Blanchot and Literary Criticism

Mark Hewson teaches literature and philosophy at the University of Melbourne, Australia.

"Hewson's book offers a highly lucid introduction to the literary criticism of Blanchot. Beyond that, however, it is also a quite exceptional introduction to a certain Western European Modernism. Along the way he also broaches a series of larger questions: What is literary criticism? What is the relationship of modern literature to philosophy?  What is remarkable is the way in which Hewson makes his text accessible to those who have yet to read deeply and widely in Blanchot while maintaining such a high level of intellectual reflection that those who know Blanchot well will be fascinated and find they have a great deal to learn from the carefully traced readings." -- Carol Jacobs, Birgit Baldwin Professor of Comparative Literature, Yale University, USA.

• Abbreviations; Introduction: Blanchot and Literary Criticism; 1. The Modern Age and the "Work" of Literature; 2. Poetic Solitude: Two Essays on Holderlin; 3. Mallarme and the Legitimacy of the Modern Poem; 4. The Ambiguity of the Negative; 5. Myth and Representation in Blanchot's Criticism; Reprise: Blanchot and Literary Criticism. Selected Bibliography; Index.