Izvorni znanstveni članak
https://doi.org/10.15291/SIC/2.5.LC.3
“Better a disaster of fidelity to the Event”: Event and Failure in André Breton’s Nadja
Camelia Raghinaru
; Concordia University
Sažetak
This essay starts from the premise that André Breton’s First Manifesto of Surrealism constitutes the ‘event’ of that movement (i.e., ‘event’ as defined in Alain Badiou’s Ethics), an event subsequently betrayed by its subject, André Breton, in his encounter with Nadja. Situated between rupture and repetition, the opportunity of the event returns in the Second Manifesto of Surrealism. Taking as its target Breton’s novel Nadja, the essay addresses the issue of event as repetition and explores the ramifications of the ‘failure’ to ‘imagine’ one’s continued fidelity to the event. Consequently, this article reads Nadja as a ‘failure’: the failure posed by representation itself, but also the failure of representation to completely annihilate the promise of a “beyond” encrypted in the project of surrealist imagination. Thus, I would like to play off the idea of failure in two complementary ways. First, I look at the ‘failure’ that is more significant than any achievement. Second, I address the failures at particular missed moments in history, expressed as a series of ‘returns’ in Nadja. Finally, the point of tension between the two types of failures in Nadja elicits a reading of Breton as a reactive, rather than an immortal Subject.
Ključne riječi
modernism; repetition; surrealist manifesto; event; fidelity; failure; Alain Badiou
Hrčak ID:
140984
URI
Datum izdavanja:
15.6.2015.
Posjeta: 1.071 *