The Absurd World in Selected Works of Saul Bellow and Paul Auster

Paper Code: 
ENG 144 (e) - Option 19

Unit I

Existentialism: Introduction

Flynn,Thomas R. Existentialism: A Very Short Introduction.OUP, 2006, pp. 1-23.

Unit II

The Idea of Absurd: Introduction

Esslin, Martin. TheTheatre of the Absurd.A & C Black Publishers, 1961, pp. 19-28.

O’Brien, Justin, translator. The Myth of Sisyphus. By Albert Camus, Penguin Books, 2005, pp. 64-74 

Unit III

Introduction to the writers and major themes in their writings

· Existential crisis

· Absurdity 

· Alienation and Rootlessness

 

Barone, Dennis, editor. Beyond the Red NotebookEssays on Paul Auster. University of Pennsylvania Press, 1995, pp. 1-24.

Harris, Charles B., Contemporary American Novelists of the Absurd.  New Haven College and University Press Publishers, 1972, pp. 17-32.

Shuman, R. Baird, editor. Great American Writers: Twentieth Century. Salem Press, 2002.

Unit IV

Saul Bellow’sDangling Man(1944) & Herzog (1964)

Unit V

Paul Auster’s Mr. Vertigo (1994) & The Book of Illusions (2002)

SUGGESTED READINGS: 

Recommended Reading:

Barone, Dennis, editor. Beyond the Red NotebookEssays on Paul Auster. University of Pennsylvania Press, 1995, pp. 1-24.

Esslin, Martin. TheTheatre of the Absurd.A & C Black Publishers, 1961, pp. 19-28.

Flynn, Thomas R. Existentialism: A Very Short Introduction.OUP, 2006, pp. 1-23.

Gerhard, Bach, editor. The Critical Response to Saul Bellow. Greenwood Press, 1995.

Harris, Charles B., Contemporary American Novelists of the Absurd. New Haven College and University Press Publishers, 1972, pp. 17-32.

Malin, Irving. Saul Bellow’s Fiction.Southern Illinois University Press, 1969.

O’Brien, Justin, translator. The Myth of Sisyphus. By Albert Camus, Penguin Books, 2005, pp. 64-74 

Shuman, R. Baird, editor. Great American Writers: Twentieth Century. Salem Press, 2002.

Academic Year: