Figural Space

William D. Melaney is professor of English and comparative literature at the American University, Cairo. His research is interdisciplinary and embraces philosophy, literary studies, aesthetics and social thought. He has previously published numerous articles and three books on Continental philosophy and the problem of cultural modernity.

• Introduction: An Opening of Figural Space 1. Kristeva and Hegel:Subjectivity Reconfigured2. Spenser's Renaissance: Ideality and Discourse 3. Image in Wordsworth: Space/Time and Semiotics4. Shelley's Double Vision: Figural Counter-Worlds5. Proust and Aesthetics:A Narrative Sensibility 6. Space in Blanchot:Orphic Testimonies 7. H.D. and Life Writing:A Logos of Difference8. Revisiting Jean Rhys: Postcolonial Ethics 9. Ishiguro's Imaginary:Figures of History Conclusion: Negotiating the Figural Index

Taking its point of departure in Kristeva’s original combination of speculative philosophy and psychoanalysis, Figural Space offers us the best of what literary theory has in store: real gems, as why Spenser’s epic anticipates Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit or why The Prelude echoes Kant. Kristeva’s hitherto untapped critical energies provide a welcome corrective to historicist accounts of literature like those of Gadamer or Rancière, as Melaney’s inspired readings of Rimbaud, Proust, Blanchot, Rhys and Ishiguro abundantly prove.