Language, Madness, and Desire: On Literature

by Michel Foucault, Philippe Artières (Editor), Jean-François Bert (Editor)

As a transformative thinker of the twentieth century, whose work spanned all branches of the humanities, Michel Foucault had a complex and profound relationship with literature. And yet this critical aspect of his thought, because it was largely expressed in speeches and interviews, remains virtually unknown to even his most loyal readers. This book brings together previously unpublished transcripts of oral presentations in which Foucault speaks at length about literature and its links to some of his principal madness, language and criticism, and truth and desire. The associations between madness and language—and madness and silence—preoccupy Foucault in two 1963 radio broadcasts, presented here, in which he ranges among literary examples from Cervantes and Shakespeare to Diderot, before taking up questions about Artaud’s literary correspondence, lettres de cachet, and the materiality of language. In his lectures on the relations among language, the literary work, and literature, he discusses Joyce, Proust, Chateaubriand, Racine, and Corneille, as well as the linguist Roman Jakobson. What we know as literature, Foucault contends, begins with the Marquis de Sade, to whose writing—particularly La Nouvelle Justine and Juliette—he devotes a full two-part lecture series focusing on notions of literary self-consciousness. Following his meditations on history in the recently published Speech Begins after Death, this current volume makes clear the importance of literature to Foucault’s thought and intellectual development.

Genres: Philosophy, Theory, Nonfiction, Literary Criticism, Psychiatry, Language, Ebooks

166 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 1, 2015

About the author

Paul-Michel Foucault was a French philosopher, historian of ideas, writer, political activist, and literary critic. Foucault's theories primarily address the relationships between power and knowledge, and how they are used as a form of social control through societal institutions. Though often cited as a structuralist and postmodernist, Foucault rejected these labels. His thought has influenced academics, especially those working in communication studies, anthropology, psychology, sociology, criminology, cultural studies, literary theory, feminism, Marxism and critical theory.
Born in Poitiers, France, into an upper-middle-class family, Foucault was educated at the Lycée Henri-IV, at the École Normale Supérieure, where he developed an interest in philosophy and came under the influence of his tutors Jean Hyppolite and Louis Althusser, and at the University of Paris (Sorbonne), where he earned degrees in philosophy and psychology. After several years as a cultural diplomat abroad, he returned to France and published his first major book, The History of Madness (1961). After obtaining work between 1960 and 1966 at the University of Clermont-Ferrand, he produced The Birth of the Clinic (1963) and The Order of Things (1966), publications that displayed his increasing involvement with structuralism, from which he later distanced himself. These first three histories exemplified a historiographical technique Foucault was developing called "archaeology".
From 1966 to 1968, Foucault lectured at the University of Tunis before returning to France, where he became head of the philosophy department at the new experimental university of Paris VIII. Foucault subsequently published The Archaeology of Knowledge (1969). In 1970, Foucault was admitted to the Collège de France, a membership he retained until his death. He also became active in several left-wing groups involved in campaigns against racism and human rights abuses and for penal reform. Foucault later published Discipline and Punish (1975) and The History of Sexuality (1976), in which he developed archaeological and genealogical methods that emphasized the role that power plays in society.
Foucault died in Paris from complications of HIV/AIDS; he became the first public figure in France to die from complications of the disease. His partner Daniel Defert founded the AIDES charity in his memory.

Reviews

[Canan Elif · Rating 4 out of 5]

....Cezanne'ın benzersiz bakışını gezdirdiği Saint-Victorie Dağı'nın onun eseri olduğunu söyleyecek değildir kimse, ama Semadirek Kanatlı Zaferi ancak tanrıların elinden çıkmış olarak . İle-de-France ve Beauce bölgelerinin ücra köşelerinde teolojik bir mavi. Birden gökyüzü incecik bir maviye , ortaçağ minyatürlerinin mavisine, Berry Dükü minyatürlerinin mavisine, teolojik bir maviye büründü. El neredeydi? İsterseniz şöyle söyleyeyim: Yaratıcının eli neredeydi?

[Molsa Roja(s) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Extraordinari. Recull de quatre conferències de Foucault en què problematitza la pregunta què és la literatura i l'ubica en la pròpia tradició literària; fent-ne una genealogia, ens mostra la interrelació existent entre el llenguatge, l'obra i la literatura. Profund, esclaridor i ple de metàfores bellíssimes, una té la sensació d'emergir de les conferències amb un coneixement major d'això que és l'escriptura i publicació, de la història i tradició literàries. A part d'això, la segona part tracta sobre l'escriptura de Sade; tot i no tenir un interès particular en la seva obra, la lectura foucaltiana d'aquesta ha resultat tremendament interessant i novedosa. Molt recomanable!

[Federico · Rating 5 out of 5]

La conferenza su Sade eccezionale

[Elari · Rating 4 out of 5]

As Interesting as any Foucault work. But so many bullet points, so many lists, it gets really, really annoying.

Ironically I'm switching to Wittgenstein now.

[Onur Yz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Michel Foucault ile ilk tanışmam. Tabii ziyadesiyle ağır ve sert bir tanışma oldu ama diğer yandan da çok mutlu oldum bu gecikmiş vuslat için. Michel Foucault kolay okumaya müsaade etmeyen, detaycı dili ve yoğun felsefik kavramları içeren anlatımı nedeniyle her okura hitap etmeyen bir yazar. Daha çok Foucault okudukça daha çok alışacağıma eminim keza kendisi hakkında çok sayıda kitap yazılmış, eş zamanlı bunları da okumaya karar verdim.
Kitapta en çarpıcı bölüm M. De Sade ile ilgili bölümlerdi. Çoğu goodreads üyesinin De Sade kitaplarını okuduğunu işaretlemeye çekindiğini düşündüğüm bir minvalde, Michel Foucault De Sade ile alakalı muhteşem tespitlerde bulunuyor. Geçtiğimiz aylarda bir De Sade eseri okurken çok büyük bir şaşkınlık yaşamıştım, zira hemen her yerde pornografik bir yazar gibi gösterilen De Sade'ın eserlerinin çok çok daha fazlası olduğunu olduğunu fark etmiştim. İşte Foucault göz ardı edilen bu hususu detaylıca ele alıp çözümlüyor ve çok çarpıcı satırlara imza atıyor.

Özetle Foucault'a devam...

[Selim Kuru · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant Saint Foucault. Three sets of presentations by Foucault on literature and madness, literature and language and Sade and writing. The first two interrogates the difference created in ‘literature’ adtwr the 18th century and the last focuses at one of the extreme sources of how truth works at imagination in a way to subvert writing to make literature as a destructive force. Such a force to deny history as it is defined with beginnings and endings by replacing it with infinity gained by repetition. Foucault underscores his keen and persistent argument about the difference of Western distinction in these earlier fight texts (his shadow fighting—his constant challenging of his own writing, his struggle to construct an understanding—is most evident in these pieces), and his pretense for not knowing other traditions of writing is not convincing. At least he doesn’t incorporate Ancient Greek and Roman thought as the basis of his West.

[Janice]

Curse the person who made this hyperbolic title.

[Javee]

Me lo he leído principalmente por los capítulos dedicados a Artaud y a Sade, pero todos son bien interesantes, como la conferencia en la que aborda qué es la literatura (o qué está en proceso de ser)

[booksummoner · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5

[Alma Hernández · Rating 5 out of 5]

Effrayant et brutal son analyse de Sade. D'un côté formel, quel sublime analyse du discours.

[Lukas Evan · Rating 3 out of 5]

For people who like to think about literature more than read it.

[Camille · Rating 3 out of 5]

La conférence retranscrite dans laquelle Foucault expose ses idées sur la littérature et sur le Marquis de Sade.

[Jordan Van Der Low · Rating 5 out of 5]

El apartado de Sade es un manjar, se lee solo.

[Brandon · Rating 5 out of 5]

These texts provide a rare glimpse into Foucault's thought on subjects which he would later go to great pains to avoid. All the more reason then that it is frustrating that some texts associated with those in this collection have been excluded.

Although the first selection, two transcripts of a radio program, are the least interesting, they were originally a part of a five part series of which the first, third, and fourth have been left out because the editors judged them not relevant to the scope of this volume. I would like to disagree, but they haven't provided the texts for me to form a judgement on their relevance! In any case, the two texts they do include refer to the others and so cannot be fully appreciated outside of this greater context.

The more dissapointing exclusion comes from the last section. The preface tk "Lectures on Sade" explains that these two lectures were accompanied by lectures on Flaubert's Bouvard and Pécuchet without any rationale for why they might have been left out of this volume. The endnotes even provide information on the Sade lecture manuscripts, but neglect the status of these Flaubert lectures! Perhaps they do not exist in manuscript form and are lost to time, but I'll never know since the editors make no such comment. Perhaps Flaubert isn't believed to be as tantalizing as Sade for an English speaking audience, but Bouvard and Pécuchet was just as much a literary topos for the 68ers as Sade was.

Despite these exclusions, the present lectures are unique among the texts of Foucault I have yet read. He speaks of structuralism and psychoanalysis in the most positive terms I have seen and yet remains characteristically critical of both. In this way, these texts cannot be read as a sign of a secret Foucault who would turn out to be a crypto-structuralist or a crypto-lacanian so many wanted to find in his work. The Literature and Language section prefigures his Archaeology of Knowledge in seeking to found a formal analysis of discourse not dependant on linguistic models and the Lectures on Sade explicitly reject a Freudian or Marcusian reading. It will be curious to see how his reading of Sade contrasts with that of Klossowski, Blanchot, Lacan, and Deleuze who all form a background millieu in some way for this text.

I will definitely return to this volume which has provided greater interest in Foucault's early thought in the future.

[Mariana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Definitivamente interesante. En algunas partes me fue difícil de leer, hace muchas referencias que no alcanzo a comprender del todo. Particularmente disfruté la sección sobre Sade; un muy buen análisis.

[Claire · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a great collection! These essays and lectures contain a wealth of information on how Foucault explicitly dealt with and thought about literature, and the introduction is very elucidating for that matter.

[Nick Angiers · Rating 3 out of 5]

Still don't get Foucault; too deep for me. Starting to get there, though. Lots of interesting ideas in this one.