Why does interrogation silence its object and not make it speak? Silence vs speech is a central issue in classical and modern literary works. This book studies literary representations of the power relations in which we are forced to speak using a range of texts ranging from the modern crime novel, via classics, to avant-garde plays.
Ulf Olsson is Professor of Comparative Literature, teaches at Stockholm University, Sweden and has also taught at University of California, Berkeley, USA and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA. He has published books on Strindberg, and on contemporary Swedish literature, as well as on improvised music. Olsson also works as a literary critic.
Innehållsförteckning
Acknowledgments Introduction: Cordelia's Silence, Spoken Violence 1. The Exemplary Becomes Problematic, or Gendered Silence: Jane Austen 2. The Secrets of Silence: Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter , Musil's Tonka 3. Refusal, or The Mute Provocateurs: Bartleby Meets Yvonne 4. The Other of Monologue: Strindberg, Camus, Beckett 5. Interrogation, or Forced to Silence: Rankin, Harris, Pinter, Duras 6. Literature as Coerced Speech: Peter Handke's Kaspar 7. Epilogue: The Silence of the Sirens 8. Bibliography Index
