Dialogue with the Dead: Sebald,Creatureliness, and the Philosophy of Mere Life

The idea of a “dialogue with the dead” strikes us by turns as both impossible and intriguing. Yet, what can be really meant by it is far from clear. This essay attempts to explore this idea in the work of novelist W. G. Sebald. It examines the scope and the meaning of such an interchange in his works and connects this theme to his wider explorations of “creaturely life.” It also links this particular dimension of Sebald's notion of “creaturely” or “bare” life with some of the other major treatments of the same theme in recent literature and philosophy.