Linda Simonis

Comparatio, Volume 11 (2019), Issue 1, Page 1 - 18

Linda Simonis

Comparatio, Volume 11 (2019), Issue 1, Page 41 - 69

Au seizième siècle en France nous rencontrons le retour curieux d’un genre poétique qui avait connu son épanouissement aux temps héroïques de l’antiquité grecque et romaine: l’épopée. Pierre de Ronsard s’entreprend à renouveler avec ce genre pour créer le long poème de ‚La Franciade‘ qui, selon les intentions de l’auteur, devrait devenir son chef-d’oeuvre. Ce projet ne s’épuise pourtant pas dans la tentative humaniste d’imiter les formes de la poésie ancienne. Ronsard évoque de même la dimension fondatrice attribuée à ce genre en tant que récit d’une communauté. Mais ‚La Franciade‘ doit se débrouiller sous des conditions historiques et médio-technologiques modernes. Loin de pouvoir ressusciter la communication immédiate du rhapsode, elle se traduit dans la forme du livre et entre en dialogue avec les arts plastiques. In 16th century France we encounter the curious return of a poetic genre that had known its peak of glory in the heroic times of Greek and Roman antiquity: the epic. Pierre de Ronsard undertakes a renewal of this genre by creating the ‚Franciade‘, a long poem which according to its author’s intentions should become his ‚chef-d’oeuvre‘. This project, however, does not restrict itself to the humanist attempt to imitate the forms of classical poetry. Ronsard also evokes the potential of foundation attributed to the epic as tale of a community. But the ‚Franciade‘ must make its way under the historical and technological conditions of early modern times. Far from being able to reanimate the immediate communication of the rhapsode, Ronsard’s epic takes shape in the form of the book and enters into dialogue with the visual arts.

Linda Simonis

Comparatio, Volume 10 (2018), Issue 2, Page 357 - 359

Linda Simonis

Comparatio, Volume 10 (2018), Issue 2, Page 197 - 215

Im Unterschied zu herkömmlichen Ansätzen, die das Globale in terrestrischer Gestalt, als ‚Erde‘, denken, versucht der Aufsatz, das Meer, den Ozean, als Figur und Medium von Globalisierung zu begreifen. Vor der Folie der klassischen Studie Carl Schmitts erkundet er die Implikationen jener Figur anhand von zwei Gedichten Cendrars’ und Apollinaires. Im Zeichen des Meeres entfaltet sich eine Auffassung von Welt, die gleichermaßen als Bewegung der Öffnung und Erweiterung des Horizonts wie als Begrenzung, als Perspektive einer radikalen Immanenz, erfahrbar wird. In contrast to prevailing approaches to globalization which imagine the world in a terrestrial shape, as “earth”, the present article attempts to conceive the sea, the ocean, as a figure and medium of globalization. Drawing on Carl Schmitt’s seminal study, we explore the implications of this concept in a close reading of two poems by Cendrars and Apollinaire. From the viewpoint of the ocean, we encounter a world which gives rise to both a movement of opening and widening of horizons and an experience of limitation, of being restricted to a strictly immanent perspective.

Michel Espagne, Linda Simonis, Joachim Harst, Marika Andryanczyk, Michael Dallapiazza, Andrea Gremels

Comparatio, Volume 8 (2016), Issue 2, Page 343 - 360

Linda Simonis

Comparatio, Volume 7 (2015), Issue 1, Page 161 - 164

Linda Simonis

Comparatio, Volume 7 (2015), Issue 1, Page 75 - 97

The project of investigating the subject’s inner space as put forth in twentieth century French literature and philosophy takes on a shape which resembles an extreme form of mysticism. For Maurice Blanchot, Georges Bataille and Henri Michaux, this enquiry leads to an encounter with an existential situation which, radically different from all usual experience, presents a challenge to philosophical reflection. Therefore, to describe the mental state of exception at stake here, these writers resort to the registers of poetic language, of painting and of cinematography. Thus, by exploring an exceptional state of mind, be it a drug-induced or spiritual ecstasy, they seek to sound the depth of the involuntary operations and the hallucinatory images of the subject’s inner space.

Linda Simonis

Comparatio, Volume 6 (2014), Issue 1, Page 29 - 46

The present article inquires into the status of the apocryphal text as well as into its relations with the imaginaire social as described by Cornelius Castoriadis in his seminal study The imaginary institution of society. What distinguishes the apocryphal text is its ambivalent relation to the great tradition. By drawing on the figure of amplification, it pretends to complement the semantic horizon of the given tradition, while at the same time it goes beyond it. The marginal text thus becomes the vehicle of an imaginaire apocryphe which is characterised by a particular ambivalence: Always in danger of being marginalized or forgotten, the apocryphal text can yet be subject to an astonishing reappearance in the domain of the literary canon, a re-entry into the imaginaire institué of society.