The aim of this thesis is to discuss ontological experiences of the writer and reader of literature. It argues that literary creation entails an experience of a state of being where the distance of ??my?? being/speaking and (an)other??s disappears: hence the total union of a being with (an)other. It suggests that this state of being created in the course of literary creation is also significant for everyday life. It analyses the texts of three theorists who addressed this issue: Sartre, Barthes, and Bachelard. Whilst Sartre speaks nothing about a state of being of the creative writer in relation to inspirational otherness, he suggests the change of the writer into a free being, in relation to the reader. Sartre holds that the reader, while becoming a free being, and revealing another (the writer)??s freedom, transforms what s/he is not into his or her own in reading-creation. This implies that in reading-creation, the distance of a being and another disappears. Barthes asserts that in writing the death of the ??author-person?? as an original creator is needed; this means that, for him, writers write finding no distance between themselves and language, which is what speaks itself. Although readers create as ??subject??, Barthes holds, they may find no distance between their being and the text, losing their subjectivity. Bachelard suggests that the poetic dreamer (as both the writer and reader of poetry) experiences a state of being in which neither subjectivity nor object is sensed. In this state, he holds, the speaking of (an)other becomes the speaking of the poetic dreamer. This poetic dreaming state which involves the complete harmony between a dreaming being and other being(s) is termed by Bachelard childhood. He suggests that childhood is permanent and subsistent as an archetypal state of mind and bears witness to the childhood of humankind. As the Bachelardian sense of childhood denotes an ultimate harmonia involving the liberation from the ??prison of self??, it carries significant implications for everyday life.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/272551 |
| Date | January 2009 |
| Creators | Lee, Gi Peel, Social Sciences & International Studies, Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences, UNSW |
| Publisher | Awarded By:University of New South Wales. Social Sciences & International Studies |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | http://unsworks.unsw.edu.au/copyright, http://unsworks.unsw.edu.au/copyright |
Page generated in 0.0015 seconds