Charles Reznikoff : « le déchiffrage même de la vie au miroir du texte »

Abstract

This paper suggests Charles Reznikoff 's poetry should be assessed in its relation to the Jewish hermeneutical tradition. Philosopher Paul Ricœur's quotation in the title, "the very deciphering of life in the mirror of the text, " sums up Reznikoff 's poetical strategy. He decontextualizes his writing by displacing it towards its hypotextual origin, Jewish and non-Jewish. Reading destabilizes the reader who embraces the poetical text in the mirror of its hypotexts. This move metaphorically takes reading and writing away from their familiar American grounds and paves the way for an ethics of perambulation.