Ineffability: Naming the Unnamable from Dante to Beckett

The essays in this volume explore the persistent struggle of language to overcome its own limitations. Given their scope--from Dantes confrontation with the divine All to Samuel Becketts obsessive need to speak in the face of Nothing--they expand our notion of the extent to which all speech is an assault on silence an attempt to articulate what lies beyond the grasp of words. The collection offers the reader in roughly chronological order diverse conceptions of the ineffable as either superfluity or absence of reality. It also exposes language in the act of extending its own boundaries drawing attention to those literary tactics by which speech attempts to suggest what cannot be said. While largely a study of poetry from medieval to modern the volume also touches upon drama and a variety of prose combining close textual readings with broader thematic discussions. Peter S. Hawkins is Professor of Religion and Literature at Yale Divinity School. His work has centered on Dante but he has also written widely on the history of biblical reception and on contemporary fiction. He is the author of numerous books including Dantes Testaments: Essays on Scriptural Imagination Dante: A Brief History and Undiscovered Country: Imagining the World to Come.