Cixous's semi-fictions : thinking at the borders of fiction / Mairéad Hanrahan.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hanrahan, Mairéad, author.

Series:

Frontiers of theory.

Frontiers of theory Cixous's semi-fictions

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Cixous, Hélène, 1937---Criticism and interpretation.

Cixous, Hélène.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (viii, 199 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Place of Publication:

Edinburgh : Edinburgh University Press, 2014.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Hélène Cixous, author of over forty works of fiction, was deemed by Derrida to be the greatest living writer in French in 1990. Consistent with this evaluation, her writing is renowned for its dense poetical texture and lyricism. At the same time, she has been described by one of Derrida's translator's, Peggy Kamuf, as 'one of our age's greatest semi-theoreticians'. Connecting these two views, this book argues for a consideration of her texts as 'semi-fictions'. Telling stories is, irreducibly, part of what Cixous does; it is irreducibly part of what she does. Fiction is at once the creation of an imaginary world and an ethical engagement, as intellectual as it is passionate, with the difficulties of the real. This book offers an in-depth reading of five different texts, addressing the idiomatic specificity of individual works and investigating how the textual fabric unfolds. It shows that the narrative dimension to Cixous's writing needs to be reckoned with as a key component of the way it troubles the borders between fiction and its others. Each work is approached in relation to a particular theoretical question or discourse to explore how, in staging an encounter with something beyond itself, her fiction is the site of an active thinking.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Acknowledgments

Series Editor’s Preface

1. Introduction

2. Fictional Analysis: Dedans

3. An Elementary Deconstruction: Les Commencements

4. The Illegitimate Mother: Souffles

5. Vital Tragedy? Déluge

6. The Time of Hospitality: Les Rêveries de la femme sauvage

Works Cited

Index

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 08 Aug 2016).

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

1-4744-0635-1

0-7486-9664-4

OCLC:

1306538446