THE UNSEEN RELATION: SHAKESPEARE AND ABSURDISM

What is absurdism? And what are the reasons that create absurdity and finally lead to the situations that one cannot imagine? Basically, the purpose of being familiar with the answers of these question is as much necessary as pondering about your secure future. Whatever we do and whatever is happening in the present around us is very much directly connected to our future actions, results and living. Or we can say, most of the reactions come out in the form of making someone mentally unstable and paralyzing the power of thinking. The situations that create meaninglessness and nothingness due to the lack of communicating ideas and loss of interest in the activities happening around in one's life, because of which man is only left with doing nothing important and purposeless activities, we can say, can be said as absurdism. The aimlessness and careless attitude towards life is the gift of the 2nd World War to the people involved and uninvolved in it. The aftermaths of this war effects human lives on a large scale by which people lost their faith in church/religion, government and any official and unofficial power which rules. The writers of this period focuses mainly on the ongoing mental and social illness of mankind and tries to create humor out of it. Most famous writers of this period are Albert Camus (1913-1960), Samuel Beckett (1906-1989), Eugene Ionesco (1909-1994), Jean Genet (1910-1986), Harold Pinter (1930-2008), Luigi Pirandello (1867-1936), Tom Stoppard (1937-), Edward Albee (1928-) and many more like these writers talked about the concept of absurdity in their works and portrayed men's life in a very humorous manner.

Now the most important question that arises is about the existence of the concept of absurdism in our society. Is that was the time just after the 2nd world war when it came into existence or we also have some of its presence in the periods prior to it? So the answer is big Yes, we do have presence of absurdism, absurdity in the works of great writers in different periods of literature. Although, their main motive was not focused or give attention on this very aspect but somehow they created it inadvertently. The reason of the unwilled presence of this aspect in their works is the "nature" of men and the "situations" in which they involved. One of these writers is William Shakespeare (1564-1616), who involuntarily brought out the shades of absurdity and the situations on which we sometimes feel pity and sometimes popped out humor.

The philosophical trends that dominated the period basically dealt with the question of the meaninglessness of man's existence and, this school of thought found expression in the new Avant-Garde genre of absurd theatre. But if we talk about its history than we can find its trace shortly after the rise of Greek drama in the wild humor and buffoonery of old comedy and the plays of Aristophanes in particular. These were further transformed during the late classical period by Apuleius, Lucian and Petronius, in Menippean satire, a tradition of carnivalistic literature depicting "a world upside down." Theatre of absurd also have its precursors in the form of morality plays, depicting everyman-type characters dealing with allegorical and sometimes existential problems.

Now it's enough of the past, let's talk about our main topic of concern which is to find out the traces of absurdism in Shakespeare's works. It would not be wrong to say that Shakespeare is a kind of writer whose greatness and expertness cannot be equaled by any other writers from this period or from any other period. But there are some shades of absurdities also available in his works that were not recognized or categorized by anyone in the term Absurdism. Almost all his plays deals with the harshness of life and posturized two classes, which according to the laws of literature are the symbols of provokers of tragedies or comedies. Like Shakespeare always in order to create tragic plays takes the characters from aristocratic, chivalrous, kingly classes and in order make his work comic he uses the characters from the lower, labor and poor classes. And then we come across with the images and scenes of absurdism. Shakespeare anticipated the actions and ideas practiced by modern absurd writers like Camus, Beckett, Ionesco, and Albee and so on.