Silence and Citationality in Gustave Flaubert and Karl Kraus: The struggle between social language use and literary writing - Tapa blanda

Recent studies have introduced the idea that silence is not the goal of Flaubert¿s language but a way to reclaim language from society. Through study of Kraus¿s use of citationality, Flaubert¿s use of silence in his citational method becomes explicit. In both authors there is a clear distinction between language that is self-aware, that interacts with all possible meanings; and language that is unaware, where alternate meanings can disrupt the author¿s intention. What emerges is an aesthetics of language that relies on its historical and literary etymology, as well as a highly idiosyncratic idea about the function of grammar that reaffirms it as the form-giving principle of language. It is thanks to citationality as understood in contemporary performance studies that we are able to see the similarities in Flaubert¿s and Kraus¿s writing, and much more poignantly, the subversive aesthetic and political potential of that writing. Citationality becomes the driving process behind both authors¿ creative methods - but in a form that, while coinciding with Derrida and Butler¿s uses of the term, is unique to each writer.

Tanya Winkler-Bluestone received her PhD in comparative literature from Princeton University in 2008. She currently resides in London, UK.