Nothing to be Said: On the Inexpressible in Modern Literature and Philosophy

One of the most significant ways in which much late-nineteenth- and early twentieth-century literature and philosophy may be distinguished from their predecessors is in their reliance upon the notion of ‘inexpressibility’ and the limits of the sayable. In this article, I seek not only to chart the history of this tradition, but also to reflect critically upon the use it makes of the concept of ‘the nothing’. For all their differences, in both Wittgenstein and Heidegger one encounters deployments of this concept in ways that determine these thinkers’ conceptions of language and literature. My aim here is to initiate a new critical reflection upon the fate of the concept of ‘the nothing’ in modern philosophy and literary theory.