Derrida's singularity : literature and ethics
Abstract
In The Singularity of Literature, Derek Attridge gives us a brilliant and
engaging reflection on how to think literature in terms of the singularity of
its event, an event which happens as a complex relating between the work
and its reading/ interpretation. The virtues of this smart and impressive book
are many, and not least among them is the clarity and accessibility of
Attridge's writing, which lets his text appeal not just to scholars of literature
and literary theory but also to undergraduates and even an interested wider
public. As the title suggests, the book's focus is on what makes literature
singular, that is, different from other arts but also from other forms of
writing; in short, Attridge is interested in what gives literature and the
experience of reading and interpreting it their specificity, that is, their
"literariness" or literary character. On the other hand, the title also indicates
the parameters of Attridge's definition of the literary work as an always
singular event of its reading. The view proposed by Attridge underscores the
verbal happening or enactment, which characterizes the literary work. The
work of literature is to be seen as an event, which involves the text and its
reader(s) in a complicated and creative cultural, historical, and temporal
relating.