Publication Details

Abstract

This article proposes a reflection on the status of art, and particularly literature, in the work of Emmanuel Levinas. In the French phenomenologist’s thought, literature occupies an ambivalent position: he frequently engages with it in his philosophical discourse, yet when confronting it directly, he excludes it from the ethical realm. In this study, I seek to highlight a series of arguments that can be advanced from a Levinasian perspective in favor of an ethical literature. I do so first by contrasting Levinas’s thought with Hannah Arendt’s reflections on narration. Then, I analyze a text that appears particularly suited to a Levinasian reading: Atonement, by Ian McEwan. Finally, I show how art can serve the ethical purposes Levinas envisioned: the de-automatization of the conatus, that is, the human being concerned solely with the preservation of its own life.