This new collection of challenging literary studies plays with a foundational definition of Western culture: the word become flesh. But the word become flesh is not, or is no longer, a theological already-given. It is a millennial goal or telos toward which each text strives. Translator's Note
ix
The Excursions of the Word
I. The Politics of the Poem
1. From Wordsworth to Mandelstam: The Transports of Liberty
9(32)
2. Rimbaud: Voices and Bodies
41(30)
II. Theologies of the Novel
1. The Body of the Letter: Bible, Epic, Novel
71(23)
2. Balzac and the Island of the Book
94(19)
3. Proust: War, Truth, Book
113(16)
III. The Literature of the Philosophers
1. Althusser, Don Quixote, and the Stage of the Text
129(17)
2. Deleuze, Bartleby, and the Literary Formula
146(19)
Sources
165(1)
Notes
166
