Spectral Gatherings: Derrida, Celan, and the Covenant of the Word

Abstract

Taking as its point of departure Derrida's essay “Shibboleth: For Paul Celan,” this article is concerned with the relation between the poetic discourse of several Celan lyrics and the problematic of circumcision—as religious operation, wound, inscription, linguistic structure—foregrounded in Derrida's reading, and thus on the relation between the event of Celan's lyric, the critical language with which Derrida and other readers engage it, and the discourse of Jewish identity. Also crucial is the relation to Kafka, since the lyric principally under investigation here, Celan's “Einem, der vor der Tür stand,” alludes to Kafka's parable “Before the Law.”

To Speak with the Other—To Let the Other Speak: Paul Celan’s Poetry and the Hermeneutical Challenge of Mitsprechen

“…On Derrida and Celan, see Crepon (2006), a text that was first presented at the Collège international de philosophie in my seminar on Paul Celan's philosophical library. See also (Fóti 2006;Levine 2008;Michaud 2010). 39 About the opposition between Derrida and Ricoeur regarding the hermeneutics of translation, see my contribution (Richter 2017a).…”