Conceptions of the Absurd: From Surrealism to Chestov's and Fondane's Existential Thought (Legenda) (Legenda Main Series)

No century in history questioned the meaning of existence or manifested such intense fascination with 'the absurd' as the twentieth. Of the varying interpretations of the absurd to attract French intellectuals and artists in the 1920s and '30s, two competing conceptions were to provide major reference points: the Surrealist 'free functioning of thought', and the existential critique of rational discourse elaborated by Leon Chestov (1866-1938) and Benjamin Fondane (1898-1944). While examining the existential line of interpretation, Fotiade shows that Chestov and Fondane's project found support and illustration in the dissident views held by authors working on the boundaries of Surrealism (including Artaud, Gilbert-Lecomte and Daumal).