Reading as a Positive Reaction to the Other : Levinas and Literature

Reading as a Positive Reaction to the Other : Levinas and Literature

In this theoretical paper, I first claim that the fact of Levinas's consideration of human as the real Other should not discourage anyone who wishes to use Levinasian ethics for literary reading. I begin by shedding light on the process of the oscillation, or the alternation, between the "saying" and the "said" in view of literary criticism. Throughout this discussion, by focusing on the trans-phenomenality of the text through which the reader faces the other (l'Autre), or the Other of humanity itself, I argue that reading is the process of becoming positive to the Other. In the first place, the saying is the process by which the self answers the Other's request to take its responsibility for the Other. As it is confronted by the face of the Other, the saying in its passivity exposes its corporeality to the Other. The saying is the purely ethical language, and it ultimately leads the reader to confront the Other and react to the Other. The subjection of saying is possible because the self has extreme passivity, by which it destroys its own structure. As Levinas's nuanced explaination goes, both the saying and the said, become reduced towards each other not in an phenomenally, or ontologically, synthesizing way. The saying is the pure language that leads the reader reading what is said to the infinity of the Other, to the meaning of the meaning of the language of being, that is "otherwise than being," or the face of the Other. The saying and the ontological said hold each other in check for the purpose of escaping the boundary of presence and glimpsing infinity. I also attempt to illuminate the saying by turning to Walter Benjamin's notion of pure language. After all, what distinguishes Levinas from all other philosophers is that Levinas, in laying out the idea of the saying, ultimately draws our attention to the realm beyond the ontological level, the dimension where the subject finds the infinity of the other.