At the Borders of Sleep
On Liminal Literature
Exploring the fertile connections between creativity and the edges of sleep
Details
At the Borders of Sleep
On Liminal Literature
ISBN: 9780816679768
Publication date: December 1st, 2012
176 Pages
8 x 5
At the Borders of Sleep is a unique exploration of the connections between literature and the liminal states between waking and sleeping—from falling asleep and waking up, to drowsiness and insomnia, to states in which sleeping and waking mix. Delving into philosophy as well as literature, Peter Schwenger investigates the threshold between waking and sleeping as an important and productive state between the forced march of rational thought and the oblivion of unconsciousness.
While examining literary representations of the various states between waking and sleeping, At the Borders of Sleep also analyzes how writers and readers alike draw on and enter into these states. To do so Schwenger reads a wide range of authors for whom the borders of sleep are crucial, including Marcel Proust, Stephen King, Paul Valéry, Fernando Pessoa, Franz Kafka, Giorgio de Chirico, Virginia Woolf, Philippe Sollers, and Robert Irwin. Considering drowsiness, insomnia, and waking up, he looks at such subjects as the hypnagogic state, the experience of reading and why it is different from full consciousness, the relationships between insomnia and writing and why insomnia is often a source of creative insight, and the persistence of liminal elements in waking thought. A final chapter focuses on literature that blurs dream and waking life, giving special attention to experimental writing.
Ultimately arguing that, taking place on the edges of consciousness, both the reading and writing of literature are liminal experiences, At the Borders of Sleep suggests new ways to think about the nature of literature and consciousness.
Peter Schwenger is resident fellow at the University of Western Ontario’s Centre for the Study of Theory and Criticism. He is the author of several books including The Tears of Things: Melancholy and Physical Objects (Minnesota, 2006).
Contents
Preface
Acknowledgments
1. Toward Sleep
Writing Hypnagogia
The Obbligato Effect
Falling Asleep While Reading
Agatha: or, Sleep
2. Sleepless
Night
The Insomniac Writer
Night Watch
3. Leaving Sleep
Waking Up Awry
Lacan’s Wakeup Call
Interminable Waking
4. Sleepwaking
Disquiet
The Subdrama of Writing
Experiment, Experience
Notes
Bibliography
Index