ABSTRACT
It is hardly surprising that, for an author so concerned with the function of language, literature is a vital element of Agamben’s work. In fact it is difficult to think of a work by Agamben that does not, at some (usually decisive) point, turn to literary examples to help explicate a certain theoretical concern. Yet that is not to suggest that he simply draws creative works into his own texts in some attempt to allow him to ‘speak’ through them, and vice versa. Agamben has written extensively on Italian poetry, and on the relationship between poetry and prose, with Categorie italiane: Studi di poetica (1996) providing important readings of a number of Italian poets, most notably Dante (it was published in English under the more literaryneutral, and marketable, title The End of the Poem: Studies in Poetics). This chapter will divide Agamben’s work on literature into four sections:
1 The relation between poetry, philosophy and criticism 2 Figuring literature – Franz Kafka 3 The split between poetry and prose 4 Towards a poetics.
