Lateness and lessness
Lateness and lessness
The work of Don DeLillo and Philip Roth has been characterized as a turn to writing novels about lateness in a style that for both authors tends toward “less and less.” Their work manifests a relationship between lateness and style that departs both from canonical accounts of late style and from Theodor W. Adorno’s and Edward Said’s theories of late style as ironic anachronism. By conveying in prose style the relative decline and the contingent reduction that for Roth and DeLillo define lateness as a temporality, their novels find in lessness a motivated style for lateness. Furthermore, by reproducing in style the features of a particular historical temporality, their work suggests a method for reading the historicity of temporality through literary style.
Don delillo, Late style, Lateness, Philip roth, The contemporary
219–241
Brazil, Kevin
36fb33dd-0bba-43b7-a885-775ed8acfcda
1 June 2020
Brazil, Kevin
36fb33dd-0bba-43b7-a885-775ed8acfcda
Abstract
The work of Don DeLillo and Philip Roth has been characterized as a turn to writing novels about lateness in a style that for both authors tends toward “less and less.” Their work manifests a relationship between lateness and style that departs both from canonical accounts of late style and from Theodor W. Adorno’s and Edward Said’s theories of late style as ironic anachronism. By conveying in prose style the relative decline and the contingent reduction that for Roth and DeLillo define lateness as a temporality, their novels find in lessness a motivated style for lateness. Furthermore, by reproducing in style the features of a particular historical temporality, their work suggests a method for reading the historicity of temporality through literary style.
Text
MLQ Lateness & Lessness Accepted
- Accepted Manuscript
More information
Accepted/In Press date: 17 August 2019
e-pub ahead of print date: 1 June 2020
Published date: 1 June 2020
Keywords:
Don delillo, Late style, Lateness, Philip roth, The contemporary
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 434769
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/434769
ISSN: 0026-7929
PURE UUID: 971a094c-07da-4bf7-9a32-541bb6b3bb8d
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Date deposited: 09 Oct 2019 16:30
Last modified: 16 Mar 2024 08:16
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