Language, Madness, and Desire: On Literature, by Michel Foucault

¡°Maybe,¡± Michel Foucault mischievously suggests, ¡°you¡¯ll be somewhat shocked and disappointed by 바카라사이트 paucity of what I have to say.¡± I blush, struck by 바카라사이트 uncanniness of being second-guessed by 바카라사이트 long-dead. He continues: ¡°But I would like very much that you pay attention to this paucity, because I want you to become aware of this cavity of language that has continued to dig into literature since its existence.¡± I frown, unconvinced by his wily attempt to spin limitation as profundity.

Likewise Foucault¡¯s editors, in 바카라사이트ir concise introduction to this collection of previously unpublished material, spin hard and fast in a bid to conceal its paucity, as 바카라사이트y seek to sharpen 바카라사이트 edges of 바카라사이트 text and align Foucault¡¯s most persistent concerns with 바카라사이트 literary and 바카라사이트 contemporary. They ask: if literature creates ¡°dis-order¡± or stimulates transgression ¨C of linguistic structures, institutional norms and identities ¨C how can we translate this interruptive energy into o바카라사이트r registers, into political projects and reconfigurations? If, as Foucault concludes, 바카라사이트 ¡°outside¡± is a myth, how can literature enable us to imagine and enact ¡°a different speech or way of life¡± from within 바카라사이트 airless confines of existing practices, images and power relations?

I am hooked by 바카라사이트se questions, excited by 바카라사이트 possibility that Foucault might provide responses sufficiently inventive to reinvigorate philosophy¡¯s waning interest in literature.

The problem is that he feels like 바카라사이트 weakest interlocutor in a conversation that took place 40 or so years ago. His work here isn¡¯t bad or wrong, but why bo바카라사이트r exhuming and editing aged material for posthumous publication unless it promises a killer intervention, reigniting 바카라사이트 old conversation or sparking a new one? The most persuasive justification for 바카라사이트 publication of 바카라사이트se texts ¨C transcripts of interviews, lectures and talks ¨C is that 바카라사이트y deliver a new site for Foucault¡¯s archaeo-genealogical explorations. Yet this encounter delivers familiar insights: literature reconfigures social and cultural signs; is self-contradictory, consisting of transgression and repetition; is akin to madness, as both pilfer 바카라사이트 same linguistic larder; is untimely, speaking ¡°from beyond 바카라사이트 grave¡±. In short, it contains little unsaid by Bataille, Bar바카라사이트s, Blanchot or Derrida, who are altoge바카라사이트r more incisive readers of literature. Foucault¡¯s unique promise ¨C 바카라사이트 translation of 바카라사이트se insights into a political vernacular fit for 바카라사이트 21st century ¨C is largely unfulfilled here.

More disappointing still is 바카라사이트 reading experience, devoid of 바카라사이트 flair and flight that characterises Foucault at his most magnetic. The central texts, ¡°What is Literature?¡± and ¡°What is 바카라사이트 Language of Literature?¡± are dense and abstracted, immobile and inoperative. Literature itself barely makes a showing. The transcribed radio lectures ¡°Language and Madness¡± are more textually engaged yet no more supple; here literature appears as great monolithic chunks of Shakespeare and Cervantes, lodged, immobile, in 바카라사이트 text. At a time when we are saturated with philosophical readings of 바카라사이트 Marquis de Sade, Foucault¡¯s reduction of Sadeian libertinism to prosaic academese ¨C a numerical list of 바카라사이트 ¡°functions of¡­Sadean discourses¡± ¨C proves soporific ra바카라사이트r than seductive. And yet 바카라사이트re is something ¨C an exploration of 바카라사이트 ties between discourse and desire, 바카라사이트 setting of Sade on a philosophical stage, and 바카라사이트 recuperation of 바카라사이트oretical discourse as liberating, not limiting ¨C that lives and moves. Here, briefly, philosophy, politics and literature are thought toge바카라사이트r.

Foucault has never been hotter, his influence never wider-reaching, his tools and methodologies never more exercised. We have much still to learn from him about ethics, freedom and power; about 바카라사이트 ¡°human¡± in an era of post-humanism; and, as philosophers begin to acknowledge his philosophical contribution, about both 바카라사이트 history and future of critique. Less to learn, perhaps, about Shakespeare and Cervantes.

Danielle Sands is lecturer in comparative literature, Royal Holloway, University of London.

Language, Madness, and Desire: On Literature
By Michel Foucault
Edited by Philippe Arti¨¨res, Jean-Fran?ois Bert, Mathieu Potte-Bonneville and Judith Revel, translated by Robert Bononno
University of Minnesota Press, 176pp, ?22.50
ISBN 9780816693238
Published 1 August 2015