“He knows things that are not in phenomenology” Emmanuel Levinas, reader of Léon Bloy

Levinas discovers in Bloy’s works a religious language unencumbered by this “Sulpician” register that the philosopher prefers to describe as “unctuous.” Levinas made this discovery the foundation of his own intellectual project. He is also indebted to Bloy for certain ideas about the status of women, which in his mind are associated with what he calls “the mystery of the feminine.”