The Aesthetics of Renunciation, and the Irregularities of the 20th Century

In the essay Das Wort (Words), Martin Heidegger wrote about renunciation (verzicht) in the context of the poetry of Stefan George. According to Heidegger the entrance into the possibility of Saying, with the capital S - as opposed to the chatter of every-day life - could be achieved in the instance of the poets deliberate acceptance of renunciation. Heideggers writings, including Words, have had an enormous influence in the second part of the 20th century on authors and thinkers alike. And yet this influence may have had a pernicious effect, at least in the opinion of some commentators. In the 2005 book Ladieu a la litterature, William Marx, for instance, claimed that the 20th century is the time of a literature sans style. If on the one hand literature achieved its autonomy, on the other it farewelled the cognitive purpose with regard to the world, which, some could argue, equates with a retreat from its civilizing purpose. This essay does two things: first it illustrates and contextualizes the notion of renunciation from philosophical as well as literary and cultural perspectives: second it discusses a set of authors who have experienced the category of renunciation in different ways and with different outcomes. I refer to Maurice Blanchot, Frances Ponge and Edouard Glissant.