Speaking Silences: Stillness and Voice in Modern Thought and Jewish Tradition

Language and silence have usually been understood as opposites and assigned different values, but which one is positive and which negative? Ranging widely across time and languages, Andrew Vogel Ettin explores the ways in which various biblical and traditional works as well as modern and contemporary texts- Jewish and non-Jewish, religious and literary- treat the nature of silence and speech and the tension between them. He situates this tension at the heart of the creative process and argues that language and silence need each other and contribute to the power and meaning of one another.

Speaking Silence is a broadly interdisciplinary work that will appeal to scholars and readers interested in modern and contemporary literature, Jewish studies, religion and literature, and aesthetics.

Andrew Vogel Ettin is Professor of English at Wake Forest University. He is the author of Betrayals of the Body Politic: The Literary Commitments of Nadine Gordimer and Literature and the Pastoral.