Silence and Subject in Modern Literature

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-ix

   PDF

2. Introduction: Cordelia’s Silence, or Spoken Violence

   • Ulf Olsson

   Pages 1-34

3. The Exemplary Becomes Problematic, or Gendered Silence: Austen’s Mansfield Park

   • Ulf Olsson

   Pages 35-57

4. The Secrets of Silence: Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, Musil’s ‘Tonka’

   • Ulf Olsson

   Pages 58-81

5. Refusal, or The Mute Provocateurs: Melville’s Bartleby Meets Gombrowicz’s Ivona

   • Ulf Olsson

   Pages 82-102

6. The Other of Monologue: Strindberg, Camus, Beckett

   • Ulf Olsson

   Pages 103-124

7. Interrogation, or Forced to Silence: Rankin, Harris, Pinter, Duras

   • Ulf Olsson

   Pages 125-148

8. Literature as Coerced Speech: Handke’s Kaspar

   • Ulf Olsson

   Pages 149-162

9. Epilogue: The Silence of the Sirens

   • Ulf Olsson

   Pages 163-174

10. Back Matter

    Pages 175-215

    PDF

Why does interrogation silence its object and not make it speak? Silence vs speech is a central issue in classical and modern literary works. This book studies literary representations of the power relations in which we are forced to speak using a range of texts ranging from the modern crime novel, via classics, to avant-garde plays.

• Beckett
• English literature
• Harold Pinter
• Jane Austen
• novel
• British and Irish Literature

Ulf Olsson is Professor of Comparative Literature, teaches at Stockholm University, Sweden and has also taught at University of California, Berkeley, USA and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA. He has published books on Strindberg, and on contemporary Swedish literature, as well as on improvised music. Olsson also works as a literary critic.

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