Abstract

Rachel Bespaloff's writings on rhythm, music and dance represent a significant moment in the evolution of her philosophical thought. These texts - not accessible to the public before this publication - have been completely forgotten. The fact that she began by teaching dance and eurythmy has been considered until now as a biographical episode relatively external to her philosophical work. However, it was through a reflection on dance and the role of music in rhythm that she came to question existential temporality, the Heideggerian analysis of time and the relationship between music and philosophy, and then to prepare her great unfinished work, La Liberté et l'Instant. From a defence of the evolution of classical dance in contact with rhythm to a metaphysics of the instant conceived as the only possible place of freedom, engaged in a debate with Shestov, Fondane, Heidegger, Gabriel Marcel, Sartre and Camus, his path will never cease to deepen the mystery of temporality and of our authentic being in the world. This edition was compiled, introduced and annotated by Olivier Salazar-Ferrer, Senior Lecturer in Literature and Philosophy at the University of Glasgow.