Unmade in its image: the spacing of the sentence and the exposure of thought in Blanchot. Issue 5 (28th May 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Allen, William S.
• Is Part Of: Textual practice. Volume 32:Issue 5(2018)
• Page Start: 739
• Page End: 758
• Publication Date: 2018-05-28
• Subjects: Blanchot -- images -- fragmentary writing -- space -- aporias; Literature, Modern -- 20th century -- History and criticism -- Periodicals; Criticism -- Periodicals; Criticism, Textual -- Periodicals; Semiotics -- Periodicals; 801.95
• DOI: 10.1080/0950236X.2016.1268200
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0950-236X

Abstract

ABSTRACT: A major concern of Blanchot's early writings is the nature of the literary image but in his later works this appears to be replaced by a thinking of fragmentary writing. This change reflects a tension in which the images that arise through writing deliver a mode of spacing that places an aporetic pressure on its sentences, leading them to break down. To draw out this inter-relation I will examine Blanchot's fictional and critical writings at a moment when the pressures of the image are felt most acutely, exposing the peculiar form of dialectics that emerges from it and the concomitant material spacing of language and thought, which, from his earliest works, marks a profound if not abyssal ambiguity of presence.