(Non-)belief in things

affect theory and a new literary materialism

Neil Vallelly

pp. 45-63

in: Stephen Ahern (ed), Affect theory and literary critical practice, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2019

Abstract

This chapter argues that contemporary literary criticism suffers from a reflexive faith in things, conceived broadly as static objects that reflect wider political, social, and cultural practices. Literature is re-imagined here as an open-ended event that demands an immanent materialism in which distinctions between literary objects and human bodies no longer stand up. By reflecting on the ambiguous "thingness' of Shakespeare, Vallelly draws attention to the elusive nature of things in theatrical spaces, and explores how this enigmatic materiality can be applied to literary experience more generally. To do so, he draws on Roberto's Bolaño's 2666, affect theory, and new materialism to construct a new literary materialism, one in which literary meaning is located neither in the human nor in the non-human world, but in the affective correspondence between these worlds. To illustrate this point, the chapter concludes with a discussion of the relationship between characters and stones in Shakespearean drama.

Cited authors

Shakespeare William