Lewis Carroll and the Talmud

Abstract

IN ORDER TO QUESTION THE RELATIONSHIP between literature and knowledge, I propose to introduce a third term, which will make the connection: madness. I will not tackle the problem of knowing how or to what extent literature reflects or brings into play established knowledgeat least I will not deal with this question directly. I propose a more crooked path, which has the advantage of rendering the notion of more complex. My hypothesis is that when/ because/ inasmuch as literature is mad, then it integrates and produces knowledge. Two of these three terms therefore need to be defined more accurately. Literature tinged with would include, for example, the work of those whom Michel Pierssens calls logophiles-placing madness inside quotation marks if you will, but without thereby depriving the logophiles of their by reducing it to a misunderstanding, making them into popular versions of the accursed poet. The knowledge put into play thus becomes two-fold-it is the (revelation, method) of which the logophile believes/ knows himself to be the vehicle. But it is also the knowledge that emerges from his text and continues to beckon to us, that knowledge which perhaps enables Brisset to outlive Jules Romains who mocks him-a knowledge that the logophile is unaware of knowing, or knows so very well that he knows he produces it in passing, almost unconsciously. In introducing a little-known logophile, Abraham Ettelson, I will try to show that an obviously mad practice, based on an equally mad intuition, because it relies on traditional knowledge, produces knowledge-i.e. impressions of truth or of revelation. For example, after reading Roussel or Wolfson, one sees certain things differently, and perhaps in a better light. Thus, because Brisset's joyfully mad intuition is based on the traditional knowledge of grammarians (analysis and synthesis of words and phrases), but is knowledge that is pushed to the extreme, to a state of delirium, it produces impressions of truth-i.e. a knowledge about language, which brings out, like a Gestalt image when one changes point of view, what