The aim of this thesis is to demonstrate an aesthetic position in the late writings of Maurice Blanchot (1907–2003), hence exploring the aesthetic dimensions of the authorship that seem to have remained unnoticed. By focusing on the fragmentary work Le Pas au-delà (1973) I attempt to trace an aesthetics of worklessness (désœuvrement) through the figurations of movement, space, and relation within the book. This attempt is realized through a hermeneutic reading that emphasizes the affective, rhetorical, and aesthetic expressions which appear in the literary practice of Blanchot as well as further illustrating the definition of worklessness as the absence of work. Although there is a tendency to treat the late writing of Blanchot as corresponding to his notion of the neutral rather than worklessness, I argue that the literary language of Le Pas au-delà still can be comprehended as a linguistics of worklessness which cannot be conformed into positive knowledge. Thus, the commonly deployed ontological interpretations of Blanchots’ writing are deemed to be problematic, as the notion of worklessness indicates an absence of work that cannot be conceptualized. My study shows that the absolute alterity which Le Pas au-delà appears to thematize – through its’ uncategorisable fragments, that moves between the non-places of fiction and theory, gaze and hearing, the self and the other – can be maintained through the thought of an aesthetics of worklessness. According to my reading, such a notion implies the understanding of aesthetics as a subversive practice where the sensuous is presented in its’ unpresentability.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:sh-48527 |
| Date | January 2021 |
| Creators | Sedell, Néa |
| Publisher | Södertörns högskola, Estetik |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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