ABSTRACT
Up until a certain point, Mallarme's work can be approached in terms of aesthetics. His desire in writing Herodiade is to write a work which is beautiful in an absolute sense. But, in achieving the Absolute in a perfectly reflexive work (the Sonnet), there is a radical disruption, and the work's concern is no longer 'aesthetic'. This chapter begins with the quotation from L'Espace litteraire that sketches this movement or turn. It deals exclusively with Blanchot's reading of Mallarme, where one can find the disruption discussed in terms of a turn from the calm of the first night towards the 'other night' (suggesting an ambiguity in the sunset, the passage into the night). The chapter aims to draw on the arguments made up to this point as the author looks at Blanchot's readings of Mallarme so as to precisely situate Mallarme in Blanchot's criticism at the site of passage to the 'literary'.
