(BCDU)
The absurd, as a sensation of the absence of meaning, is also something experienced ( see ERLEBEN ). Defined by Albert Camus as the “mystery and strangeness of the world,” it belongs to the French vocabulary of existentialism, which we have explored in its German source ( see DASEIN ). It is an ontological affect broadly described in the works of Schelling, Kierkegaard, Freud, and Heidegger ( see ANXIETY and, more generally, MALAISE ) in connection with “facticity” ( see TATSACHE, Box 1 ).
In a specific, positive way, the three components of the absurd—logical, linguistic, and existential—are at work in the French word esprit; “nonsense” refers to a specific form of humor related in English to “wit” and in German to Witz ( see NONSENSE, WITTICISM ).