Alain Badiou 
The Age of the Poets 
And Other Writings on Twentieth-Century Poetry and Prose

The Age of the Poets revisits the age-old problem of the relation between literature and philosophy, arguing against both Plato and Heidegger’s famous arguments. Philosophy neither has to ban the poets from the republic nor abdicate its own powers to the sole benefit of poetry or art. Instead, it must declare the end of what Badiou names the ‘age of the poets, ‘ which stretches from H�lderlin to Celan. Drawing on ideas from his first publication on the subject, ‘The Autonomy of the Aesthetic Process, ‘ Badiou offers an illuminating set of readings of contemporary French prose writers, giving us fascinating insights into the theory of the novel while also accounting for the specific position of literature between science and ideology.

About the author

Emily Apter is Professor of Comparative Literature and French at New York University. Her published works include The Translation Zone: A New Comparative Literature and Continental Drift: From National Characters to Subjects.