"Repetition (In the Kierkegaardian Sense of the Term)" Author(s): Arne Melberg Reviewed work(s): Source: Diacritics, Vol.

20, No. 3 (Autumn, 1990), pp. 71-87 Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/465332 . Accessed: 11/11/2011 20:53
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"REPETITION (IN SENSE OF THE

THE

KIERKEGAARDIAN

TERM)"

ARNEMELBERG
1. Kierkegaard'sGjentagelsen The Text Kierkegaardpublished Repetition in 1843; his pseudonym this time was ConstantinConstantius. The Danish title is Gjentagelsen,meaningliterally "thetakingback." It is not easy to decide what sortof text this is: a narration or a philosophical essay or perhapsan ironic mixtureof both. Kierkegaard has Constantinmake fun of this problematicin a sort of appendix,where he turnsto "therealreaderof thisbook,"called "Mr.X, Esq."1Thisrealandideal reader is apparentlynot a critic or an "ordinaryreviewer," since such a specimen would have taken the opportunityto "elucidate that it is not a comedy, tragedy,novel, epic, epigram,story and to find it inexcusable that one tries in vain to say 1.2.3. Its ways he will hardlyunderstand since they areinverse;norwill theeffortof thebook appealto him,foras arulereviewers are explain existence in such a way thatboth the universaland the particular annihilated"[190/226]. This is said in the final pages, retrospectively,like a "repetition" remindthe reader-"Mr. X"-in whatway andgenrehe has to notreadand,perhaps,to hintat a failed dialectic("triesin vain to say 1.2.3."). And that the "ways"of the text are "inverse." "Inverse"? This odd statementat the end of the text may persuade the reader to "repeat" the very beginning of the text, where Constantin discusses in "movement" relationtotheconceptsof repetition recollectionandcomes and up with this definition: "Repetitionandrecollectionarethe same movement, only in opposite directions, for what is recollected has been, is repeated backward;whereas the real repetitionis recollected forward"[115/131]. As a conceptual introductionto this text, where the "ways" at last are called "inverse,"we areinvitedto think"repetition" "recollection" the and as same movement-only in opposite directions. The same but opposite. And as "repetition" a movement "forward." "Forward"? The beginning and the end of the text Repetitionthus give us two directions, both quite surprising. The beginning I quoted is furthermore prefaced by a little anecdote about directionsand movement: Diogenes is
1. I quote Kierkegaardfrom Samlede Vaerker5, in comparison with the English translation by Howard Hong and Edna Hong in Kierkegaard's Writings 6, here 187/ 223. Page references will be given in the text. I have in many cases modified the English translation to make it more literal.

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theresaid to have "refuted" Eleatics,who "deniedmotion"notby sayinganythingbut the by pacing "backand fortha few times" [115/131]. "Back and forth"? If we then regardthe Diogenes of the anecdote ("backand forth")as a heading for the text Repetitionandkeep divergingdirectionsin mind ("forward," "inverse")it could perhaps in a preliminaryway be said that Repetition is a text on movement-and a movementback and forth. This movementgoes on in the temporalityof the text: I will mode between past andpresenttime. And show later how the text changes its narrative The philosophicallythetextdiscusses thepast of recollectionandthe nowof "repetition." and text paces between temporalmodes andbetween narrative philosophicaldiscourses. The conditions for the movementof the text are defined in its framework,in the "backof "backward-forward" the beginning; and the "inand-forth,""same-but-opposite," verse" of the end. wroteironicallyundera pseudonymthat This movabletext,Repetition,Kierkegaard suggests permanence. The text was publishedtogetherwith Fear and Trembling-this anecdote: underthe pseudonymJohannesde Silentio-which concludesin a Heraclitean Heraclitusis said to have had a disciple who developed the thoughtof the masterthatyou cannot enter the same river twice by saying that one "cannot do it even once. Poor Heraclitus,to have a disciple like that! By this improvement,the Heracliteanthesis was amended into an Eleatic thesis thatdenies motion"[111/123]. Repetition startsin this logical problemof motion and movement;first Constantin for praises"repetition" a couple of pages: "it is realityand the earnestnessof existence" is [116/133]. "Repetition" called the "new"philosophicalidea of the same phenomenon that "the Greeks"called "recollection"(anamnesis). Constantinthen startsto narrate: "Abouta year ago," he writes and remembers,"I became very much aware of a young man"(117/133). This young man-the Danish word is actuallymenneske 'humanbeing'-is melancholicallyin love; Constantin'sdiagnosis is thatthe young man as a poet lives in memoryandthatthe beloved girl lacks reality(for him). '"The young girl was not his beloved, she was the occasion thatawakenedthe poetic in him ... and precisely by that she had signed her own sentence of death" [121/138]. Constantinsuggested a treatment:the young man should fake his love to anothergirl-meaning thatConstantin wanted the young man to say one thing and mean another,thatis, become ironic. This has is impossible, however,andConstantin to admitthatthe youngmanas a poet only has one languagewhile the ironisthas two: theironist"discoversanalphabetthathas as many lettersas the ordinaryone, thushe can expresseverythingin his thieves' languageso that no sigh is so deep that he does not have the laughterthat correspondsto it in thieves' language"[127/145]. Constantinmakes some furtherphilosophicalreflectionson the concept of "repetion tion" [131/149-I discuss this later] then changes to a new narration the "exploring expedition I made to test the possibility and meaning of repetition"[132/150]. The expedition heads for Berlin, where Constantinhas once been and where he now wants to what alreadywas. Extensively and enthusiasticallyBerlin is rememberedas it "repeat" once was, while the "exploringexpedition"is dismissed as ridiculousand impossible. The longest descriptionis given the memoryof a Posse, a popularfarce, thatConstantin once saw andloved butnow findsunbearable--"The only repetitionwas theimpossibility of repetition"[149/170]. This partof the text, thisphilosophicaljourney,seems to me difficultto handle: why this enthusiasmabout(a) memory? Why this drasticrefutationof "repetition"?If it is a of refutation-perhaps it is a hint that"repetition" something,whateverit is, is doomed to failure, while "repetition" such-as movement-is necessary. as The text moves into its second part,called Gjentagelsen 'the taking back': Repetition. The part-the second part-has the same nameas the whole. Or does this mean 72

the of that the second part"repeats" whole as a "repetition" Repetition? thatthe second in partis thesecundaphilosophia,which Kierkegaard anothercontextcalls "repetition"?2 The narrative the second parttells us thatthe never-fulfilledlove story of the first of comes to its conclusion as real separation.The young man turnsup again writingletters to Constantin,where we can follow his romanticoutburstsup to the point where the beloved girl turnsout to have married! Something the young man in his last letter calls fromhisbeloved! areal"repetition"-"repetition"realizedas theyoung man'sseparation Gone are the ironies of the first partof the text and we meet instead the privileged form of romanticself-expression: the sentimentalletter. Gone, too, is the temporaldistance of the first part: Constantinmoves into the presenttense and his few comments remain and in the same vague now as the letters. Narratologically Kierkegaard Constantinmove from diegesis to mimesis, to use the Platonic terminology. In the shape of mimesis the is that calls "repetition" made acute. doubling-repetition-reversal Kierkegaard in this temporallyvague now until the young man has producedhis The text is kept last letter. Then Constantin writes his own letter, separated from part two-the of "repetition" Repetition-by a page visualizingan envelope with Mr.X on it-"the real readerof thisbook." We meet, in otherwords,a very literalanddrasticseparation directly afterwe have separatedfrom the young man and the young man from his girl. What we meet, again, is irony-and in contrastto the pathos of the young man. Constantinuses this ironic momentto informhis readerof what has happenedand of whatkind of text he has not read. He repeatshis diagnosis from the firstpart,calling the young man a "poet" and in contrastto himself: "I myself cannotbecome a poet, and in any case my interest lies elsewhere" [192/228]. He also calls himself a "vanishingperson"-and in relation to the young man he has been like "a woman giving birth"[194/230]. forwardto call himself "vanishing" promisingto and Constantinsteps parabasically "serve"the readerby being "another" [192/228]. And by calling the "ways"of his text "inverse"[190/226]. It seems thatthe only way to come to termswith his "repetition" would be to read the text again, spelling out thatotheralphabet,the one thatConstantin ascribed to the ironist.

The Concept is, "Repetition" amongotherthingsin Kierkegaard's Repetition,a philosophicalconcept, formulatedby Kierkegaard throughConstantinas a reply to the Greek(that is, Platonic) recollection (anamnesis)and the "mediation" (thatis, dialecticAufhebungof newer (that is, Hegelian) philosophy. Let me now afterthe paraphrase above tryphilosophy: thereare two passages in the firstpartwhere Constantindevelops the concept "repetition."The first is in the opening pages, where Constantinsituatesthe concept in relationto "recollection":they are,as we remember, "the same movement, only in opposite directions," "repetition"moving "forward" on between the narration the young man [115/131]. The second is a transition and thaton the expeditionto Berlin: here Constantindevelops his criticismof "whathas mistakenlybeen called mediation"[130/148], that is, Hegelian dialectics. Against this he remindsus of the "Greekdevelopmentof the teachingof being and nothingness,the another developmentof 'the instant,'of 'non-being,"'etc. [131/148]. This is apparently Greek theory than the one connecting knowledge and reality with recollection, that is,
2. The expression comesfrom Begrebet Angest (The Concept of Agony) [SV 6:119]. One there,esp. 116n; also in PhilosophiskeSmuler(Philosophical willfind a discussionof "repetition" 1844; Constantin'spolemicsagainstHeiberg; Trifles)[SV6]; Kierkegaard'sPapirer (Papers)from and chap. 1 in Johannes Climacus's De omnibus dubitandum est.

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anotherPlato: we conceptslike beingandnothingness findin Plato'sdialogueParmenides, which is also Plato's most rigorousanalysis of those "Eleatics"who became famous for "denying motion,"accordingto the first page of Repetition. Constantin's discussion makes it apparent that he has found more in Plato's ParmenidesthanPlatonicanamnesis and Eleatic immobility. He has even found a term thatsounds more like Kierkegaard thanPlato: oieblikket,literally meaning"theglance of the eye" and here translatedas the "instant." The term probably derives from a is suggestivepassageof Parmenides thatI will takeuplater. Herethe"instant" associated with "repetition" beforeConstantin continueshis discussionof therelationof the concept to Hegelian "mediation"(dialectics): It is in our days not explainedhow mediationcomes about,if it is a result of the movementof the two elements, and in what way it alreadyfrom the start is containedin these, or if it is somethingnew thatis added, and in that case how. In this regard the Greekideas about the conceptkinesis, which correspondsto the moderncategory 'transition,'shouldbe consideredseriously. Thedialectic of repetitionis easy; because what is repeated,has been, otherwiseit could not be repeated, but thefact that it has been, makesrepetitioninto the new. When the Greeks said that all knowledge is recollection, then they said that all of existence, which is, has been, whenyou say thatlife is a repetition,you say: the existence, that has been, now becomes. Whenyou haven't got the category of recollection or repetition,all life dissolves intoan emptynoise devoidof content. [131/149] First Constantindiscusses dialectics: is the Aufhebungof synthesis ("mediation")the resultof movementin or between thesis andantithesis("thetwo elements")or is it a new movement? The question may seem narrow, but is interesting since it indicates Constantin'sinterest: to makedialectics into a formof movement. The associationwith makesclearthatthemovementis a movementin time: a temporalfigure. The "repetition" second sentence preparesfor this temporalityby way of termslike kinesis (movement) and "transition"; lattermay be Kierkegaard'sversion of metaballonand both these the termsare extensively used in Parmenides. The sentence seems unclearto me but underlines Constantin'sfascination: movement. Then the "dialecticsof repetition"is established-in contrast,we may assume, to Hegelian dialectics and in conflict with the "Eleatics"(who "deniedmovement"),but in is affiliationwithkinesis. "Repetition" herea movementin time: re-take,re-peat,re-turn, re-versemeansgoing backin time to what"hasbeen." But still, in spiteof this movement makes it new and is thereforea movement forward: it is "the backward,"repetition" new." The reasonthis movementbackwardis actuallya movementforwardis temporal: what has been, since what has been has been. The now of you cannot re-peat/re-take is always an after. But not only: since the movement of "repetition" also "repetition" makes it new, makes"thenew"-simultaneously withbeing a repeatingre-duplicationin orderof before-after orby thatnow previouslycalled "repetition" suspendsthetemporal "the instant."The temporaldialectics of "repetition" suspends temporalsequence: the now that is always an after comes actually before-it is the now of "the instant,"the sudden intervention in sequential time, the caesura that defines what has been and prepareswhat is to become. If there is one sentence summarizing"Repetition(in the sense of the term),"then this is that sentence. Kierkegaardian Next Constantincontrasts"repetition" Platonic anamnesis. The philosophy of to recollectionabsolutizeswhathas been, accordingto Constantin, therebyexcludes the and movementforward,"thenew." Recollected life is posthumouslife, whereas"repetition"

74

and new. "Repetirecollection reduplication its"taking transcends and back" making by tion"thusinstallsnowas theimpetus existence becomingas its movement. of and Thethird fourth and sentences workto give a temporal to privilege thenow. A few sentencesearlierin the text Constantin associated "instant" "nonbeing" the and with He in of [156DE]that "repetition." is probably thinking a sequence Plato'sParmenides discussesthe relations (kinesis),standstill amongmovement (stasis),and changeor transition PlatohasParmenides himselfandus whatstrange ask (metaballon). position timeis taking whenchange-movement-transition He answers:"theinstant" occurs. (to the is Further discussion that underscores this eksacfnes; Latintranslation momentum). is since to that of concept anonconcept, itrefers aphenomenon onlyexistsinthestate what Constantin wouldcall "nonbeing." PlatohasParmenides it like this: "thisstrange put instantaneous this that between movement standstill and and nature, something is patched thatdoesnotexistin anytime;butintothisinstant outof thisinstant, whichis and that in movementchangesinto standstilland thatwhich is at a standstillchangesinto movement." as to now "Repetition" a temporal figuregives priority thatinstantaneous thatis calculated to "instant" Plato'sParmenides. of according theparadoxical The final sentenceof my quotation in takes a step backward the dialecticby that contrast the between and was after suggesting "repetition" "recollection" notabsolute of all. Botharehereconcepts order somekindof conceptual to bringing organization an existence without order that this wouldbe a "noise" without meaning.It is worth noting that when he imaginesthe worldof nonmeaning, Constantin leaves his prominent or to horror: temporal spatial vocabulary evokean auditive purenoise.
* * *

Theconceptual aboveshould havegivensomehints "repetition" exegesisI havetried why is such a haunting for problematic problematizing and modemthinkers like concept and Nietzsche,Freud, Derrida.I will tryto show,in thesecondhalfof thisessay,why and how "repetition" obsessivefor Paulde Man. HereI can only mentionthat was in as 65-74] may Heidegger's Wiederholung it is developed SeinundZeit [especially wellbethelinkbetween and that Kierkegaard deconstructive thinking-except Heidegger's association Wiederholung a dramatic likeEntschlossenheit of with term de("opening tendsto underscore "existential" the of dimensions theconcept:itspathos. cisiveness") The reasonwhy Kierkegaard havemodemrelevance-even whenhe insiststhat may is of to "repetition" a "transcendental" category givingprivilege thepresence thenow; andevento thinkers elsewhere who seemimmune thetranscendental critical all to and of ideasof "presence"-must thathis"repetition"an"existential" well as a textual be is as as category.Thisis possiblesincehe insistson "repetition" a temporal term-tempus and besides having grammatical, syntactical, narratological meaning beingtheverymode forbeingandbecoming, combining thus and pathos irony. is a term: it temptswith the Kierkegaard's "repetition" furthermoreparadoxical ofa now this of The presence privileged whileexcluding presence. dialectic Kierkegaardian is "what repeated, been,otherhas "repetition" is-according to Constantin-"easy": wiseit couldnotbe repeated, thefactthatit hasbeen,makes but into repetition thenew." Thismeansthattheprivileged hasalwaysalready now been,andwhathasbeencould movement catches of of alwaysbecome.Thisparadoxical something thedialectics time as instant timeas process; timeis, afterall, bothsequential "existential" and and in and thesenseof instantaneous. paradox Kierkegaardian The of is "repetition" thatit triesto in dimensions into keepthesedivergent together onemovement-making "repetition" a or the it or relatedto nonconcept a conceptnegating presence suggests; a nonconcept Plato'sto eksaifnesin Parmenides:"thisstrange instantaneous this nature, something
diacritics / fall 1990 75

patched between movement and standstill and that does not exist in any time"; or Derrida'scontemporarynonconceptslike differanceor iteration.

The Story The philosophicalpartsof Repetitionarenarratively framed,andthe questionis now how combine: do they support each otheroraretheretensions? The text andnarrative concept is rich in possibilities, but I will discuss just two: its pathos, concentratedin the young man's sublime wishes, and its irony, exemplified by Constantin'stextual "reversal." a. SublimeSilence ? Repetition tells us amongotherthingsof the namelessyoung manunhappilyin love with a nameless young girl. The second partgives the young manthe floor throughthe letters he sends to Constantinreportingon his feelings up to the point he learnsthatthe girl has married.Afterhavingcomparedhis miserablelove storywith theordealof Jobof the Old the to Testament,the young man seems prepared interpret unhappyoutcome happily,as a real"repetition.""Istherenot, then,a repetition?Did I not get everythingdouble? Did I not get myself back and precisely in such a way thatI might have a double sense of its meaning?"[185 f./220 f.]. The questionform hints thatthe young man is not quiteconfidentthathe has got the thing right. His lack of confidence returnsin several commentaries,where problemsof an are may have transformed original interpretation solved by the idea thatKierkegaard where the young man was to commit suicide.3 Our young man welcomes his version, liberation. My "yawl is afloat,"he exclaims [186/221], looking forwardto sailing on the sea where "ideas spume with elemental fury, where thoughtsarise noisily ... where at other times thereis a stillness like the deep silence of the South Sea," etc. He compares and of his new position to a "beaker inebriation" praisesthe"crestingwaves, thathide me in the abyss"and "fling me up above the stars." It is not self-evidentthatthe young man should be inspired by learning that his beloved has married,nor is the "repetition" a apparent. The young man's metaphors,moreover,seem disturbing:the prospectsfor "yawl"on a spumysea seem notverypromising.Andif theyoungmanis the"yawl,"who, then, is the helmsman? The young man's perhapsdisturbingenthusiasmis expressed in terms that only a when describingthesublime: "spumewith little earlierin aesthetichistorywere standard elemental fury,""waves thathide me in the abyss ... thatfling me up above the stars." We recognize the vocabularyfrom one of this young man's closest predecessors, that nameless, unfortunate,and sublime lover in Rousseau's Julie (1760), known by the pseudonym "Saint-Preux."When he learns thathis beloved Julie actually has married, he doesn't exactly welcome this, but he bids farewell to everythingfor the sea. And in his final letter[3:26], which also is the lastof the thirdpartof thenovel andits very turning the point, he listens to the signal of the departingboat and welcomes the "vast sea, me."4 immense sea, thatperhapswill engulf
ofRepetitionis heavily 3. It shouldperhapsbe notedthatthetraditionalDanish interpretation and connects the story with Kierkegaard'sbroken engagement. The only serious biographical treatment of the text as narrative text is found in Aage Henriksen, Kierkegaardsromaner [Copenhagen, 1954]. 4. Oeuvrescompletes 2:397: "Ilfautmontera bord, ilfautpartir. Mer vaste, mer immense, mon doispeut-etre m'engloutirdans ton sein; puissai-je retrouversur tesflots le calme quifuit qui coeur agite!" 76

ImmanuelKant,too, who was an avid readerof Rousseaubutcertainlynot excessive in his vocabulary,comes upwith seaand starswhendiscussingthe sublime,dasErhabene, in Kritik der Urteilskraft [1790, #29]. The sea in itself is not sublime, but it can be experienced as sublime, according to Kant, if we manage to purge the experience of purposeand meaning. To experience the sea as sublime, writes Kant,we must not see it it as we represent in thought,notas, forexample,anelementunitingpeople andseparating because "suchareonly teleologicaljudgments."To find the sea sublime,"we continents, mustregardit as the poets do, accordingto what the impressionupon the eye reveals, as, let us say, when it is calm, a clear mirrorof waterboundedonly by the heavens, or when it is agitated,like an abyss threateningto engulf all."5 which Kierkegaard'syoung man in his last letters is Even the "thunderstorm," forward to as an upsetting preparationfor the instant of "repetition,"has its looking in counterpart Kant:in #27 he writesthatthe experienceof thesublimeis mobile (bewegt) in contrastto the beautiful,which is experiencedcalmly, in ruhigerKontemplation.The that changing mobilityis morepreciselycalled an agitation(Erschiitterung), is, a "rapidly would have remindedus of repressionandattraction the very same object."6(Constantin of the usefulness of that Greek thinking of kinesis when it comes to the paradoxes of "repetition.") When the young man in his last letter exclaims that his "yawl is afloat," he is headingfor a voyage withoutpurposeormeaning-but expectingthe sublime, apparently is or, to say it with Kant,both abyss and heaven. Whatis remarkable thatthe young man in auditive terms: ideas are about to "spume," describes his expected experiences thoughts to "arisenoisily"; and he also expects a "stillness like the deep silence of the SouthSea"[186/221]. Noise as well as silence indicatethattheyoung man's expectations of the sublime point to the nonverbalor to puresound (thatis, languagewithoutpurpose ormeaning). Orto deep silence. Thedesireof this textfor aprivilegednow canbe realized only beyond a language of meaning. This desire or expectationis realized, althoughwith heavy irony, thatis, in a mode far from the young man's language. Whatfollows afterthe young man has expressedhis spumingdesires to leave languageis neithersilence nor void-but text as object, thatis, beyond purposeor meaning. Whatfollows on the page afterthe young man's last word is the picture of an envelope addressed to the anonymous Mr. X and "containing" Constantin'sletter to "thereal readerof this book." But the text carries anotherexpectation that is not realized in any way, not even ironically, when the young man heads for his sublime noise. I am thinking of the conceptual analysis quoted above, where Constantinstated that both "repetition"and recollectionareconceptsof orderandwithoutthese "alllife" would dissolve in "anempty in noise devoid of content"[131/149]. It was apparent this passage thatrecollection and "repetition"were not opposites in this respect but that both (in different directions?) organized the "noise" of phenomenal world/life into meaning-we may guess from would offer a paradoxicalmeaningbut still a contrastto circumstancesthat"repetition"
5. Kritikder Urteilskraft175f.: "denndas gibt lauter teleologische Urteile; sondern man muss den Ozean bloss, wie die Dichter es tun, nach dem, was der Augenschein zeigt, etwa, wenn er inRuhe betrachtetwird,als einenklarenWasserspiegel,derbloss vomHimmelbegrenztist, aber ist er unruhig, wie einen alles zu verschlingen drohendenAbgrund, dennoch erhaben finden konnen." The passage is thoroughly commentedon by Paul de Man in "Phenomenalityand Materialityin Kant." 6. KritikderUrteilskraft155: "DasGemiitflihltsich in der Vorstellungdes Erhabenenin der

Natur bewegt: da es in dem isthetischenUrteile iiber das Sch6ne derselbenin ruhiger

verglichenwerden, d. i. mit Kontemplationist. Diese Bewegung kann... mit einer Erschiitterung einer schnellwechselndenAbstossen undAnzieheneben desselben Objekts."

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in pure noise. The young man, however, expects a new life afterhis "repetition" terms that come suspiciously close to that "emptynoise" fearedby Constantin. Something has gone wrong here in the relationbetween concept and narration-or between Constantinand the young man. PerhapsConstantinshouldhave told us thatthe and young man had seriously misunderstoodthe concept of "repetition" thatby leaping he into the nonlinguisticnonorder approachessomethinglike Kierkegaardian "despair"? Nothing, however, preventsus from seeing the young man's sublime expectationsas a (narrative) correction of Constantin's conceptual analysis-nothing, at least, until in Constantin'sfollowing and final letter. The correctionwould situate"repetition" the or "abyss"or among the "stars" in "noise"or "silence"-in any case beyond languageas can a hintthattheprivilegednow of the "instant" be foundonly outsidetimeandmeaning. b. Ordo inversus Constantininformsus repeatedlythatthe young man is a poet. "Imyself cannotbecome a poet" [192/228], he says, and calls himself a "prose writer" [184/218]-the word prosaist can also be understoodas "prosaicwriter." Developed full-scale in Hegel's aesthetics,in Kierkegaard's this well-knownoppositionof prosevs. poetrycoincided day with something like romanticismvs. prosaicreality,and the romantic-poeticpole of the opposition was associated with subjectivity,imagination,and an orphic vision. and Otheringredientsof the text makeConstantin the young maninto opposites: the nameand the eye. While Constantinis a telling pseudonym,the young man is nameless.7 And in contrastto Constantinhe has troublewith his eyes: he escapes from his beloved in ordernot to have to look at her;"Thinkof me spottingher,"he writes to Constantin, "I believe I would have gone mad" [166/192]. Constantin,on the otherhand, does not hesitate to use his eyes in contactwith girls: "my eyes soughther,""my eyes were upon her" [146 f./167], he tells us when reportingon a meeting in Berlin. And thatglance of the eye--ieblikket -of course has decisive importancefor Constantin'sdevelopment of the philosophy of "repetition." It is differentwith the young man, our orphicpoet: he escapes seeing his nameless in Eurydice,and his final fantasyof a sublimepresence is beyond the eye and its glance the sense that his fantasy is auditive. The eye and the glance were problemsalso for the mythicalOrpheus,who may well behindorbeforeConstantin'syoungpoet andhis sad love story; be one allegoricalpattern anotherone could be Psyche, who is blindedby meetingEros, or could face the God only in darkness. The mythof Orpheushas to do with the glance, with retrieval,and with that manifest reversal of Eurydice's turningaround-and, of course, of inspiration,song, poetry. The ambiguityof the mythhas been wonderfullyanalyzedby MauriceBlanchot, to when he points out, for example, thatthe orphic"turning" Eurydicemeansdestruction but not turningwould not be a lesser "betrayal": and Eurydice's returnto the shadows; her of againstthat"movement" Orpheusthatmeansthathe wantsto haveEurydicenot in in her "distance,"thathe wants to see her in her "nocturnal but obscurity," "daily truth" "not when she is visible but when she is invisible."8 Like this Orpheus,our young man
7. Interestingviewsontheyoungman's namelessnessarefoundinLouisMackey,"OnceMore with Feeling: Kierkegaard'sRepetition," Kierkegaardand Literature: Irony, Repetition and Criticism,ed. RonaldSchleifer and RobertMarkley[Norman: UofOklahomaP, 1984] 98: "The decisive event reportedin the letter of August 15 is the young man's loss of his name." 8. L'espace litteraire [Paris, 1955] 228: "en se tournant vers Eurydice, Orphee ruine se l'oeuvre, l'oeuvre immnediatement d'efait, et Eurydicese retourneen l'ombre; l'essence de la nuit, sous son regard, se revele commel'inessentiel. Ainsi trahit-il l'oeuvre et Eurydiceet la nuit.

78

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wants to see his girl but still not see her,and to worshipher at a distance. Alreadyat the beginningof the text, Constantinpointsout thatthe young man's love is poetical: the girl "awakenedthe poetic in him and made him a poet" [121/138], allegorically speaking Orpheuscreates his Eurydicein orderto become the power of singing. Constantinadds that"preciselythereby[she] had signed herown deathsentence": the orphic-poeticlove demandsthe absence of the woman or needs the woman as shadow, as death. On only one occasion does the girl stopbeing the shadowof thetext: by her suddenly being married. This-her firstand last sign of life-makes herfinally dead to the young man. The allegoricalreadingaccordingto Orpheuswould indicatethis as a result of the young man's turningaround,his reversal. But this does not work: as faras I can see this is reversal-leading-to-"repetition" the resultof her turningherback on him and walking into theHadesof marriage.Hereanallegoricalreadingaccordingto Psyche andErosmay be closer: in the decisive momentthe eye turnsaway or is blinded;the glance of the eye makes it all dark. No allegorical expectations,however, neitheraccordingto Orpheus's story nor to Psyche's, fit the young man's final fantasies after the girl has turned around and disappeared.His auditiveenthusiasmis insteadanalmostpolemical contrastto the visual fantasies on the conditions of love and languagethatfound mythicalexpressions in the tales of Orpheusand of Psyche and Eros. It is at this decisive point in the text-when voice threatensglance and when sound threatensmeaning-that Constantinmakes his visual coup: thatparabasical pictureof a letter, framinghis final message to the "realreader"Mr. X. It is an ironic intervention, an ironic punctuation of the pathetic letters of the young man. And the irony is underscored Constantin,in his letter,when he addressesthe type of writerwho knows by how to write "insuch a way thatthe hereticscould not understand [194/225]-that is, it" the writerwho writes with double meaningor, as Constantinput it in the first partof the text, who "canexpress all in his thieves' languageso thatno sigh is so deep thathe does not have the laughterthat correspondsto it in thieves' language"[127/145]. Constantin's ironic position puts an end to the allegory according to Orpheusor accordingto Psyche and Eros but also to the young man's auditive fantasies. There is neverthelessa connectionbetween his irony and the allegory, and this connection is the same as the concept, the story, and the text: "repetition." In his well-known analysis of allegory Paul de Man writes that the "meaning constituted by the allegorical sign can then consist only in the repetition (in the sense of the term)of a previous sign with which it can never coincide, Kierkegaardian since it is of the essence of this previous sign to be pure anteriority" ["TheRhetoricof 207]. This formaldefinitionof allegory de Man connects with irony and Temporality" arguesthatallegory and ironyare "linkedin theircommon discovery of a trulytemporal I predicament"[222]. This "predicament" take to be the discovery of an instantaneous now, or ratherthatthepresentnow, to become thepresenceof an instantaneous now, must have a precedence. The Kierkegaardian that "repetition" de Manhas in mindcan only be the"repetition" in those senses I have analyzedabove, the "takingback"thattells us that"theexistence, that has been, now becomes" [131/149]. This is a "temporalpredicament," use de to Man's judgment, because the now that is privileged by "repetition"is also an after, meaning that the presence of the now presupposesan absence-something like the absence of the girl thatis needed to serve the young man's orphicpassion. Or something
Mais ne pas se tournervers Eurydice, ce ne serait pas moins trahir, etre infidele a la force sans mesureet sans prudencede son mouvement, ne veutpas Eurydicedans sa veritddiurneet dans qui son agrdmentquotidien,qui la veut dans son obscuritenocturne,dans son eloignement,avec son corpsfermd et son visage scelle, qui veut la voir, non quand elle est visible, mais quand elle est invisible. . "

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like thatfamous nonmeetingof Psyche andEros: an allegoricalsign for presence, which can take place only in the absence of blinded darkness. How can such a temporaldialectic be recounted? Kierkegaard'sanswer was the "indirectmessage." Kierkegaardcommunicated pseudonymsandby lettinga pseudonymlike Constantincommunicate indirectlythrough ironically, in "thieves' language." IndirectlyConstantintells the readerhow to read the text Repetition, by telling him, in his concluding letter, how not to read it: not as a "comedy, tragedy,novel." And not straight,since its "ways"are "inverse"[190/226]. "Inverse"? The word hardlyexists in Danish but seems to be derived from the Latin inversio, which in classical rhetorics was a term with both syntactical and semantical sense. Syntacticallythe termmeanta reversedorderof the sentence or sentences;semantically the termmeant"tosay in anotherway,"thatis, it translated Greektermallegory. Both the these senses of an ordo inversus, a reversed order, combine in Repetition: the young man's allegory is semanticalby repeatinga myth. Constantin'sironic interventionwith his final letter is syntactical: a reversalin the text. Constantintherebygives us a sign confirmedby the letter: thatthe "ways"of the textRepetition are "inverse,"makingthe text into an ironicallegoryof motion: moving, like Diogenes, backandforthbetweeneye and ear, between irony and pathos,between past and presenttime, between concept and story. Whetherall this mobilityfunctionsto organizeor disorganizethe text-and whether ironyand allegoryare unitedor separatedin the conceptof "repetition"-may have to do with our readingof the relationbetween the young man and Constantin,thatis, between as and pathosandirony,between"repetition" an "existential" as a textualpossibility. The of Constantinhas the firstandlast wordof the text, but the pathosof the young man irony creates its tensions. The inversio of the young man seeks life but threatensto leave the text. Constantin'sinversio is a back-and-forth the wake of Diogenes, who according in to anecdote took a walk to refute those "Eleatics"who "deniedmotion"[1 15/131]. But Constantindiffers from Diogenes in using words. Language is his field. The indirect message seems to be that his mobile text keeps language alive-and keeps life within linguistic order.
* * *

Ordoinversus,the reversed-repeated order,meansputtingthings on theirheads: putting them right. The philosophy of the subject inauguratedby Kant and radicalized by makes subjectivityinto truth. That is an inversio working ironically in the Kierkegaard textRepetition. But thisironyhardlylackspathosandhaseven got some sublimetouches. A late follower of these pre- andpostromantics,Paul Celan, had a sense for this sublime reversal; he once pointed out, "whoever walks on his head, ladies and gentlemenwhoever walks on his head, he has the heavens as an abyss underneath him."9 2. Paul de Man on the Point of Repetition Paul de Man's interestin "repetition" "movement"seems to be of an early date. In and one of his critical readingsof Heideggerfrom the fifties he finds thatHeideggerbetrays nothing less than "the movement of being" ["TheTemptationof Permanence"38]. In another from the same period he concludes that H6lderlin, contrary to Heidegger's
9. "Der Meridian," Der Meridianund andereProsa 51: "Werauf dem Kopf geht, meine Damen undHerren,-wer auf dem Kopfgeht, der hat den Himmelals Abgrunduntersich."

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assertions, shows no "singularontological reversal,but a lived philosophy of repeated reversal, that is nothing more thanthe notion of becoming."10The odd expression "rerepetdin the Frenchoriginal,which seems to be de peated reversal"readsretournement Man's formulationof the "movementof being"as repetition. Alreadyhere his notionof thanto Heidegger'sWiederholung, is, fairly that repetitionseems closer to Kierkegaard's thatHeideggeruses in Sein und free from thatEntschlossenheit ("openingdecisiveness") with "fate";insteadde Man seems to be open to "repetition" Zeit to connect "repetition" as a textual phenomenonas well as an "existential"or at least intentionalpossibility. Taking Kierkegaard'sRepetition as an allegory, we could say that Constantinand the young man are strugglingfor the initiativewithin de Man's text. Repetition as a textual phenomenonis developed into the concept of irony in the from 1969, which must be the essay "TheRhetoricof Temporality" already-mentioned in startingpoint of an investigationof "repetition" the de Maniansense of the term. Not only has this been called his "mostfully achievedessay" [Waterslvi], but it has also been de judged as the very turningpointleadingfroman earlier,existential-phenomenological Man to a later, deconstructivede Man, exploring rhetoricalanalysis. "TheRhetoricof Temporality" is also the only text (so far published) in which de Man refers to and Kierkegaard; if one were to choose a turningpoint in the essay, itself a turningpoint in de Man's writings,I would suggest the parenthesisin which de Manclaims "repetition sense of the term)"to be the "meaning"of the allegorical sign (in the Kierkegaardian marksa decisive turnin theessay: fromliteraryhistory [207]. In any case thisparenthesis to epistemology and from allegory to irony. is "TheRhetoricof Temporality" organizedin two parts,the first a historicalstudy as to of the"symbol,"whereallegoryis introduced a polemicalcounterpart "symbol,"the second a more epistemologicalstudyof "irony."In a conclusion the concepts are linked togetherin "theircommon discovery of a truly temporalpredicament"[222]. Textual allegory, in contrastto "symbol,"is said to producea "negative"insight in an "authenand [208]-and we observe thatnot only "truly" "authentically temporalpredicament" seem to be favorite terms. but also "predicament" tically" because the allegoricalsign does not referto Allegorical insight is called "negative" but to another sign, characterizedby "anteriority." Allegory therefore "meaning" accentuates"distance"in contrastto the "symbol,"to which de Man ascribes the effort to reachthe full presenceof meaning(or of meaningas presence). But allegory not only remindsus of "distance"but reaches its "negative"insight by establishingits language "in the void of this temporaldifference"[207]. And therede Man's formaldefinitionof allegorysuddenlyacquiresa mysticaltouch: how canlanguage-and notonly allegorical language because allegorical language is here apparentlyan allegory of language in in general-be "established" a "void"?The expressioncarriesa metaphorical suggestion of the very type thatde Manis criticizingas mystifyingly"symbolic."But it does not take much reading to discover that de Man in "The Rhetoric of Temporality"uses an of abundanceof spatialand/orvisual metaphorsto suggest the temporality language,and most strikingare the metaphorsof mirrorsand mirroring. becomes explicit at the end of the essay whereironyis linked to allegory The mirror in that common "temporalpredicament." Irony is there called "the reversed mirrorimage"of allegory [225]. This expressionalso strikes me as mystical-are not mirrorimages always "reversed"?what,then,would the reversalof an alreadyreversedmirrorpredicament" image look like?-but thephrasegives a visualsuggestionof the"temporal in 250. Theoriginal, Cri10. "Heidegger's Blindness Insight and Exegeses Holderlin," of tique100 (Sept.1955),has: "IIn'y a donepas, dansHilderlin,un retournement ontologique mais unephilosophie vecuedu retournement unique, repeted, n'est autreque la notiondu qui devenir." 82

thatincludesa "reversal." (Remember repete youngde Man'sinterestin theretournement the 'repeatedreversal'.) The following sentences "temporalize" mirroring metaphor,so to speak, by a host of termsindicatingsuddenness: the ironic interventionin allegorical it narrationis called "instantaneous," takes place "rapidly," "suddenly,""in one single moment." As an example we are given Baudelaire's prose poems, which are said to "climax in the single brief moment of a final pointe" [225 f.]. Pointe could of course mean the "point"of meaningas well as a temporal"instant," the graphicaldot or grammaticalfull stop. Everythingde Man writes on irony in "The Rhetoric of Temporality"emphasizes its sudden break in temporality: time as instant breakinginto time as sequence. With a word like pointe (and all those other words for suddenness),he indicatesa kind of "time"thatis so limited thatit is no longer"time"but instead is a break in time, like a visual dot in the time line. We recognize by now the phenomenonfrom Plato's to eksaifnes in Parmenides and from Kierkegaard'soieblikk and Heidegger's Augenblick. sense of the term)"is what de Man suggests as "Repetition(in the Kierkegaardian a solution to the problem of time, "repetition"as the link uniting time as sequence ("allegory")and time as instantexistence ("irony"). De Man emphasizes, however, the interest in the eye that I noted above with allusions to the allegoricalKierkegaardian (and the last is much alluded to in de Man's mythical complex Orpheus-Eros-Psyche as well). De Man expresses this visual interestby way of this "reversedmirroressay image." And the meaningof the mirroris establishedwith the help of Baudelaire'sDe l'essence du rire (andBaudelaire'srire is unqualifiedlyidentifiedwith "irony").De Man picks upBaudelaire'sexamplewith the manlaughingat himself when falling in thestreet. of This has to do with a doubling,dedoublement, the individualinto a falling man andan man. In the state that Baudelairecalls le comique absolue this doubling beobserving comes permanent;according to de Man it is a split of the subject provoking uncanny giddiness: "Ironyis unrelievedvertige, dizziness to the point of madness" [215]. Doubling,split, andvertigoareall spatialphenomenathatareinvestedwith temporal irony by de Man. The intersectionof space with time takes place at that"point"that is a turningpoint as well as a "pointof madness." When de Man a bit furtheron comes to and madnessseems againnot far Baudelaire's"instantaneous," "rapid," "sudden"pointe, beside the point, so to speak. Thatpointe is namely "the instantat which the two selves ... are simultaneouslypresent,juxtaposed within the same moment";this moment is called "the mode of the present" [226]. And this sounds both like a definition of schizophrenia and like an evocation of that Platonic ousia, usually translated (by Heidegger, for example) as the presence of the present. We may note herethatthis sharp,thin,anddividingpoint-pointe-that de Manuses to describe repetition,or repetitivereversalfrom time into space, is indeed thin but still has a kind of extension: it allows for repetition in the form of reflexion, doubling, mirroring. And it invites the "modeof the present." The only comment I have found on de Man's visual metphors associated with wherehe quotesde Man's mirroring repetitionis, of course,JacquesDerrida'sin PsycheM, assertion on the "trulytemporalpredicament" discovered by irony and allegory. "The mirroris here the predicament,"writes Derrida,the mirroras a "deadlyand fascinating trap."" What is this-the mirroras trap? Perhaps it is the simple but uncanny effect of mirroringmirrors,something thatWalterBenjaminonce describedbeautifully: "When two mirrorslook intoeach other,Satanplays his mostpopularprankandopens in his own 11. Psyche "Le 28: est miroir ici lepredicament.... estenproieaupiegefatal On etfascinant dumiroir." There anEnglish translation thisinReading ManReading, Lindsay is de ed. Waters of andWladGodzich U P, [Minneapolis: of Minnesota 1989]. diacritics / fall 1990 83

Derrida, way (as his partnerdoes in the eyes of lovers) the perspectiveinto eternity."12 for his part,alludes to the no-less-uncannymythof Eros and Psyche, alreadymentioned here as a backgroundreadingnot only for Kierkegaard also for de Man. According but to Derridathe blinking meeting of Eros-Psychecreatesgrief, deuil, due to the impossiand bility of transparency presence. The word, or at least "a traceof language,"makes presence impossible and mirroringor reflexion necessary.13 De Man started his essay by defining allegory by way of "repetition (in the sense of the term)"and ended with irony as a "reversedmirror-image." Kierkegaardian The question is whether these suggestive termsare new versions of what the young de Man called the moment of being as retournementrepete-or whetherhe has taken an or ironicand textualturn. And whetherthis ironic turnis thatof "Satan" "hispartner"thatis, whetherit is caughtin a mirror oropensnew movementsof bothtext andbeing. trap This is probablylike asking the confusing question whetherde Man's laterwriting on ironyis itself ironic. And the realanswerto this question,andthose above, is probably to be found in the curiously repetitive structureof the typical late-de Man essay: I am with the end reflecting,repeating,or thinkingof its convolutedor even circularstructure, doublingthe beginning. In the best(?) cases this can producethe "dizziness"he found in of Baudelaire'scomiqueabsolue and the "reversedmirror-image" irony (in "TheRhetoarticle"Semiology ric of Temporality").One well-known example is the programmatic and Rhetoric,"which begins the collection Allegories of Reading (1979). Here we first get a seductively easygoing polemic against the opposition inside/ outside, regardedas a metaphorand applied to literatureand criticism. Result: "The recurrentdebate opposing intrinsic to extrinsic criticism stands under the aegis of an inside/outside metaphor that is never being seriously questioned" ["Semiology and withexamplesof growingcomplexity, Rhetoric"5]. De Manthenstartshis "questioning" rhetoricalmeaning. Grammatical where he turnsgrammatical meaningagainst meaning appearsto suspend rhetoricalmeaning; and rhetoricalmeaning suspends grammatical ignorance"[19]. This meansthatwe arenow meaning. Finalresult:a stateof "suspended within the metaphorwith which we started,not knowing what is "in"and "suspended" whatis "out"; areneither"in"nor"out"butrather we fallingbetween. Andperhaps,while we rememberthatthe "fall"in "TheRhetoricof Temporality" was associated "falling," with vertige and irony andthereafter into de Man's most obsessive metaphor.14 develops Or is that "fall" taking place within a "reversedmirror-image" was it a "repeated (or with which we began? reversal"?)of thatvery "reversal" At theend of the whole collectionAllegories ofReading,a similar"reversal" again is but now explicitly as irony. De Man then finishes his readingsof Rousseau "repeated" by summarizinghis "mainpoint,"also called a "suddenrevelation": what is revealedis a "discontinuity," this suddenand discontinuous"mainpoint"is "disseminated" and all over"thepointsof thefigurallineorallegory,"thusbecominga continuous discontinuitya permanentsuddenness,or "thepermanent parabasisof an allegory." Becoming: irony. This irony repeatsthe "suspendedignorance"from the firstessay, but suspendsnot only an innocentor limited or temporary but "ignorance" actually the whole "line": irony is now nothing less than "the systematic undoing . . . of understanding"["Excuses
12. Das Passagen-Werk 1049: "Blickenzwei Spiegel einanderan, so spielt der Satan seinen liebsten Trick und offnetauf seine Weise (wie sein Partner in den Blicken der Liebendentut) die Perspektive ins Unendliche." 13. Psyche 31: "Carnous l'avons vu, si le deuil n'estpas annonc par le brisdu miroirmais survient comme le miroir lui-mnmeque par l'intercession du mot. C'est une invention et une interventiondu mot ... Le tain, qui interditla transparenceet autorise l' inventiondu miroir,c'est une trace de langue." 14. Some instances of "fall" are noted by Deborah Esch in "ADefence of Rhetoric I The Triumphof Reading," Readingde Man Reading 73. 84

(Confessions)"300 f.]. Irony, which startedout as a sudden event, has now become permanent-and this has strikingparadoxcould well mean thatde Man has entereda trap: ironic"repetition" been reversed into its own "reversed mirror-image." Already in "The Rhetoric of de Temporality" Man insisted-in contrastto most explorersof the concept of "irony"thattheironicbreakwas "repetitive." theendofAllegories ofReadingironyhasbecome At a "permanent" all effect "disseminated" over the very "line"it was supposedto break. In "TheRhetoric of Temporality"irony was still a "point"breakinglines; in Allegories of Readingthis"point"has growninto the"mainpoint"spreadingover the "line"of all other "points." In anotherlate essay, "Pascal's Allegory of Persuasion,"we learn thatPascal uses of of zero as a breakor "rupture" the line of numbersquite analogous to the "parabasis" irony thatde Man uses as the rhetoricalfigure to breakan allegorical"line." The Pascal of essay goes even further:de Man states thatthe "rupture" the line of numberseffected by zero (read: the ironicbreakof an allegorical"line")cannot"belocatedin a single point ... but thatit is all-pervading"[12]. In "TheRhetoricof Temporality"the ironic effect depended on the final pointe that, in Allegories of Reading, had grown into the "main point." In thePascalessay thepointseems to be gone (orcannotbe found)while the ironic as effect remains. The conclusionon ironic"disruption" "all-pervading" be an effect may of what Benjamincalled "Satan'smost popularprank": the mirroringmirrors. And it takes de Man to remarkable consequences, consideringhis earlieressays: in the Pascal essay he states that irony is no longer "susceptible ... to definition," it is not even "intelligible,"and "it cannot be put to work as a device of textual analysis" [12]. It follows thatirony disappearsas a concept or "device"from de Man's last essays. "Repetition"in the sense of mirroringand reflexion does not disappear,however. In we but as moment," this"moment" "Autobiography De-Facement" readabouta "specular is no "event"-that is, no "point"and thereforeno ironic interruption-but rathera "part of all understanding" including"knowledgeof self" [70 f.]. This epistemological idea of reflexion with its vaguely Freudiantouchcould no doubthave been developed into quite another "repetition"than that ironic "point"we met earlier, but still being a kind of that "repetition" could be associatedwith Kierkegaard.But late de Manhas a suggestion of quite another "repetition" that seems far away from any "existential"sense of this term. Now it is "repetition" mechanicalreduplication as withoutthe slightesthint prolific of any "reversal" ironic "point." or The termnow is stutter,coming up a few times in de Man's late essays on "aesthetic ideology" and associated with something he calls "theessentially prosaic natureof art" he ["Hegel on the Sublime" 152]. This "nature" derives (as always) from a linguistic axiom: thatthe linguistic sign refers to both itself as sign and beyond itself as reference or meaning. Philosophicalaesthetics,as de Manreadsit in Kantand Hegel, operateson the level of meaningbut presupposesa level where the sign is "inscribed" sign-this as he calls the"prosaicmateriality theletter"-as thebasis or "bottomline"thataesthetics of can neitherdo withoutnormakeinto meaning["Phenomenality Materialityin Kant" and 144]. De Man may well be inspired by Derrida here, since Derrida uses terms like repetition, iteration, differance in his deconstructionsof "Westernmetaphysics"and always with the argument alreadydeveloped in his criticismof Husserl: thatthe linguistic De sign has an "originallyrepetitive structure.""5 Man now states that the sign in its materialaspect as "inscription" alreadya "repetition" cannotbe used to perform is that anythingbut "repetition":"Likea stutter,or a brokenrecord,it [the sign] makes what it keeps repeatingworthless and meaningless"["Hegel on the Sublime" 150].

15. Lavoix etlephenomene [Paris: PUF, 1967]56: "lastructureoriginairement repetitive."

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If this is the endof theline for de Man,thenameof thatend is apparently "repetition." But is it ironic repetition? allegoricalrepetition? Is thereanythingleft of repetition(in the Kierkegaardian sense of the term)? Not according to program(but with the resevation that the stutter is by no means developed into a program): the stutteringrepetition seems more like a mechanical but interruption emerging from linguistic "materiality" still purely auditive. Stuttering has no "point"-and perhaps de Man associates it with "prosaicmateriality"since it seems free from visuality. Stutteringis in any case devoid of anythinglike "intention" and definitely has no "existential" pathos. Still, visuality-and perhapsa kind of irony and even allegory-sneaks back into "repetition"by way of the metaphorthat de Man uses to illustrate his meaningless "stutter":the brokenrecord. The recordbeing brokenby its own signs is a kind of visual interventionin the auditivescenery. But it is not only visual: it shows tracesof language (as Derridano doubtwould put it). "Record"could be a gramophonerecordbut also a documentor even a story, thatis, any sequence or line of events. If thereis an auditive in it "break" this "record" is visually repairedby the expression"brokenrecord." This and metaphorgives visuality to the "break" even a kind of meaningto the "meaningless" that the sentence refers to. By the symbolic power of the metaphor-and against what in seem to be de Man's prosaicintentionswith his "stutter"-the "break" therecordleads or us back to thatsudden"break" "point"thatde Manearlierassociatedwith "repetition" and called irony. Thus, irony ironicallycomes back to de Man's recordat the very moment when he has droppedall irony. A reversaltakesplace when reversalsareleft out of consideration. Perhapslanguageis takinga kind of revenge-that poor languagethatde Man (as quoted above) found establishedin a "void"and then never tiredof criticizing for covering up this basic baselessness with the feigned meaningof symbols and metaphors. Language takes its revenge by providing de Man with a meaningful metaphor with symbolic dimensions exactly when he declares language to be a "stutter,"a "meaningless" repetitionof sounds. Or was it perhapsthe "movementof being"thatremindedus of its to retournement repete', say it with the young de Man-reminded us of kinesis, the Greek for termthatConstantinConstantius askedus to "considerseriously"as a preparation that "easy"dialectic of repetition? WORKS CITED Benjamin,Walter. Das Passagen-Werk. Frankfurt-f-M:GSV, 1982. de Man, Paul. "Autobiography De-facement." TheRhetoric of Romanticism. New as York: ColumbiaUP, 1984. "Excuses (Confessions)." Allegories of Reading. New Haven: Yale UP, 1979. "Hegel on the Sublime."Displacement: Derrida andAfter. Ed. MarkKrupnick. Bloomington: IndianaUP, 1983. . "Heidegger's Exegeses of Holderlin." Blindness and Insight. 2nd ed. Minneapolis: U of MinnesotaP, 1983. . "Pascal'sAllegory of Persuasion."AllegoryandRepresentation. Ed. StephenJ. Greenblatt. Baltimore: Johns HopkinsUP, 1981. and . "Phenomenality Materialityin Kant." Hermeneutics: Questionsand Prospects. Ed. Gary Shapiroand Alan Sica. Amherst: U of MassachusettsP, 1984. . "TheRhetoricof Temporality."Blindness Insight. 2nd ed. Minneapolis: U and of MinnesotaP, 1983. "The Semiology of Rhetoric." Allegories of Reading. New Haven: Yale UP, 1979. "The Temptationof Permanence."Critical Writings1953-1978. Ed. Lindsay Waters. Minneapolis: U of MinnesotaP, 1989. 86

Derrida,Jacques. Psyche: Inventionsde l'autre. Paris: Galilee, 1987. Kant, Immanuel. Kritikder Urteilskraft. 1790. Reclam, 1963. Kierkegaard,S0ren. Kierkegaard's Writings. Trans. Howard Hong and Edna Hong. Princeton: PrincetonUP, 1983. Samlede Vaerker. Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1963. Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. Oeuvres completes. Paris: Pleiade, 1961. Critical Writings1953-1978. Minneapolis: U of Waters,Lindsay, ed. "Introduction." MinnesotaP, 1989.

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