Of force and the future - Hélène Cixous's poematic 'might'

Dawson, Mark (2011) Of force and the future - Hélène Cixous's poematic 'might'. Oxford Literary Review, 33 (2). pp. 151-165. ISSN 0305-1498

Abstract

This essay reads Hélène Cixous's Le jour où je n'étais pas là as both an experience of, and experiment in, the writing of a certain poematic 'might'. Following Jacques Derrida's reading of Cixous's work in H. C. pour la vie, c'est à dire . . ., it suggests that such a 'might' allows us to hear and understand what nevertheless remains to be heard and understood. It argues, then, that at both a performative and narrative level, reading Cixous's text allows us to listen to the sound of what remains to-come.