Existential Experience of Absurd: Its Mental Background in Modern Culture

The paper gives an analytical review of various implications and premises of absurd as existential experience in the light of literary and philosophical texts that contribute to the cultural style of the XXth century. Experience of absurd is regarded as a result of hermeneutic incompatibility of different mindsets as well as an indispensable element of certain frames of mind emphasizing the semantic emptiness of natural language and questioning the status of human being in the universe. The main emphasis is made on absurd as a challenge to human thought that brings absurd to light and makes attempts to comprehend the incomprehensible.