Maurice Blanchot: The Refusal of Philosophy

372 Pages·1997·19.25 MB·English

by  Gerald L. Bruns

Maurice Blanchot
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Maurice Blanchot
The Refusal of Philosophy
Gerald L. Bruns
THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY PRESS
Baltimore 6 London
0 The Johns Hopkins University Press
All rights reserved. Published 1997
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
06 05 04 03 02 01 00 99 98 97 5 4 3 2 1
The Johns Hopkins University Press
2715 North Charles Street
Baltimore, Maryland 21218-4319
The Johns Hopkins Press Ltd., London
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data will be found
at the end of this book.
A catalog record for the book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 0-8018-5471-7
For Don Marshall
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Contents
Preface xi
List of Abbreviations xxvii
PART I: POETICS OF THE OUTSIDE 1
Chapter 1: This Way Out: An Introduction
to Poetry and Anarchy 3
What Is Poetics? 3
Mallarme‘: “a perspective of parentheses” 6
The An-arche of the Work of Art 11
Disengagement 17
The “Spiritual Fascist” 23
Chapter 2: Poetry after Hegel: A Politics of
the Impossible 34
What Is Poetry? 34
The Aristotelian Argument 38
The Mirror of Sade 40
From Violence to Anarchy 44
Existence without Being 48
Chapter 3: l1 y a, il meurt: The Theory
of Writing 56
The Essential Solitude 56
Fascination of the Exotic 58
Kafia 61
The Impossibility of Dying 66
Orpheus and His Companions 70
Contents
PART 11: INFINITE
CONVERSATIONS 79
Chapter 4: Blanchot/Celan: Untenvegssein
(On Poetry and Freedom) 81
Poetry and History 81
Error 84
A Poetics of Nonidentity 87
Elsewhere 95
Celan-Blanchot 99
Chapter 5: BlanchotLevinas: Interruption
(On the Conflict of Alterities) 102
Listening 102
The Other Discourse 105
Plural Speech 112
December 25,1995:A Note on Friendship 119
Chapter 6: BlanchotBataille: The Last Romantics
(On Poetry as Experience) 122
The Detour of Poetry 122
Impossible Experience 125
Anthropology of the Last Man 131
Negative Phenomenology 136
The Voice of Experience 140
Chapter 7: Blanchot/Celan: De'sauvrement
(The Theory of the Fragment) 145
Mad Language 145
Maurice Blanchot: nous n'eussions aime' rdpondre 153
No One's Voice, Again 158
...
v111
Contents
PART 111: THE TEMPORALITY
OF ANARCHISM 173
Chapter 8: Infinite Discretion: The Theory
of the Event 175
Words without Language 175
Anonymity 181
The Infinitive 191
No More Texts 194
Man Disappears 197
Chapter 9: Blanchot’s “holocaust” 207
Concluding the Disaster 207
The Metaphysics ofBeing Jewish 212
WorklDeath: Affliction 221
The Writing of the Disaster 227
Chapter 10: The Anarchist’s Last Word 235
RefusallSurvival 235
The Community of Lovers 244
Confessions of the Everyday 251
Bad Conscience 254
Notes 267
Index of Names 333
Index of Topics 337
ix