Overview
- Situates silence in the context of both theological legacies and contemporary philosophical debates
- Offers a new, original take on four key literary/philosophical writers of the twentieth century
- Formulates a poetics of silence
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About this book
This book discusses the elusive centrality of silence in modern literature and philosophy, focusing on the writing and theory of Jean-Luc Nancy and Roland Barthes, the prose of Samuel Beckett, and the poetry of Wallace Stevens. It suggests that silence is best understood according to two categories: apophasis and reticence. Apophasis is associated with theology, and relates to a silence of ineffability and transcendence; reticence is associated with phenomenology, and relates to a silence of listenership and speechlessness. In a series of diverse though interrelated readings, the study examines figures of broken silence and silent voice in the prose of Samuel Beckett, the notion of shared silence in Jean-Luc Nancy and Roland Barthes, and ways in which the poetry of Wallace Stevens mounts lyrical negotiations with forms of unsayability and speechlessness.
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Keywords
Table of contents (6 chapters)
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
Thomas Gould holds a PhD in Comparative Literature and Critical Thought from King’s College, London, UK.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Silence in Modern Literature and Philosophy
Book Subtitle: Beckett, Barthes, Nancy, Stevens
Authors: Thomas Gould
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-93479-2
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media Studies, Literature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature 2018
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-319-93478-5Published: 24 July 2018
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-06670-3Published: 12 January 2019
eBook ISBN: 978-3-319-93479-2Published: 12 July 2018
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: IX, 199
Topics: Twentieth-Century Literature, Comparative Literature, European Literature, North American Literature, Aesthetics