The Space of Literature: A Translation of "l'Espace Littéraire"Maurice Blanchot, the eminent literary and cultural critic, has had a vast influence on contemporary French writers--among them Jean Paul Sartre and Jacques Derrida. From the 1930s through the present day, his writings have been shaping the international literary consciousness. The Space of Literature, first published in France in 1955, is central to the development of Blanchot's thought. In it he reflects on literature and the unique demand it makes upon our attention. Thus he explores the process of reading as well as the nature of artistic creativity, all the while considering the relation of the literary work to time, to history, and to death. This book consists not so much in the application of a critical method or the demonstration of a theory of literature as in a patiently deliberate meditation upon the literary experience, informed most notably by studies of Mallarmé, Kafka, Rilke, and Hölderlin. Blanchot's discussions of those writers are among the finest in any language. |
Contents
Mallarmés Experience | |
IV | |
The Igitur Experience | |
The Outside the Night | |
Inspiration Lack of Inspiration | |
VII | |
The Essential Solitude and Solitude in the World | |
Hölderlins Itinerary | |
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Common terms and phrases
absence accomplished action activity affirmation already appears approach artist becomes beginning belongs Blanchot close comes concern death decision deep demand desire disappearance distance dream dying empty enter error escape essence essential eternal event everything existence experience express extreme fact feels force gaze gives gods grasp happens human immediate impossibility infinite inspiration intimacy invisible Kafka keep lack language less light limit linked literature live longer look master means moment movement nature never night object origin Orpheus ourselves perhaps person poem poet possibility precisely present preserve profundity pure question reach reader reading reality realization relation remains requires reversal Rilke risk seeks seems sense separation silence sleep solitude sometimes space speak task things thought transformation true truth turn understand void wants work’s writing