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The Dialogical Traveler: A Reading Of Semprun's Le Grand Voyage, Sally M. Silk

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

In light of discourse theory influenced by Bakhtin's concept of dialogism, the notion of voice has changed significantly so that we are invited to read discourse in a way that represents a departure from Bakhtin. The theories of François Flahault, Michel Pêchetut, and John Frow, who inquire into the importance of conditions of production of language, are used to explore the vain search for a subject-centered voice in Jorge Semprun's Le Grand voyage. The narrating subject Gerard experiences "homelessness" in discourse because he fails to find a voice of his own. His relationship to music and literature depends on …

Peter Handke's Kaspar: The Mechanics Of Language—A Fractionating Schizophrenic Theatrical Event, Bettina L. Knapp

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

Theatre, for Handke, has neither object nor subject. concepts, values, functional systems of signification, verifiable contents are non existent in Kaspar. Words alone are of import; they alone create reality.

Words, therefore, and not subjective evaluations of them, are acceptable to Handke, Comparisons, associations, metaphors, or references prevent people from dealing directly with the object itself (the signified), inviting them to have recourse to a "system of differences," to use Derrida's expression, thus contrasting or modifying one with the other. Evaluation breeds buffers and hierarchies; it encourages people to rank or compute ideas, notions, or feelings, and therefore …