Dina Sherzer

Dialogic Incongruities in the Theater of the Absurd

1.0 Dramatic discourse is usually the object of critical readings which are oriented toward the interpretation of content. The reason for this attitude is that the theater is considered as a type of art which is supposed to put forth the values of the signified; in other words the signifier is considered as a mere support for the signified. This was true for the criticism of the novel until the New Critics, the Russian Formalists, and the Structuralists pointed out the importance of dealing with the intrinsic aspects of texts. Now recent critical studies on the theater are focusing on the various types of signifiers at work in plays, and more and more there is interest in finding out what kind of art the playwrights are practicing before translating their work into a set of meanings (Hamon 1972, Helbo 1975, Jacquart 1974, Kennedy 1975, Kowzan 1975, Revzina and Revzin 1971, and 1975). This paper explores certain aspects of the language of the Theater of the Absurd. There have been studies on the language of the Absurd dealing with rhetorical and poetical elements, with the different registers, or levels of language (slang, familiar language,

Beckett's Critical Complicity: Carnival, Contestation, and Tradition

Review of Becketts Critical Complicity: Carnival, Contestation, and Tradition, by Sylvie Debevec Henning