Overview

Henri Bergson was awarded The Nobel Prize for Literature in 1927. However, literary writers do not consider him - and in fact never cite him - as one of their own. Bruno Clement reads Henri Bergson as a writer whose thought is inseparable from a tireless reflection on the question of his written expression. Clement adds new insights into Bergson's philosophical achievements through an analysis of the literary techniques he develops to express his theoretical insights. This close analysis of rhetorical technique analyses the effect on Bergson's philosophical texts. Reading all of Bergson's philosophical texts with the tools of literature, to systematically consider the theoretical consequences, he reveals that Bergson was not only a philosopher but a highly skilled and innovative writer.

Full Product Details

Author:   Bruno Clément (Emeritus Professor of Literature, Paris 8 University Vincennes-Saint-Denis) ,  Anthony Uhlmann (Distinguished Professor, University of Western Sydney)
Publisher:   Edinburgh University Press
Imprint:   Edinburgh University Press
ISBN:  

9781399540452

ISBN 10:   1399540459
Pages:   248
Publication Date:   30 June 2026
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Forthcoming
Availability:   Not yet available  
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Table of Contents

Translator’s Introduction List of Abbreviations 1. ’In other words…’ An Author’s Preface How to Write The Distinction of a Poet Penetrating the Veil of Words Thought and Language Commentary on Bergson Philosophy and Literature The Form of Discourse In Praise of Approximation Of the Proper, Of the Image; Of the Figurative, Of the Concept Forget Words Three Figures Zigzag Giving Voice To Fabulate Thinking Through the Imagination The Words of Philosophy, the Words of Life Language and Reason On Metaphor Language and Continuity Infinite Correction Intuition, Image, Concept Bergson’s Languages Language and Music Care of the Symbol Bilingual Bergson Reading Bergson 2. ’… in the same direction as art’ Art and Thought The Measurable and the Unpredictable Art and Science Art is an Anti-Concept A Question of Vision Art and Philosophy The Singular, the Universal The Life and The Work The Philosopher and his Model To Philosophize as an Artist Art, Empathy; Metaphysics, Sympathy Photography and Translation On Literary Composition ‘We artists…’ The Essence of Art Bergson Translator Bergson Musician 3. ’An Effective Fiction’ On the Imagination in Philosophy The Imagination from a Semantic Point of View... The Temptation of Fancy The Imagination, from an Anthropological Point of View Fancy and Will Generalized Invention Circumstance is a Lure Fiction is a Counter-Power Evolution is a Fable Bergson’s Ghost Philosophy London, just after Bologna The ‘Ghosts which Surround Us’ and the ‘Phantasms of the Living’ ‘The Little Girl and the Learned Doctor’, Fable The Creatures of Dream ‘... a dream I indulge in at times...’ ‘... perhaps even death’ Literature and Philosophy mixed The Mediating Figure [image] in the Carpet Henri, Henry and William Philosophy and Philosophy Philosophy and Literature Literature and Literature Critique of the Imagination, Critique of Bergson 4. '… to transfer thought, still living, into the soul of another' Coincidences Teaching In Praise of the Hand Jeanne Teaching literature To Hell with Meaning, to Hell with Doctrine ‘The Spirt of Form’ To Teach Philosophy is to Philosophize To Philosophize is to Teach the History of Philosophy Time and Narrative Bergson, Among Many Others For a Written Philosophy, Despite Everything (Plato) The Textual Aporias of Pure Reason (Kant) ‘Words, words, words…’ Thought is Circumstantial... ... figural… ... and textual Works Cited

Reviews

Focusing on Bergson’s concept of expression, Clément dispels the idea that he was a littérateur whose belletristics compensated for defects in philosophy. This extraordinarily lucid and innovative book restores the genius of Bergson seen as a poietic inventor not only of his discourse but also of his language. -- Jean-Michel Rabaté, University of Pennsylvania, American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Author Information

Bruno Clément is Emeritus Professor of Literature, Paris 8 University Vincennes-Saint-Denis and is former President of the International College of Philosophy (2004-2007). He is a well-known literary critic and theorist who studies the links between literature and philosophy. He has contributed to Journal of Beckett Studies and The Edinburgh Companion to Virginia Woolf. He is the author of many books in French including L’Œuvre sans qualités, rhétorique de Samuel Beckett, préface de Michel Deguy (""Logique de la figure""), 442 p., Paris, Seuil, 1994 (traduction en espagnol en cours); Le Lecteur et son modèle, coll. ""Écriture"", 272 p., P.U.F., 1999; La Tragédie classique, Seuil, ""Mémo"" 100 p., 1999 [ce livre a été traduit en roumain (2000) et en coréen (2002)]; L’Invention du commentaire, Augustin, Jacques Derrida, 175 p., P.U.F., 2000; Le Récit de la méthode, Seuil (collection Poétique »), 2005; La Voix verticale – essai sur la prosopopée, Belin (« L’extrême contemporain »); Henri Bergson, Prix nobel de littérature, Lagrasse, Verdier, 2021. Anthony Uhlmann is Distinguished Professor in the School of Humanities and Communication Arts, Western Sydney University, Australia. He is the author of Beckett and Poststructuralism (Cambridge University Press, 1999), Samuel Beckett and the Philosophical Image (Cambridge University Press, 2006), Thinking in Literature: Joyce, Woolf, Nabokov (Bloomsbury, 2011), J. M. Coetzee, Truth, Meaning, Fiction (Bloomsbury, 2020). He was the Managing Editor of the Journal of Beckett Studies (Edinburgh University Press). He has translated a number of essays from French into English, including, The Exhausted by Gilles Deleuze.

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