De la angustia al lenguaje (La Dicha de Enmudecer)

by Maurice Blanchot, Luis Ferrero Carracedo (Translator), Cristina de Peretti (Translator)

Publicado como primera sección del libro titulado «Faux pas» (1943), «De la angustia al lenguaje» reúne a su vez una serie de pequeños ensayos centrados en torno a la literatura y la lengua ―y sus aporías― a partir del diálogo, crítico y creativo, que Maurice Blanchot, de una forma singular y con su inconfundible estilo, establece con autores tan diferentes como son su gran amigo Bataille y el Maestro Eckhart, Racine y Blake, Kierkegaard y Proust, Paulhan y Giraudoux, sin olvidar tampoco a Leonardo da Vinci o el pensamiento hindú. Esta recopilación de textos, precedidos por una larga reflexión sobre la angustia del escritor y las paradojas que esta no deja de entrañar, constituye una muestra inmejorable de lo que ha sido la trayectoria, en el ámbito de la crítica literaria, de ese gran novelista y pensador que es Maurice Blanchot.

132 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 8, 2021

About the author

Maurice Blanchot was a French philosopher, literary theorist and writer of fiction. Blanchot was a distinctly modern writer who broke down generic boundaries, particularly between literature and philosophy. He began his career as a journalist on the political far right, but the experience of fascism altered his thinking to the point that he supported the student protests of May 1968. Like so many members of his generation, Blanchot was influenced by Alexandre Kojeve's humanistic interpretation of Hegel and the rise of modern existentialism. His “Literature and the Right to Death” shows the influence that Heidegger had on a whole generation of French intellectuals.

Reviews

[Pedro Pirata]

Leer con los ojos de Blanchot es una práctica salvaje y peligrosa, aunque indudablemente enriquecedora. Destaco los comentarios sobre Bataille, Rilke y el mito de Orestes (a propósito de Las moscas de Sartre). También los textos en los que investiga la naturaleza del lenguaje y la posibilidad de la literatura.

_"El lenguaje está vinculado con el saber en cuanto que le asegura unos puntos fijos, una permanencia, una determinación por medio de lo general, es decir, una interrupción en la búsqueda apasionada del resultado, pero también está vinculado con el saber en lq medida en la que pretende vincularse con el no-saber, ejercitarse a través de rodeos, rupturas, malentendidos, mediante una eterna confrontación y una eterna inversión del pro y del contraz para una negación de todo principio estable que es también una negación de sí mismo. Una de las pretensiones de la literatura es la de suspender las propiedades lógicas del lenguaje o, al menos, la de añadirle propiedades alógicas [...], devolver el lenguaje a lo que cree que es su verdadero destino, que consiste en comunicar el silencio por medio de las palabras y expresar la libertado por medio de las reglas, es decir, en presentarse a sí mismo como destruido por las circunstancias que lo hacen ser lo que es".

[Michael A. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Blanchot does not make writing out to be an activity one does for pleasure. It almost seems like there is a necessity to do it, and I think he thinks that dread (at least partially) constitutes either the book itself, the process of writing, the author, all three, I'm not entirely sure. Dread is immediately posited in opposition to reason, which, among other things "fundamentally challenges its capacity to exist." Yet, dread is only possible because reason exists. So it seems like in a way dread is challenging its own capacity to exist. I am not sure if it is a dialectical relationship but it is definitely oppositional.

Dread is defined in a few ways, its relation to reason is one. Another way is it is a 'fundamental anxiety', i would guess whose anxiety it is is ambiguous. It "opens and closes the sky", pretty metaphorical but dread seems to be a precondition to writing so perhaps it relates to that. But, he says , Dread is "more than anything else this indifference to what creates it.....at the same time it seems to rivet the man to the cause it has chosen." I mean, writing seems like what he's obviously talking about and i feel like there are few examples that aren't writing!

He says that dread attaches itself to the writer constantly, making the writer lose themself. There is no direct communication with dread, which leads to language which Blanchot says is a kind of abandonment or giving away.

Blanchot flirts with an almost Bataillean view on art, that it is useless and that is why it is good, etc. but eventually he comes to the view that it is something transformative.

I didn't write this down in my notes but I think he said literature doesn't have this power because of dread and its essentially empty? I dunno im not sure sounds like something he'd say though