Conclusion

contemporary engagements with clarity and confusion

Amy E. Varela

pp. 219-245

in: Geoffrey A. Baker, The aesthetics of clarity and confusion, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2016

Abstract

This conclusion illustrates the extent to which the division between, debate over, and promiscuous mixture of clarity and confusion continue to structure contemporary discussions of literary activism. It attends in particular to three authors whose œuvre has either turned belatedly to designs of engagement and political topicality (Peter Handke) or always been immersed in such questions in various ways (Toni Morrison, J.M. Coetzee). In both their theoretical and literary writings, these authors recall, interrogate, and push past the models of literary activism articulated by Zola and Nietzsche. A small body of essays, novels, and plays by these three contemporary figures show continuities—with key differences—of the debates inaugurated by the conflicting aesthetics of naturalism and Nietzsche in the late nineteenth century.