For a Future to Come: :Derrida’s Democracy and the Right to Literature (original) (raw)
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Literature as philosophical choice - Perspectives on Sartre’s writings and readings
On Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury, Sartre wrote that «a Romanesque technique always leads us to the metaphysics of the novelist. The critic’s task lies in finding the latter before assessing the former». Sartre formulates this thesis in universal and prescriptive terms which are necessarily debatable. If literature always were metaphysical, would criticism itself have to be primarily metaphysical? Setting aside disputes on definitions of literature, even of philosophy, and casting improbable generalisations, I will seek to demonstrate that metaphysical criticism is Sartre’s philosophical choice. It is as a metaphysical critic, in other words, as a philosopher and a phenomenologist that Sartre discusses the metaphysics of time in The Sound and the Fury or the metaphysics of the absurd in Camus’ L’Étranger. But is choice not arbitrary? According to Sartre, it is not even of the realm of the arbitrary, which would shed some light on the way Sartre approaches the relation between philosophy and literature, and even between his own literature and his phenomenological philosophy. Does literature serve as illustration for philosophy? Would that imply that there are adequate and inadequate illustrations? And that there is veracity and a persuasive function in those illustrations? In essence, is it a matter of asking more from literature: that it constitute evidence and serve as coactive force for philosophy? It seems that Nausea thinks Being and Nothingness through, and that Proust and Faulkner deflate metaphysics in the eyes of the critic Sartre. In any case, literature is seen feeding philosophy with reality, even from within philosophy itself, bearing in mind literary descriptions of angst or ill-will in Being and Nothingness; precisely as though fiction instilled realism into philosophy, or at least into phenomenology.
Repulsive image: The idea of literature after Blanchot
While it is known that Blanchot approaches philosophical issues by way of literature, it is important to remember that this is coupled to its reverse, which is just as significant: that he approaches literature by way of philosophy. This does not make him into a quasi-or pseudo-philosopher, for his concern is always centred on the literary, but what this coupling draws out is the manner in which Blanchot persistently pursues questions about the nature and status of literature, for which he draws upon an extensive philosophical awareness. Developing this understanding enables us to come to terms with the extremely focused mode of reading and writing that Blanchot has become known for, which leads him to ask what seem to be the same questions, and raise what seem to be the same issues, whatever fictional or critical work he is engaged in. The repetitive nature of Blanchot's writings has sometimes been seen as a failing, but what has to be borne in mind is that this repetition is the result of the necessarily persistent need to bring literature back to addressing questions about its nature and status, for these are the questions by which it persists, and also that, despite this repetition, he is singularly sensitive to what escapes these questions; what remains of the literary beyond the purview of philosophy. 1 While Blanchot's philosophical awareness has never been in doubt, this coupling uncovers its corollary; for if literature is approached by way of philosophy, then this has implications for philosophy, since its encounter with literature can bring about a difference in the way that philosophy proceeds; that is, a difference in thinking.