Saying the Unsayable: Daoism, Wittgenstein and the Ineffable in Literary Fiction

Rowley, Rex (2025) Saying the Unsayable: Daoism, Wittgenstein and the Ineffable in Literary Fiction. Doctoral thesis, University of East Anglia.

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Abstract

Saying the Unsayable: Wittgenstein, Daoism, and the Expression of the Ineffable in Literary Fiction comprises a unified creative-critical thesis. The novel in which the thesis is contained, HE/LIO6.RAM/S/, deals with the experience of grief and the inability to express the full experience of grief, both before, during and after the inciting incident.

At the core of the project lies the question of how to explain what is often felt but remains otherwise unsayable through words themselves. An exploration of this concern is primarily undertaken through the lens of fictional craft. Elements of fiction writing such as point of view serve as tools to dialogue around unsayable experiences. The novel and the novellas contained within the thesis illuminate both the perception of felt experience, while pointing to blank spaces where there is an inability to express the unsayable.

These experiences are further explored through interwoven critical elements including the primary works of Wittgenstein. This hybrid approach asks how we (writers, readers, characters) render the often common experience of ineffability into words via storytelling. This stands in contrast to the philosophical debate about whether certain phenomena reside beyond words such as the Wittgensteinian ‘unsayable.’ The thesis aims to explore ‘experiencing’ the ineffable rather than as a witness to its existence.

As the ineffable is definitionally restricted to indirect, non-linguistic methods, utilizing words in an attempt to describe the ineffable poses several challenges. The unique merger of critical and creative components allows opportunities for textural character development together with thematic explorations of certain elusive, ‘unsayable truths.’ These include the communication of mercurial emotions through indirect means. By placing the critical elements into the viewpoint of various characters, the critical sources take on new positions: they comment not only on their own overarching concerns, but more directly upon the purposes of the thesis.

Item Type:	Thesis (Doctoral)
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Arts and Humanities > School of Literature, Drama and Creative Writing
Depositing User:	Chris White
Date Deposited:	19 Jan 2026 14:46
Last Modified:	19 Jan 2026 14:46
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/101644
DOI:

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