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The conflict of generations in French literature of the early 20th century is explicitly demonstrated by the term 'anti-literature' which was introduced by David Gascoyne in 1935 to define the literature which turns conventional rules and conditions upside down. Gascoyne meant by this term the works of surrealists whose manifest rejected previous literary canons and announced the new era of arts. Surrealists cultivated the basis for aesthetic and philosophic views of absurdists who incarnated their anti-plays into anti-dramas. Having studied and analysed the works of the 20th century writers, Claude Mauriac characterised this new literature, cleared of anything that looks false, untrue, and overwhelmed by empty chatter, as aliterature. The present article deals with the definitions of terms anti-literature, absurd, and aliterature in the context of French literature at the beginning of the 20th century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While exploring the genesis of the term 'Absurd' one discovers its constant comparison with the term 'Nonsense'. Absurd and nonsense. Do both of these terms mean one and the same? What do they share? Is there any difference? In order to answer these questions first of all we study the linguistic etymology which still lacks the exact origin. The historical meanings of these terms are also analysed. Practically both definitions interfere referring to each other that leads to a natural misuse and confusion. Later we name the essence of artistic genres bearing the names of the mentioned terms. The present article deals with the realm of absurd especially in the framework of the Theatre of the Absurd in comparison with nonsense literature through the origins of these genres using works of Martin Esslin and Dr. Jan Čul'k. It is obvious that absurd appears during serious social conflicts while nonsense roots in traditions and intellectual satirical exercises. We also touch upon the authority of language in absurd and nonsense where we discover that its role is generally opposite bringing nonsense to the absurd and absurd to the nonsense. Progressively absurd disappears due to its expansion in reality leaving its place to nonsense. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyses the presence of the desert in Camusí writing. Albert Camus was born in 1913 in Mondovi, Algeria and passed his early years on the North African cost of the Mediterranean sea. Like his characters Camus felt the hostile emptiness of the desert, a place where ëman feels an alien, a strangerí (Camus ëThe Myth of Sisyphusí) and this landscape seemed perfectly fit for ëthe feeling of absurdityí (ibid.) and therefore was used in the absurd drama as a vision of life of man trapped in a hostile universe, without any chance of happiness and hope for the future. Most of researchers agree that the desert is so often mentioned in Camusí texts because it was one of the most well known landscapes to the writer since his childhood. At the same time the desert evolves together with the authorís reflection about the absurd. The literary heritage of Camus is strongly marked by two factors: colonialism and his country of birth ñ Algeria. But this context does not restrict the importance of his texts. Camusí heroes tend to understand the absurd of their actions thus to realize their existence. Only the revolt allows them to gain the freedom of conscience. The desert seems to be the ideal place where a human being meets what Martin Esslin calls the feeling of the absurd: the fear and loneliness in an alien and hostile universe (Esslin ëAbsurd Dramaí). In the following study we demonstrate the use of the concept ëdesertí in Camusí writing, beginning with the early ëNuptials in Tipasaí (1938) where he called the whole chapter ëThe Desertí, and ending with the incomplete ëThe First Maní published only in 1995. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]