Exploring the Historical Bases of Modern Existentialism

Perhaps the biggest challenge in life is to find one’s place. Any time literature and philosophy are combined, the end result deals with conscious experiences, individuals trying to find their place, and perhaps even a battle with tremendous uncertainties, especially in dealing with life and death matters. Also, forming an identity when we are individuals is a challenge and discovering the truth is literally a lifelong goal and ambition. The reason for both these aspects of humankind is because every waking moment we have is based on our subjective experiences. There is no branch of both literature and philosophy alike that deals with this matter better than existentialism. But how can one define existentialism and how can one tell it apart from other kinds of literature? These two questions are difficult to answer and on many levels. This following dissertation begins with the philosophy of the Catholic medieval tradition that spans from 354 AD to approximately 1347 AD, then focuses on the Lutheran Reformation and its effects on the Western intellectual landscape, and finally, focuses on the modern philosophical and literary period that starts with Sø ren Kierkegaard and ends with Albert Camus. The efforts in this work are to demonstrate that in Western thought, God was central to human existence during the medieval period, God shifted to being peripheral during the Reformation and just after, and God’s existence was questioned, ignored, and even denied during the modern period.