Death by representation

in law, in literature, and in that space between

Maria Aristodemou

pp. 101-120

in: Carlo Salzani, Kristóf Vanhoutte (eds), Saramago's philosophical heritage, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2018

Abstract

The chapter reads José Saramago's All the Names and Death at Intervals and suggests that although the symbolic order fetishizes the dead letter, works of art can resurrect inert signifiers and turn them into living, breathing, and growing bodies. The argument is that what allows Saramago's texts to persist beyond the death wreaked by representation are two miracles that take place in the interstices of signification: first the miracle of love and second the miracle of poetry and in particular of metaphor. These miracles, I argue, form the backbone of Saramago's texts, suggesting that the loss, or death, inflicted by the signifier can be rejoined, pasted, or united in a space between the symbolic and the Real, between law and literature.