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Jacques Derrida is undoubtedly one of the foremost figures in the development of twentienth-century literary theory. The school of 'deconstruction' that has grown out of his work has been either absorbed into the corpus of modern literary theory, or criticized for its departures from the original texts of Derrida in whose name it is practised. Timothy Clark's innovative book traces instead sources of Derrida's practice of 'literature' as a form of philosophical thinking, in the work of Heidegger and Blanchot. It offers a welcome stylistic clarity in a field beleaguered by its philosophical and linguistic difficulty. Clark gives close readings of key texts including Heidegger's Conversation on a Country Path, Blanchot's L'attente l'oubli, and Derrida's Pas and Signsponge, and widens the scope of his discussion of philosophical cultivation of 'literary' forms to include in addition the issues of creativity, influence and responsibility as they appear in the work of Lyotard and Levinas.
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Jacques Derrida is undoubtedly qne of the foremost figures in the development of twentieth-century literary theory. The school of 'deconstruction' that has grown out of his work has been either absorbed into the corpus of modern literary theory, or more recently criticised for its departures from the original texts of Derrida in whose name it is practised. Timothy Clark's innovative book traces instead sources of Derrida's practice of 'literature' as a form of philosophical thinking in the work of Heidegger and Blanchot. It offers a welcome stylistic clarity in a field beleaguered by its philosophical and linguistic difficulty. Clark gives close readings of key texts including Heidegger's Conversation on a Country Path, Blanchot's L' attente l'oubli, and Derrida's Pas and Signsponge, and widens the scope of his discussion of philosophical cultivations of 'literary' forms to include in addition the issues of creativity, influence and responsibility and the work of Lyotard and Levinas. DERRIDA, HEIDEGGER, BLANCHOT DERRIDA, HEIDEGGER, BLANCHOT Sources of Derrida's notion and practice of literature TIMOTHY CLARK University of Durham CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS Published by the Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge CB2 IRP 40 West zoth Street, New York, NY 10011-4211, USA 10 Stamford Road, Oakleigh, Victoria 3 I 66, Australia © Cambridge University Press 1992 Parts of this text have already appeared in MLN, 101 (1986) © The Johns Hopkins University Press, and as 'French Heidegger and an English Poet: Charles Tomlinson's" Poem" and the Status of Heideggerian Dichtung', Man and World: An International Philosophical Review, 20 (1987), pp. 305-26, © Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1987. The latter is reprinted by permission of Kluwer Academic Pu blishers. First published 1992 A catalogue record for this bookis available from the British Library Library ofCongress cataloguing in publication data Clark, Timothy, 1958Derrida, Heidegger and Blanchot: sources of Derrida's notion and practice of literature / Timothy Clark. p. ern. Includes index. ISBN 0 52 I 40539 4 (hardback) 1. Derrida, Jacques. 2. Deconstruction. 3. LiteraturePhilosophy. 4. Heidegger, Martin, 188g-I976. 5. Blanchot, Maurice. 1. Title. PN98.D43C5 199 1 801'.95'092 - DC20 91-25237 CIP ISBN 0 52 I 40539 4 hardback Transferred to digital printing 2004 UP For Joel andfor Georgia Contents Preface Abbreviations page xi Xlll Introduction Overcoming aesthetics: Heideggerian Dichtung 20 2 Blanchot: the literary space 64 3 Derrida and the literary 108 4 The event of signature: a 'science' of the singular? 150 Postscript: respon