Philosophy and Literature: Brian Friel’s Three Language Plays

Abstract

Language is an essential aspect of human experience, both in the constitution of an individual and of a nation. It is a medium of reflection and creation, and as such has been subjected to many inquiries by Philosophy and Literature into the nature of (re)presentation language is able to cast: some philosophical works may produce texts of a literary quality, and vice-versa. Brian Friel’s oeuvre is an example of a literary work that has a philosophical quality, especially in plays that focus on language and its enclosures and disclosures. It is this project’s goal to analyze the linguistic debate within three plays by Friel, namely Volunteers (1975), Translations (1980), and The Communication Chord (1982) according to the works on language by philosophers Ludwig Wittgenstein, Martin Heidegger and Paul Ricoeur. This article outlines the framework of this research and its intended objectives.