Blanchot and Literary Criticism

This is an outstanding overview of Blanchot's importance to contemporary literary theory. Blanchot's literary criticism has imposed itself within the canon and syllabi of modern poetics and literary theory, and yet it has maintained a somewhat mysterious presence. This is in part due to its almost hypnotic literary style, in part to its distinctive amalgam of a number of philosophical sources (Hegel, Bataille, Levinas, and Heidegger) which, although hardly unknown in the Anglophone philosophical world, have not yet made themselves fully at home in literary theory. "Blanchot and Literary Criticism" undertakes to remedy this situation, providing an accessible guide to Blanchot's thought and making a case for its relevance to contemporary literary theory and criticism. In doing so, it offers an engaging introduction to the many intersections of European literary modernism and continental philosophy.