WRAP THESIS Kuzma 2011.Pdf

University of Warwick institutional repository: http://go.warwick.ac.uk/wrap A Thesis Submitted for the Degree of PhD at the University of Warwick http://go.warwick.ac.uk/wrap/47816 This thesis is made available online and is protected by original copyright. Please scroll down to view the document itself. Please refer to the repository record for this item for information to help you to cite it. Our policy information is available from the repository home page. Erotic Scenographies: Blanchot, Nietzsche & the Exigency of Return by Joseph Dlaboha Kuzma A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy & Literature University of Warwick, Department of Philosophy October 2011 Erotic Scenographies: Blanchot, Nietzsche & the Exigency of Return Contents Preface & Acknowledgments Introduction 1 Courtship & Despondency 21 The Ecstasy of Transmogrification 57 “A Voluptuousness of Hell” 112 The Absolute of Separation 147 The Irrevocable, the Prophetic 194 When Distance Collapsed 251 The Nothingness of Love 293 An Uncertain Covenant 319 “This Beating of a Hesitant Heart” 382 Afterword 433 Appendix 437 Bibliographic Materials Preface & Acknowledgements Some 400 metres above the unbroken azure of the Mediterranean coast, the narrowest of paths leads one upwards, around spires of eroded rock and boulder, to the walls of a medieval village perched high atop the summit. The path itself is not only steep but treacherous – carved out over many hundreds of years, it once led mules laden with cargo, rather precariously, from the port below, to the gates of a chateau, whose ruins still overlook the sea with a bruised, if undeterred, stateliness. A fort in Roman times, the town fell to the advancing Moors in the year 900, and the evidence of Moorish influence upon the town‟s architecture and design remains, even today, clearly discernable. Its streets are narrow, winding pathways adorned uniformly with flowering vines and greenery; its buildings, ornamented with red brick and terracotta roof tiles. Cafes and antiques shops are ubiquitous, here, as are the tourists, many of whom, especially in recent years, have been affluent Russians, drawn to the town on account of its famed jardin exotique and its close proximity to the roulette wheels of Monte Carlo. ● It was in June of 2007, that I first came here, to this village of Èze, just outside Nice, to ascend that treacherous pathway from the sea. I still remember the day. It was overcast and the sky hinted at rain. – “Le chemin de Frédéric Nietzsche,” I had replied, when an employee of the local hostel, a girl with red hair, came to ask me where I was headed with my hiking boots and canteen. “I will show you.” So we left Nice in a cab, and arrived, not long after, at the railway station in Èze-Bord- de-Mer, only steps away from the base of Nietzsche‟s path. Pausing at regular intervals to fill our parched lungs with smoke, it took us several hours until we finally arrived upon the village walls. It was then, looking down upon the conquered terrain, the blue of the sea, that those famous words, written in the pages of Ecce Homo, first began to come alive for me: “Many spots and heights in the countryside around Nice have been sanctified for me through unforgettable moments [unvergessliche Augenblicke],” Nietzsche writes, “that decisive section [of Zarathustra] which bears the title “On the Old and New Tables” was composed during the arduous ascent from the station to the marvellous Moorish rocky haunt of Èze.”1 In the very space where I was now standing, Nietzsche had once stood. It was, here, amidst the silent companionship of these rocks, these boulders, that he had come to conceive, in the winter of 1883-4, nothing less than the entire Third Part of his remarkable text, the very portions of the text which concern themselves most intensively, as we know, with the thought of eternal recurrence, that weightiest and most formidable of thoughts. If it had been possible to stand there longer, in his shadow, I would have. The air felt strangely charged, there, almost electric, atop this precipice. The wind rustled like so many whispers. I tried to conjure thoughts. Then waves below us swelled. Suddenly it began to rain. 1 Friedrich Nietzsche. Ecce Homo and The Birth of Tragedy. Translated by Clifton P. Fadiman. New York: The Modern Library, 1927. 102. ● For nearly an hour and a half we waited in a crowded restaurant (the Auberge du Troubadour) with other patrons seeking to escape the deluge. The rain was pelting the roof relentlessly, and I was secretly thankful because it precluded us (the red-haired girl and me) from the awkwardness of a forced conversation. Soon, it grew dark outside – and as the rain was still falling with imperturbable force, my heart began to sink. For it had not been merely in pursuit of Nietzsche‟s path (or his legacy) that I had come here to the rocky cliffs of Èze. It had not been merely to place my boots on the very soil he had walked upon, or to breathe the salty air which had once filled his lungs, that I had ascended to these heights. It was also – as I proceeded to explain to Béa – for another reason. I had also come here in hopes of seeing, in this very same village, the place where Maurice Blanchot, for several years during the late 1940s and fifties, had once resided. I had come with hopes of visiting that modest house on the Rue due Bournou, in the heart of the medieval village, where Blanchot had encountered, without either seeking or desiring it, the “essential solitude” of a writer – a solitude as mysterious as it was impenetrable, and to which his writings unceasingly bear witness. I had come, moreover, with the hopes of entering that small room overlooking the Cape Ferrat and the vast, shipping channels of the Mediterranean where so many of his most prescient and enduring essays and fictional texts were written; a room in which there had once hung, as he tells us, “the likeness of a girl they called „The Unknown Girl from the Seine,‟ an adolescent with closed eyes, but alive with such a fine, blissful (but veiled) smile, that one might have thought she had drowned in an instant of extreme happiness.”2 2 Maurice Blanchot. A Voice From Elsewhere. Translated by Charlotte Mandell. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2007. 5. All of this I had hoped to witness, all of this I had hoped to see. But now it was growing dark, and the rain was heavier than ever. Here we were, stuck inside a restaurant high atop the proverbial eagle‟s nest. My somewhat ridiculous dream of taking Nietzsche‟s path to the step of Blanchot‟s front door was quickly collapsing. Indeed, with every minute that passed, it became increasingly apparent to me that I had fallen, here, for the seductive trap of the anecdote. I was succumbing to nothing less than a naïve and dangerous idolatry: biographical fetishism. And yet, the disappointment nevertheless could not have resounded more audibly as I told the red- haired girl that it was time to get a cab and head back to Nice. It wasn‟t worth waiting any longer for the weather to clear. It was already night, anyways. ● The next thing I remember, perhaps in a dream, was sitting in the backseat of a taxi, listening to Béa rather methodically relaying directions to the driver in French. The car then swerved awkwardly several times. I then distinctly recall seeing her head swing back, toward me, and her voice chirping excitedly as she pointed out the window: “This is the Rue due Bournou. That is the house…” It was nearly pitch black. The rain was slanting in through the open window, soaking Béa‟s heavy sweatshirt. I couldn‟t see anything out there. Maybe an outline, a roof, a door. That‟s all. A few seconds later, the driver accelerated, and we were gone. I mentioned earlier that all of this happened on my first visit to Èze. I say “first” in a spirit of optimism, for I have not yet had the chance to return there. ● It is difficult to say what, if anything, this brief little story has taught me. It is not, in any case, an allegory. Nor is it something which I cling to as one of my more precious memories. If anything, it is a bit embarrassing. An anecdote which others perhaps can identify with. And yet, I relate it, here, because it was this encounter (a missed encounter, it seems) which ultimately came to inspire, in a decidedly indirect manner, the very study at hand. A missed encounter which was perhaps all the more poignant, for me, on account of what it lacked. What follows, then, is by no means an attempt to extract some meaning from this event, or to elevate it, within the gaudy shrines of nostalgia, to some symbolic primacy. Let me say it again: the encounter was valuable because of what it lacked. And to that extent, perhaps, it is eminently instructive. – For what it announces (to me) is nothing less than a beginning which has always already been effaced. ● Whilst undertaking research for this project I was greatly aided by the Houghton Library at Harvard University which graciously made available for my consultation an early manuscript copy of Blanchot’s L‟entretien infini. I am similarly indebted to the Butler Library at Columbia University for allowing me generous access to its research facilities and materials.

Load more