갤로핑(Galloping)의 이중의 리듬:『트리스트람 샌디』와 들뢰즈의 ‘강렬한 건강’의 글쓰기

Abstract

At the intersection of literature and philosophy, Deleuze puts forward an intriguing conceptualization of higher health through the transmutation of perspective on health. Higher health is different from robust physical health that includes the virile athleticism or a complacent state of body. For Deleuze, it means an aesthetic and ethical faculty to create a body and mind, which can affirm uncontrollable events such as contingencies and death as the core of life and, furthermore, transforms them into the foundational power of a joyful life. Viewed in this light, Tristram Shandy can be called one of the great literary works that provides a little known pioneering theory that anticipates Deleuze's notion of higher health. This is precisely because the novel never organizes our life around the mighty power of death; rather, it gracefully offers a profound, original and deeply moving artistic presentation of the event from the perspective of one who is experiencing the dynamic rhythms of becoming in life. The essence of higher health is beautifully embodied in the double rhythms of galloping, which are expressed as the lighthearted and speedy gait of a horse and the dreadfully rapid rise in consumption. Based on these rhythms, which occurs at the poignant encounter between life and death, Sterne expresses a mode of forgetting which cherishes the memory of the mighty power of death without being dominated by it, and forcefully thrusts it into the seeds of creativity. Through this forgetting, he can invent the profound and joyful mode of dance that "“death can little think of.” As Tristram proudly professes, Tristram Shandy is an original machine operated by the vertiginous rhythms of the galloping. It is indeed the culmination of higher health that beautifully transforms the ecstatic power of becoming in life into an original artistic form.