Deleuze’s Literary Clinic: Criticism and the Politics of Symptoms

201 Pages·2012·0.8 MB·English

by  Aidan Tynan

PLATEAUS • NEW DIRECTIONS IN DELEUZE STUDIES
Series Editors Ian Buchanan and Claire Colebrook
‘Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonum- A
i
my nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut d
a
wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit n
lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.’ T
y
n
Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate
a
n
The first study of Deleuze's critical and clinical project
Aidan Tynan addresses Deleuze’s assertion that ‘literature is an enterprise
of health’. Tynan shows how a concern with health and illness was a
characteristic of Deleuze’s philosophy as a whole, from his early works on
Nietzsche and Masoch and ground-breaking collaborations with Guattari to D
E
his final, enigmatic statements on the singularity of life.
L
E
Tynan explains why alcoholism, anorexia, manic depression and schizophrenia U
Z
are key concepts in Deleuze’s literary theory. He demonstrates the ways in E
'S
which, with the turn to schizoanalysis, literature takes on a crucial political and
L
ethical role in helping us to diagnose our present pathologies and articulate IT
E
the possibilities of a health to come. R
A
Aidan Tynan received his PhD from the Centre for Critical and Cultural Theory R
Y
at Cardiff University. He has edited a special issue of the journal Deleuze C
L
Studies entitled Deleuze and the Symptom. I
N
I
C
Jacket image: © Michael Betts/Getty Images. ISBN 978-0-7486-5055-2
E
Edinburgh University Press
d
22 George Square, Edinburgh EH8 9LF in
b
www.euppublishing.com u
r
g
ISBN 978 0 7486 5055 2 h
Deleuze’s Literary Clinic
TTYYNNAANN 99778800774488665500555522 PPRRIINNTT..iinndddd ii 0033//0044//22001122 1133::2277
Plateaus – New Directions in Deleuze Studies
‘It’s not a matter of bringing all sorts of things together under a single
concept but rather of relating each concept to variables that explain its
mutations.’
Gilles Deleuze, Negotiations
Series Editors
Ian Buchanan, Cardiff University
Claire Colebrook, Penn State University
Editorial Advisory Board
Keith Ansell Pearson
Ronald Bogue
Constantin V. Boundas
Rosi Braidotti
Eugene Holland
Gregg Lambert
Dorothea Olkowski
Paul Patton
Daniel Smith
James Williams
Titles available in the series
Dorothea Olkowski, The Universal (In the Realm of the Sensible):
Beyond Continental Philosophy
Christian Kerslake, Immanence and the Vertigo of Philosophy:
From Kant to Deleuze
Jean-Clet Martin, Variations: The Philosophy of Gilles Deleuze, translated
by Constantin V. Boundas and Susan Dyrkton
Simone Bignall, Postcolonial Agency: Critique and Constructivism
Miguel de Beistegui, Immanence: Deleuze and Philosophy
Jean-Jacques Lecercle, Badiou and Deleuze Read Literature
Ronald Bogue, Deleuzian Fabulation and the Scars of History
Sean Bowden, The Priority of Events: Deleuze’s Logic of Sense
Craig Lundy, History and Becoming: Deleuze’s Philosophy of Creativity
Aidan Tynan, Deleuze’s Literary Clinic: Criticism and the Politics of
Symptoms
Visit the Plateaus website at www.euppublishing.com/series/plat
TTYYNNAANN 99778800774488665500555522 PPRRIINNTT..iinndddd iiii 0033//0044//22001122 1133::2277
DELEUZE’S LITERARY CLINIC
Criticism and the Politics of Symptoms
2
Aidan Tynan
TTYYNNAANN 99778800774488665500555522 PPRRIINNTT..iinndddd iiiiii 0033//0044//22001122 1133::2277
For Shamima
© Aidan Tynan, 2012
Edinburgh University Press Ltd
22 George Square, Edinburgh
www.euppublishing.com
Typeset in Sabon
by Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Stockport, Cheshire, and
printed and bound in Great Britain by
CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon CR0 4YY
A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 0 7486 5055 2 (hardback)
ISBN 978 0 7486 5056 9 (webready PDF)
ISBN 978 0 7486 5057 6 (epub)
ISBN 978 0 7486 5058 3 (Amazon ebook)
The right of Aidan Tynan
to be identifi ed as author of this work
has been asserted in accordance with
the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
TTYYNNAANN 99778800774488665500555522 PPRRIINNTT..iinndddd iivv 0033//0044//22001122 1133::2277
Contents
Acknowledgments vi
Abbreviations vii
Introduction: From Symptomatology to Schizoanalysis 1
1 A Case of Thought 25
2 The Paradox of the Body and the Genesis of Form and
Content 55
3 Symptoms, Repetition and the Productive Death Instinct 88
4 The Identity of the Critical and the Clinical 119
5 The People to Come 153
Conclusion 173
Bibliography 179
Index 189
TTYYNNAANN 99778800774488665500555522 PPRRIINNTT..iinndddd vv 0033//0044//22001122 1133::2277
Acknowledgements
Thanks are fi rst and foremost due to Ian Buchanan, without
whose undying support and encouragement this book might never
have appeared. I would also like to express my gratitude to James
Williams and Laurent Milesi for their generosity in reading and com-
menting on this work. The intellectual comradeship of Tim Matts,
Tom Harman and Chris Mueller kept me going and kept me sane
through much of the writing process; I am in their debt. Above all,
I wish to thank my family, especially my parents Ted and Carmel.
vi
TTYYNNAANN 99778800774488665500555522 PPRRIINNTT..iinndddd vvii 0033//0044//22001122 1133::2277
Abbreviations
Works by Gilles Deleuze
B Deleuze, Gilles (1991), Bergsonism, trans. Hugh Tomlinson
and Barbara Habberjam, New York: Zone.
C2 Deleuze, Gilles (2005), Cinema 2: The Time-Image, trans.
Hugh Tomlinson and Robert Galeta, London: Continuum.
CC Deleuze, Gilles (1997), Essays Critical and Clinical, trans.
Daniel W. Smith and Michael A. Greco, Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press.
CVL Deleuze, Gilles (1980), ‘Cours Vincennes: Leibniz, 15/04/1980’,
http://www.webdeleuze.com/php/texte.php?cle=50&groupe
=Leibniz&langue=2, last accessed: 14/11/2010.
DI Deleuze, Gilles (2004), Desert Islands and Other Texts,
1953–1974, ed. David Lapoujade, trans. Mike Taormina,
New York: Semiotext(e).
DR Deleuze, Gilles (1994), Difference and Repetition, trans. Paul
Patton, London: Athlone.
EP Deleuze, Gilles (1992), Expressionism in Philosophy: Spinoza,
trans. Martin Joughin, New York: Zone.
FB Deleuze, Gilles (2005), Francis Bacon: The Logic of Sensation,
trans. Daniel W. Smith, London: Continuum.
FLB Deleuze, Gilles (2006), The Fold: Leibniz and the Baroque,
trans. Tom Conley, London: Continuum.
KCP Deleuze, Gilles (1984), Kant’s Critical Philosophy: The
Doctrine of the Faculties, trans. Hugh Tomlinson and
Barbara Habberjam, London: Athlone.
LS Deleuze, Gilles (2004), The Logic of Sense, trans. Mark
Lester and Charles Stivale, London: Continuum.
M Deleuze, Gilles (1991), Masochism: Coldness and Cruelty,
trans. Jean McNeil, New York: Zone.
N Deleuze, Gilles (1995), Negotiations 1972–1990, trans.
Martin Joughin, New York: Columbia University Press.
vii
TTYYNNAANN 99778800774488665500555522 PPRRIINNTT..iinndddd vviiii 0033//0044//22001122 1133::2277
deleuze’s literary clinic
NP Deleuze, Gilles (1983), Nietzsche and Philosophy, trans.
Hugh Tomlinson, London: Continuum.
OLM Deleuze, Gilles (1997), ‘One Less Manifesto’, trans. Eliane
dal Molin and Timothy Murray, in Murray (ed.), Mimesis,
Masochism, and Mime: The Politics of Theatricality in
Contemporary French Thought, Ann Arbor: University of
Michigan Press, pp. 239–58.
PI Deleuze, Gilles (2001), Pure Immanence: Essays on A Life,
trans. Anne Boyman, New York: Zone.
PS Deleuze, Gilles (2000), Proust and Signs: The Complete
Text, trans. Richard Howard, Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press.
SM Deleuze, Gilles (2004), ‘From Sacher-Masoch to Masochism’,
trans. Christian Kerslake, Angelaki, 9:1, pp. 125–33.
TRM Deleuze, Gilles (2006), Two Regimes of Madness: Texts and
Interviews 1975–1995, ed. David Lapoujade, trans. Ames
Hodges and Mike Taormina, New York: Semiotext(e).
Works by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari
AO Deleuze, Gilles and Félix Guattari (2004) [new edition], Anti-
Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, trans. R. Hurley, M.
Seem and H. R. Lane, London: Continuum.
ATP Deleuze, Gilles and Félix Guattari (2004) [new edition], A
Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, trans.
Brian Massumi, London: Continuum.
K Deleuze, Gilles and Félix Guattari (1986), Kafka: Toward a
Minor Literature, trans. Dana Polan, Minneapolis: University
of Minnesota Press.
WP Deleuze, Gilles and Félix Guattari (1994), What Is
Philosophy?, trans. Graham Burchill and Hugh Tomlinson,
London: Verso.
Works by Gilles Deleuze and Claire Parnet
D Deleuze, Gilles and Claire Parnet (2002) [new edition],
Dialogues II, trans. Hugh Tomlinson and Barbara Habberjam,
London: Continuum.
viii
TTYYNNAANN 99778800774488665500555522 PPRRIINNTT..iinndddd vviiiiii 0033//0044//22001122 1133::2277
Introduction: From Symptomatology to
Schizoanalysis
This book centres on Deleuze’s understanding of literature as ‘an
enterprise of health’ and of literary criticism’s links to aspects of
pathology and clinical practice, especially as these latter come under
scrutiny in Deleuze and Guattari’s ‘schizoanalysis’ project (CC 3). The
relation between literature and health is argued for most explicitly by
Deleuze in his last published book, Essays Critical and Clinical. It is
here that he lays out the principal hypothesis of a clinical criticism:
certain authors have a weak health, but literature, by gaining a per-
spective on sickness, is capable of transforming this weakness into a
creative power. Literary activity is capable of charting a passage from
weakness to strength, and this is a living, vital process as much as an
aesthetic or semiotic one, which is why Deleuze titles his preface to
Essays Critical and Clinical ‘Literature and Life’. ‘Life’, here, is to be
distinguished sharply from the personal domain of biographical and
psychological contents as well as from organic biology, being what
Deleuze defi nes in terms of the inorganic, the socio-political and the
world-historical. He proposes that if great authors often suffer sick-
nesses this is not because they have shut themselves off from life, or
choose literature as an escape from life, but because, on the contrary,
they have borne witness to and experienced a form of life in excess
of their own personhood and biological and psychological integrity.
The author may document his or her own sickness but what is thus
diagnosed is far less a personal affair than something with imper-
sonal, even inhuman, dimensions.
While Essays Critical and Clinical argues directly for the possibil-
ity, even necessity, of a clinical criticism in this sense, it raises many
more questions than it answers, and we may even say that it does no
more than pose, in the most tantalising of ways, the problem of the
relation between literary creativity and health. This is by no means
because Deleuze came to the notion late in his life – on the contrary,
his early book on Nietzsche emphasises the latter’s idea that both
1
TTYYNNAANN 99778800774488665500555522 PPRRIINNTT..iinndddd 11 0033//0044//22001122 1133::2277