The Space of Literature

by Maurice Blanchot

A. Smock (Translator)

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Maurice Blanchot, the eminent literary and cultural critic, has had a vast influence on contemporary French writers--among them Jean Paul Sartre and Jacques Derrida. From the 1930s through the present day, his writings have been shaping the international literary consciousness.

The Space of Literature, first published in France in 1955, is central to the development of Blanchot's thought. In it he reflects on literature and the unique demand it makes upon our attention. Thus he explores the process of reading as well as the nature of artistic creativity, all the while considering the relation of the literary work to time, to history, and to death. This book consists not so much in the application of a critical method or the demonstration of a theory of literature as in a patiently deliberate meditation upon the literary experience, informed most notably by studies of Mallarme, Kafka, Rilke, and Hoelderlin. Blanchot's discussions of those writers are among the finest in any language.

  • ISBN10 080321166X
  • ISBN13 9780803211667
  • Publish Date 1 January 1983
  • Publish Status Out of Print
  • Out of Print 8 November 2014
  • Publish Country US
  • Imprint University of Nebraska Press
  • Format Paperback
  • Pages 336
  • Language English