Philology, Literature, Style

"Philology, Literature, Style" considers two different understandings of philology: (1) a classical account that sees philology as establishing the texts it interprets and providing an understanding of a literature and a language simultaneously; and (2) a more recent account that treats texts that have been written and preserved in the full light of modern day. I rely on Jacques Rancière's discussion of the rise of literature to argue that the criticism in modernity has treated literature like a fossil, made it the very essence of literature to be silent, and made it the responsibility of the critic to preserve this silence.