Date: Mon, 04 Aug 1997 13:33:19 +0300
Subject: poetry language thought


>I'm going to look into stuff on Abraham Abulafia regarding all this, but
>could someone provide us with references as to where we find the subject
>confronted in Bataille's work?

>Don Socha

Of poetry, I will now say that it is, I believe, the sacrifice in which
words are victims. Words--we use them, we make of them the instruments
of useful acts. We would in no way have anything of the human about us
if language had to be entirely servile within us. Neither can we do
without the efficacious relations which words introduce between men and
things. But we tear words from these links in a delirium. (Bataille,
Inner Experience 135)

This I dug out of my files, from the "Fragment on Poetry and Marcel
Proust," I believe. Starting from this quote, and moving in ex-centric
circles, the Fragment, and then the entire _Inner Experience_ which is
precisely on what you are talking about: knowledge or rather
non-knowledge, and language that works or not.
	Let me clarify since my comment that it might not be possible to talk
about Bataille was brought up, that it was prompted by the following
considerations:
1) the passage I just quoted
2) the fact that language that works, i.e. academic theoretical
language, is precisely what Bataille was calling into question
3) my own personal understanding that Bataille's work seems far less
congenial to appropriation by the academy than other thinkers', which is
why precious few people manage to make use of him--or make him work, if
you like. I consider this perhaps the best indication of his success in
his "project." In addition, however, I feel that he underwrites a lot of
theoretical work rather surreptitiously--and with very interesting
results. In this context, have a look at the "preface"--is it?--of
Foucault's _The Order of Things_: Foucault is discussing a passage from
Borjes as providing the impetus behind his work, as provoking "a laugher
that shattered all the familiar landmarks of his thought." Not only does
it strike me that this laughter can only be Bataille's, but also it has
a distinct echo of Bataille's discussion/revision of  Descartes cogito
as starting with doubt--in _Inner Experience_ somewhere. (Foucault was,
of course, the general editor of Bataille's collected works!) If you
know how to look you will find echoes of Bataille in Kristeva, Clement,
and even Lacan--who was paying a lot more attention than you think--and
of course, Blanchot! However, you will find precious little discussion
of Bataille's work. 
4) the sense that at some point in time Bataille starts conforming to
expository writing, namely in the three volumes of the _Accursed Share_ 
[remember that Derrida produces the essay on the General and Restricted
economy out of the Accursed Share, really; as for Nancy ... ] which for
the most part repeats Guilty and Inner Experience.  What does this mean? 
When I put the question about whether we can talk about Bataille--which
was an honest-to-god question--I sort of expected us to start unfolding
some of the implications entailed in these considerations. Given, the
specific debate on the list at that time, it was clear to me that the
contestation (nice Bataillean word) over language would have been better
off being addressed from within Bataille's work--since it did concern
him intimately. 
	In any case, one might even think the bits about complicity in Guilty
as an important contribution to the question of language and knowledge;
moreover consider the implications for the discourse on this list.
	I don't expect to be writing again until the end of August, by which
time I will, hopefully, be in possession of my books again. But, I will
follow the discussion with interest. 
	I hope this helps.
Beatrice