Overview

As the term omphalos appears rarely, yet periodically, Derrida would mark it as the inaccessible topos that it is. From early uses by Hesiod and Herodotus to describe the Oracle at Delphi in Ancient Greece it has been incorporated into a modern, Hegelian dialectic by Eilade and Kerenyi in the field of comparative religion. What the omphalos was, a particular functionary in the act of producing prophetic poetry, has been left to prehistory, yet this study shows it awaits us. From the poetic, dreamlike narrative within us, which is inseparable from the literary process, the omphalos produces a dialectic that always reveals an unknown, tertiary figure of our consciousness, and produces a breaking point in the cyclical narrative of identity. From Homeric illustrations the reader notes a dialectical gaze which locates a break in Hegel's, where Lawrence situates Whitman, Pan, and America, Joyce with himself, and Derrida with Joyce, Nietzsche, Freud, and Education. This book traces a genealogy where classic and modern uses seem archaic, though undisclosed, while contemporary uses continue to invert the literary process itself to create a future by no longer resisting the omphalos.

Full Product Details

9783845408897

Table of Contents

Reviews

Author Information

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available