What is existentalism?

Existentialism is a term that is applied to the writings of a number of 19th and 20th century philosophers who had widely different doctrinal differences but generally held that people are entirely free and thus responsible for what they make of themselves. There were different views amongst existential philosophers as to the existence of God and the potential consequences. There were theistic and atheistic existentialists. The term arose in the mid twentieth century. The early 19th century philosopher Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) is held to be the father of existentialism and he maintained in his writings that the individual is solely responsible for giving her or his own life meaning and for living life with passion and sincerity. Kierkegaard, Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) and Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) are considered to be fundamental to the existentialist movement.