Fugue on a theme by Hélène Cixous

Book section : Chapter

This is the chapter that I do not write. It is threatening to get away from me. It has been a struggle, a savage battle of my wills, between the chapter and me it’s war. I approached it with slow steps, closing in on it while trying to keep it from running away, with a slowness that allows one to sneak up on prey. But perhaps it is the chapter that has chased me down (and not Peggy, who is far too gracious to chase). For how could I ever have imagined I could hunt and pin down as elusive a concept as flight? A concept, if it be such a thing, that revolves around the very escape from the jailhouse of conceptuality. I couldn’t give Peggy “Cixous in Flight” as promised. That’s the chapter that I don’t write—CTIDW. I couldn’t find her there, Hélène that is. I couldn’t find her in flight. She had already flown the coop. And there was no speed, no Concorde, that could overtake her or catch up to her secret. She/it was away....

Authors: Waltham-Smith, N

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Bloomsbury
• Host title: Understanding Cixous, Understanding Modernism
• Pages: 136-145
• Chapter number: 12
• Series: Understanding Philosophy, Understanding Modernism
• Place of publication: New York
• Publication date: 2025-12-17
• Edition: 1
• DOI: 10.5040/9798765132050.0019
• ISSN: 2637-9031
• EISBN: 9798765132029
• ISBN: 9798765132036
• Language: English
• Subtype: Chapter