Blanchot Romantique: A Collection of Essays (Romanticism and after in France / Le Romantisme et aprs en France)

The work of French writer and essayist Maurice Blanchot (1907-2003) is without doubt among the most challenging the twentieth century has to offer. Contemporary debate in literature, philosophy, and politics has yet to fully acknowledge its discreet but enduring impact. Arising from a conference that took place in Oxford in 2009, this book sets itself a simple, if daunting, task: that of measuring the impact and responding to the challenge of Blanchot’s work by addressing its engagement with the Romantic legacy, in particular (but not only) that of the Jena Romantics. Drawing upon a wide range of philosophers and poets associated directly or indirectly with German Romanticism (Kant, Fichte, Goethe, Jean Paul, Novalis, the Schlegels, Hölderlin), the authors of this volume explore how Blanchot’s fictional, critical, and fragmentary texts rewrite and rethink the Romantic demand in relation to questions of criticism and reflexivity, irony and subjectivity, narrative and genre, the sublime and the neutre , the Work and the fragment, quotation and translation. Reading Blanchot with or against key twentieth-century thinkers (Benjamin, Foucault, de Man), they also examine Romantic and post-Romantic notions of history, imagination, literary theory, melancholy, affect, love, revolution, community, and other central themes that Blanchot’s writings deploy across the century from Jean-Paul Sartre to Jean-Luc Nancy. This book contains contributions in both English and French. Contents 7 Acknowledgements ix 11 Abbreviations xi 13 HANNES OPELZ and JOHN McKEANE 15 Introduction: The Absolute, the Fragmentary 1 15 Legacies (I): Theory 55 69 GISÈLE BERKMAN 71 ‘Une histoire dans le romantisme?’ Maurice Blanchot et l’Athenæum 57 71 CHRISTOPHE BIDENT 89 Le Neutre est-il une notion romantique? 75 89 YVES GILONNE 107 L’Auto-réflexivité du sublime 93 107 Legacies (II): Praxis 107 121 MICHAEL HOLLAND 123 Blanchot and Jean Paul 109 123 SERGEY ZENKIN 143 Transformations of Romantic Love 129 143 JÉRÉMIE MAJOREL 155 Au moment voulu: de mélancolie en mélancolie 141 155 Twentieth-Century Conversations in Romanticism 153 167 IAN MACLACHLAN 169 Blanchot and the Romantic Imagination 155 169 JAKE WADHAM 187 Blanchot, Benjamin, and the Absence of the Work 173 187 HECTOR KOLLIAS 205 Unworking Irony’s Work: Blanchot and de Man Reading Schlegel 191 205 Romantic Fragmentations 209 223 LESLIE HILL 225 ‘A Fine Madness’: Translation, Quotation, the Fragmentary 211 225 MAEBH LONG 247 A Step Askew: Ironic Parabasis in Blanchot 233 247 Political Romanticism 245 259 MARTIN CROWLEY 261 Even now, now, very now 247 261 IAN JAMES 277 The Narrow Margin 263 277 PARHAM SHAHRJERDI 289 Écrire la révolution 275 289 Appendix 297 311 Bibliography 299 313 Notes on Contributors 307 321 Index 313 327 Content: The absolute, the fragmentary / Hannes Opelz and John McKeane -- 'Une histoire dans le romantisme': Maurice Blanchot et l'Athenéum / Gisèle Berkman -- Le Neutre est-il une notion romantique? / Christophe Bident -- L'Auto-réflexivité du sublime / Yves Gilonne -- Blanchot and Jean Paul / Michael Holland -- Transformations of romantic love / Sergey Zenkin -- Au moment voulu: de mélancolie en mélancolie / Jérémie Majorel -- Blanchot and the romantic imagination / Ian Maclachlan -- Blanchot, Benjamin, and the absence of the work / Jake Wadham -- Unworking irony's work: Blanchot and de Man reading Schlegel / Hector Kollias -- 'A fine madness': translation, quotation, the fragmentary / Leslie Hill -- A step askew: ironic parabasis in Blanchot / Maebh Long -- Even now, now, very now / Martin Crowley -- The narrow margin / Ian James -- Écrire la révolution / Parham Shahrjerdi.