Philosophy of Nonsense

'Jean-Jacques Lecercle's remarkable Philosophy of Nonsense offers a sustained and important account of an area that is usually hastily dismissed. Using the resources of contemporary philosophy - notably Deleuze and Lyotard - he manages to bring out the importance of nonsense' - Andrew Benjamin, University of Warwick Why are we, and in particular why are philosophers and linguists, so fascinated with nonsense? Why do Lewis Carroll and Edward Lear appear in so many otherwise dull and dry academic books? This amusing, yet rigorous new book by Jean-Jacques Lecercle shows how the genre of nonsense was constructed and why it has proved so enduring and enlightening for linguistics and philosophy.

Jean-Jacques Lecercle is Professor of English at the University of Paris. He is the author of Philosophy Through the Looking Glass, Frankenstein: Mythe et Philosophie and The Violence of Language.

Acknowledgements INTRODUCTION: READING NONSENSE READING Reading nonsense; Nonsense reading: Lewis Carroll and the Talmud; Rereading nonsense: 'Jabberwocky' 1 THE LINGUISTICS OF NONSENSE 2 THE PRAGMATICS OF NONSENSE 3 NONSENSE AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE 4 THE POLYPHONY OF NONSENSE CONCLUSION