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(2018) Saramago's philosophical heritage, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan.
Death by representation
in law, in literature, and in that space between
Maria Aristodemou
pp. 101-120
The chapter reads José Saramago's All the Names and Death at Intervals and suggests that although the symbolic order fetishizes the dead letter, works of art can resurrect inert signifiers and turn them into living, breathing, and growing bodies. The argument is that what allows Saramago's texts to persist beyond the death wreaked by representation are two miracles that take place in the interstices of signification: first the miracle of love and second the miracle of poetry and in particular of metaphor. These miracles, I argue, form the backbone of Saramago's texts, suggesting that the loss, or death, inflicted by the signifier can be rejoined, pasted, or united in a space between the symbolic and the Real, between law and literature.
Publication details
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-91923-2_6
Full citation:
Aristodemou, M. (2018)., Death by representation: in law, in literature, and in that space between, in C. Salzani & K. K. P. . Vanhoutte (eds.), Saramago's philosophical heritage, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 101-120.
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