Abstract
Levinas's and Blanchot's literary theory coalesced while maintained a tension in between. They both tried to break through Heidegger's ontological literary theory, but Levinas used "the other", and Blanchot used "the outside" as the weapons to achieve this goal. In general, Levinas and Blanchot showed us two different and yet connected ethics and literature. The former intended to use ethics to transcend the totality of philosophy, but ultimately found the literary language in the depth of this ethics, which made the ethics become literary; the latter intended to use literature to transcend the identity of philosophy, but ultimately found the ethics in the search for the outside and the other in literature, which made literature become ethical. These two kinds of ethics and literature interwove marvelously, just like the friendship that Blanchot described.
First Page
155
Last Page
167
Recommended Citation
Wang, Jiajun. 2019. "From Neutrality to the Other: Levinas on Blanchot." Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art 39, (4): pp.155-167. https://tsla.researchcommons.org/journal/vol39/iss4/8
