“Maybe everything i say is nonsense”: Janosch and the Nonsense

Abstract

In this article we analyze the work of the German children’s and youth writer Janosch, focusing on the characteristics that place him within the nonsense movement. We will be guided by the following questions: How is nonsense specifically manifested in Janosch’s writing work? What new meanings are glimpsed from their transgressions? Four elements are recognized and worked on: transgressions in language, absurd situations, the relationship with objects and works structured from their very base from the absurd. At each point there is a reading of the new meanings that Janosch’s nonsense work makes possible. Various resources are analyzed such as the epithet, the play between literal and figurative use, the structure of the string as an alternative logic to cause-effect, among others. Finally, all the resources are inserted within a global interpretation of nonsense. Here the strategies analyzed are framed within a countercultural resistance and search for pleasure. The conclusions present a critical vision of nonsense and its subversive potential.