The aim of this dissertation is to show that precisely in the indeterminacy of literature we can find the possibility of ethics and it will start with the examination of a work that clearly has a paradoxical nature. The work in question is Sreten Ugričić's Infinitive. The paradox of Infinitive consists in the fact that it is a monograph, but a monograph about a non-existent book. The examination of the paradox on which Infinitive is based will be associated with Maurice Blanchot's analysis of the (im)possibility of literature from his essays “Orpheus's Gaze” and “Encountering the Imaginary.” This dissertation will claim that two most important features of the (im)possibility of literature are: the passage from je to il and the temporal paradox of the time of time's absence. These two features are interconnected: a loss of personality (and the inability to subsume the work of art under terms of decision and intention) leads to a strange realm that is governed by the time of time's absence. This is the realm of imaginary or a place where, to paraphrase Blanchot, language becomes its own image. Through the analysis of specific literary works (Infinitive, Marbot: A Biography and The Lost Estate) this dissertation will try to describe the most important paradoxes of literature. In the final part of this dissertation, through a dialogue between Maurice Blanchot and Emmanuel Levinas, two theses will be formulated: 1.) the passage from je to il will be associated with the impossibility of death. Close reading of Blanchot's reworking of Levinas's concepts will open a perspective according to which art is capable of offering the experience of fundamental alterity. 2.) the time of time's absence will be described as the temporality of artwork, but also as the temporality of the other.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:606468 |
| Date | January 2014 |
| Creators | Mitrović, Nemanja |
| Publisher | University of Aberdeen |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://digitool.abdn.ac.uk:80/webclient/DeliveryManager?pid=211039 |
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