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Quotes from The Theatre of the Absurd — Martin Esslin

1918–2002 England

← All quotes by Martin Esslin

6 quotes

The Theatre of the Absurd has renounced arguing about the absurdity of the human condition; it merely presents it in being — that is, in terms of concrete stage images.

The Theatre of the Absurd (1961)

The Theatre of the Absurd strives to express its sense of the senselessness of the human condition and the inadequacy of the rational approach by the open abandonment of rational devices and discursive thought.

The Theatre of the Absurd (1961)

The Theatre of the Absurd, on the other hand, tends toward a radical devaluation of language, toward a poetry that is to emerge from the concrete and objectified images of the stage itself.

The Theatre of the Absurd (1961)

Absurd is that which is devoid of purpose. . . . Cut from his religious, metaphysical, and transcendental roots, man is lost; all his actions become senseless, absurd, useless.

The Theatre of the Absurd (1961)

All this was shattered by the war.

The Theatre of the Absurd (1961)

The "poetic avant-garde" relies on fantasy and dream reality as much as the Theatre of the Absurd does; it also disregards such traditional axioms as that of the basic unity and consistency of each character or the need for a plot.

The Theatre of the Absurd (1961)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Martin Esslin (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.