The Logic of the Process of Immanent Desire in Gilles Deleuze's Philosophy of Literature: A Study of Consequences

The French poststructuralist philosopher Gilles Deleuze, who based his philosophy on an ontology of Immanent desire, also wrote separate books and monographs on arts, and especially on literature. These two orientations, which have developed simultaneously throughout his philosophical life, raise the question of the relation between the new understanding of desire and the function and purpose of literature in Deleuze's philosophy. Criticising the Oedipal process of the unconscious in the tradition of Freudian-Lacanian psychoanalysis, Deleuze does not see the construction of desire as merely a process of filling a Lacanian gap. In his view, desire is the creator of something new, positive, and narrative. In Deleuze's opinion, literature presupposes fidelity to Events and Puissance, which create a new relation with the state of affairs. By conceptualising the Line of Flight, Deleuze considers the schizophrenic vocation and function of Literary Machines to be the creation of Pure Affects and Singularities, the visualisation of invisible forces in any situation, and taking life to a state of Impersonal Puissance. This article discusses how Deleuze's new understanding of desire as Desiring-Machines can be central to his philosophy of literature, and what the positive consequences would be; in other words, it argues how Desire, as a condition for the possibility of literature, can open a new Transcendental foundation.