910 - STAROBINSKI, Jean (1920–2019), Swiss historian of ideas, literary theorist, and psychiatrist. Set of 3 signed autograph letters addressed to the writer and literary theorist Max BILEN. June 27, 1988; January 6, 1969; and undated. 5 pp. in-4 (1) and in-8 (2). An illustrated printed letterhead from the University of Geneva. One letter has significant tears.

STAROBINSKI, Jean (1920–2019), Swiss historian of ideas, literary theorist, and psychiatrist. Set of 3 signed autograph letters addressed to the writer and literary theorist Max BILEN. June 27, 1988; January 6, 1969; and undated. 5 pp. in-4 (1) and in-8 (2). An illustrated printed letterhead from the University of Geneva. One letter has significant tears. - Starobinski, literary theorist: “I read your observations on Bataille and Blanchot with the greatest interest. Your analysis strikes me as rigorous, subtle, and faithful to the spirit of the authors you are studying. At the end, you highlight a trajectory and dominant themes. What is valuable about your analysis is that it is ‘isomorphic’ to the writer’s (and the critic’s) journey. I can only encourage you to develop what you have presented to me in a dense and focused manner [...].” In the case of Bataille and Blanchot, he argues that they share the same atheistic line of thought, saturated with theological memories drawn from the gospels “of the death of the old man.” [January 6, 1969]. Max Bilen provided exegesis, among other things, on the works of Blanchot and Bataille. -Starobinski thanks Bilen for sending “very fine analyses of authors, and at the same time a theory of literature.” He mentions Bilen’s upcoming symposium on Paul Valéry and looks forward to visiting Israel for the first time. -Starobinski invites his correspondent to join him in the small Swiss village of Sils-Maria in August 1988. [June 27, 1988]. Enclosed is a copy of a typewritten letter from Starobinski addressed to Bilen. He thanks him for sending his study on Kafka, particularly regarding “experienced guilt,” and mentions Marthe Robert.