Jabès Edmond - Edmond Jabès: the hazard of exile

EDMOND JABES
THE HAZARD OF EXILE

UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD

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Fiat-Serena Professor of Italian Studies

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Professor Malcolm Bowie, Christ's College, Cambridge

Professor Ian Maclean, All Souls College (French)
Professor Marian Hobson Jeanneret, Queen Mary University of London (French)
Professor Ritchie Robertson, St John's College (German)
Professor Lesley Sharpe, University of Exeter (German)
Dr Diego Zancani, Balliol College (Italian)
Professor David Robey, University of Reading (Italian)
Dr Stephen Parkinson, Linacre College (Portuguese)
Professor Helder Macedo, King's College London (Portuguese)
Professor Gerald Smith, New College (Russian)
Professor David Shepherd, University of Sheffield (Russian)
Dr David Pattison, Magdalen College (Spanish)
Professor Alison Sinclair, Clare College, Cambridge (Spanish)
Professor Martin Maiden, Trinity College (Linguistics)
Professor Peter Matthews, St John's College, Cambridge (Linguistics)
Dr Elinor Shaffer, School of Advanced Study, London
(Comparative Literature)
Professor Colin Davis, University of Warwick
(Modern Literature, Film and Theory)

Senior Publications Officer
Kareni Bannister

Publications Officer
Dr Graham Nelson

LEGENDA

EUROPEAN HUMANITIES RESEARCH CENTRE
University of Oxford

Edmond Jabs in his Paris apartment, 1973 Photo: Edith Herrenschmidt (Archives Edmond Jabs)

Edmond Jabs

The Hazard of Exile

Steven Jaron

First published 2003

Published by the
European Humanities Research Centre
of the University of Oxford
47 Wellington Square
Oxford OX1 2JF

LEGENDA is the publications imprint of the European Humanities Research Centre

Published 2017 by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

European Humanities Research Centre of the University of Oxford 2003

ISBN 13: 978-1-900755-71-9 (pbk)

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or disseminated or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, or stored in any retrieval system, or otherwise used in any manner whatsoever without the express permission of the copyright owner

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

LEGENDA series designed by Cox Design Partnership, Witney, Oxon

Chief Copy-Editor: Genevieve Hawkins

IN MEMORY OF MY GRANDFATHERS

Marque d'un signet rouge la premire page du livre, car la blessure est invisible son commencement.

Reb Alc in Le Livre des Questions (1963)

La langue a, pour lieu, la langue.
L'exil de la langue est la condition de l'exil.

Un Etranger avec, sous le bras, un livre de petit format (1989)

Contents

Guide

Footnotes have been kept to the necessary minimum by the use of abbreviations, followed by page number, for works frequently cited. I have nevertheless allowed myself a handful of digressions in order to clarify or develop a point. In the first instance full citation details are given in footnotes for periodicals and other references, while the short title is subsequently used (e.g. Marelles sur le parvis for Marelles sur le parvis: essais de critique potique ). Italics in quotations from Jabs's writings are his own, unless otherwise indicated.

• Alo Edmond Jabs, Avec l'ombre
• A Maurice Blanchot, L'Amiti
• Ap Edmond Jabs, Arrhes potiques
• Au L'Alliance universelle
• Be La Bourse gyptienne
• Dl Edmond Jabs, Du dsert au livre: entretiens avec Marcel Cohen, suivi de L'Etranger (2nd edn.)
• Ed Jacques Derrida, L'Ecriture et la diffrence
• Ei Maurice Blanchot, L'Entretien infini
• Et Edmond Jabs, Un Etranger avec, sous le bras, un livre de petit format
• FEJ Fonds Edmond Jabs, Dpartement des Manuscrits, Bibliothque nationale de France
• I Isral
• Is Edmond Jabs, Illusions sentimentales
• Jbmd Edmond Jabs, Je btis ma demeure, pomes 19431957 (2nd edn.)
• Jta Edmond Jabs, Je t'attends!
• LEJ Max Jacob, Lettres Edmond Jabs (2nd edn.)
• LH Edmond Jabs, Le Livre de l'Hospitalit
• LM Edmond Jabs, Le Livre des Marges
• LQ I Edmond Jabs, Le Livre des Questions I ( Le Livre des Questions, Le Livre de Yukel, Le Retour au Livre )
• LQ II Edmond Jabs, Le Livre des Questions II ( Yal, Elya, Aely,. (El ou le dernier livre))
• LR Edmond Jabs, Le Livre des Ressemblances ( Le Livre des Ressemblances, Le Soupon Le Dsert, L'ineffaabie L'Inaper(u)
• NRF Nouvelle Revue franaise
• 'Op' Edmond Jabs, 'L'Obscurit potable'
• Pa Edmond Jabs, Les Pieds en l'air
• P Le Progrs gyptien
• S La Semaine gyptienne

My task was greatly aided by the support I received in the initial stages of my project. Fellowships from Columbia University, French Cultural Services in New York and the American Research Center in Egypt provided funding for me to carry out my research. Antoine Compagnon, Henri Mitterand and Mark Anderson of Columbia University read an early, considerably longer version of this work, and its present shape owes much to their criticism. I was also able to read sections of it to seminars at Royal Holloway, in Montreal, Jerusalem, Recanati and Cerisy-la-Salle, and I am grateful to the organizers for their invitations. Gabriel Josipovici of the University of Sussex stands out for his support and Robert Horn for his friendship. The incisive comments of Ritchie Robertson of the University of Oxford and two anonymous readers were particularly helpful in improving my manuscript. Their authors deserve my thanks. The remaining errors, it goes without saying, are my own doing.