Relays

This book examines how one aspect of the social and technological situation of literature - namely, the postal system - determined how literature was produced and what was produced within literature. Language itself has the structure of a relay, where what is transmitted depends on a prior withholding. The social arrangements and technologies for achieving this transmission thus have had a particularly powerful impact on the imagination of literature.

First sentence: After he had spent a lifetime writing letters and piling up grievance upon grievance, the moment came when the words ceased lamenting in order to become "generally instructive" remarks-when the love letters stopped in order to make room for a theory of the postal system.

Year

1999

Language

English

Publisher

Stanford University Press

Editions

2

Pages

340

ISBN

9780804732383

Data source: Wikidata