order to understand how such a critically ill-defined term continues to have value and relevance to a global readership in the twenty-first century it takes as its starting point the readers who regularly use absurd terms and investigates their discussions in online fora, on literary tagging websites, and in face-to-face interactions. It examines a diverse range of literary texts, both prose and poetry. It covers classic and contemporary absurdist texts. It analyses the stylistic characteristics of this body of work using a cognitive-stylistic approach. From the Back Cover 'Reading the Absurd is an elegant and eclectic exploration of the concept of the absurd in a range of literary genres. Productively enriched by reader response theories, Gavins's model of the absurd is built solidly on the analytic techniques of contemporary stylistics and cognitive-poetics. In all, this is a compelling and groundbreaking study of a concept that has hitherto been largely the preserve of drama and theatre studies.' Paul Simpson, Professor of English Language, Queen's University What is the literary absurd? What are its key textual features? How can it be analysed? How do different readers respond to absurdist literature? Taking the theories and methodologies of stylistics as its underlying analytical framework, Reading the Absurd tackles each of these questions. Selected key works in English literature are examined in depth to reveal significant aspects of absurd style. Its analytical approach combines stylistic inquiry with a cognitive perspective on language, literature and reading which sheds new light on the human experience of literary reading. By exploring the literary absurd as a linguistic and experiential phenomena, while at the same time reflecting upon its essential historical and cultural situation, Joanna Gavins brings a new perspective to the absurd aesthetic. It is essential reading for advanced students and scholars in cognitive poetics, stylistics, English literature and linguistics. Joanna Gavins is a Senior Lecturer in the School of English at the University of Sheffield. Cover image: Sleepwalker encounters his father as a horse in the tomato-plant forest, linocut by James Green. Website: http: //jamesgreenprintworks.blogspot.co.uk. Cover design: [EUP logo] www.euppublishing.com About the Author Joanna Gavins is a lecturer in English language and literature at the University of Sheffield, UK, where she teaches courses in stylistics, cognitive poetics, linguistics and contemporary literature.