This study provides a philosophical overview of select classics of Renaissance to contemporary literature to show how the notion of figural space is crucial to assessing the ethical and political aspects of literary study.

William D. Melaney is Professor in the Department of English and Comparative Literature at the American University in Cairo. His research is interdisciplinary and embraces philosophy, literary studies, aesthetics and social thought. He has previously published numerous articles and three books on Continental philosophy and the problem of cultural modernity.

Introduction: An Opening of Figural Space
1. Kristeva and Hegel:
Subjectivity Reconfigured
2. Spenser's Renaissance:
Ideality and Discourse
3. Image in Wordsworth:
Space/Time and Semiotics
4. Shelley's Double Vision:
Figural Counter-Worlds
5. Proust and Aesthetics:
A Narrative Sensibility
6. Space in Blanchot:
Orphic Testimonies
7. H.D. and Life Writing:
A Logos of Difference
8. Revisiting Jean Rhys:
Postcolonial Ethics
9. Ishiguro's Imaginary:
Figures of History
Conclusion: Negotiating the Figural
Index