Being in Mime: Heidegger and Derrida on the Ontology of Literary Language

Author(s): Timothy Clark

Source: MLN, Vol. 101, No. 5, Comparative Literature (Dec., 1986), pp. 1003-1021
Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press
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 Beingin Mime: Heideggerand
Derridaon the Ontologyof
Literary
Language

Clark
Timothy

The purpose of this essay is, to a degree, a polemical one. It is to

situate the question of the nature of literatureas formulatedby
Jacques Derrida withinMartin Heidegger's problematicallysimilar
readings of poetry. One of the more peculiar aspects of this
project is that, despite the gatheringmomentum of "deconstruc-
tion,"its necessityor even its possibilityseem to have passed unno-
ticed. This disregard is neverthelesscontemporarywithbroad rec-
ognition of the importance of Heidegger in Derrida's project of
deconstruction. Manfred Frank, for example, has recentlyana-
lyzed the affiliations between Heidegger's critique of modern
metaphysicsas essentiallya metaphysicsof the subject withsimilar
argumentsin "post-structuralist" texts.' Indeed, it is usually in re-
lation to the question of man and the human subject that Hei-
degger and Derrida have been broughttogether.The massivecol-
lectionof papers fromthe Cerisy 1980 conferenceon Derrida, for
instance (Lesfinsde l'homme)2, concerns particularlyDerrida's "The
Ends of Man" (1968)3 withitsquestioningof Heidegger's notionof
Dasein in relationto the meaning and statusof "humanism."It has
been unusual, however, for Heidegger to be discussed in relation
to specificquestions of textualityprominentin Derrida's work. Ro-
dolphe Gasche's two essays, "Du trait non adequat: la notion de
rapport chez Heidegger" (1981)4 and "Joining the Text: From
Heidegger to Derrida"5 (1983) are practicallyalone in following
1004 TIMOTHY CLARK

the impetus of Derrida's "The Retraitof Metaphor" (1978).6 The

latteris importantbecause Derrida's readings of literaryas distinct
from philosophical texts have remained oddly unpursued by lit-
erarycritics.Jonathan Culler has observed:
workdrawattention
Derrida'sowndiscussionsof literary to important
as we have been usingthe
problems,but theyare not deconstructions
literary
term,and a deconstructive criticism influenced
willbe primarily
byhisreadingsof philosophicalworks.7
This is certainlya rather bizarre situation. It is also symptomatic
perhaps of the pervading simplificationof Derrida's work.
What, if anything,can then be said to be specificabout Derrida's
discussionof literaryworks,ifit is not,like "deconstruction,"a case
of analysingthe "exclusions" and "incorporations"of a textwhich
"render the systemconstitutively dependent upon factorsit cannot
integrateor comprehend" (Samuel Weber)?8 Derrida's reading of
Mallarme in "The Double Session" (1970)9 is less an operation of
analysis than a consideration of the ontologicalstatusof literature.
The question "what is literature"is wrylystaged at the opening of
the essay. Derrida then continues to discuss the privilege of the
concept "being" in relation to mimesis,literature having always
been conceived in relationto mimesis. One need not add thatthisis
a broadly Heideggerian field.

I Heidegger on TrakI

Derrida insiststhat literaturebe conceived according to its most

general and universal traits,which consist,in one phrase, of itson-
tological derivativeness.The view that the presence of whatis pre-
cedes and governs its literaryre-presentationhas become nothing
less than common-sense. However (in Heidegger no less than Der-
rida) this is what is at stake:
That whichis, thebeing-present (thematrix-form of substance,of re-
ality,of the oppositionsbetweenmatterand form,essenceand exis-
tence,objectivity etc.)is distinguished
and subjectivity, fromtheappear-
ance,theimage,thephenomenon, etc.,thatis,fromanything that,pre-
sentingit as being-present,doublesit,represents it,and can therefore
replaceand de-present it.There is thusthe 1 and 2, thesimpleand the
double.The doublecomesafter thesimple;itmultiplies itas afollow-up.
(Diss.,p. 191)
 M L N 1005

With the passage through Heidegger's readings of Georg Trakl,

however,it becomes necessaryto conceive an element in language
that is, paradoxically, an originarymirror,a re-presentationthat
nothing will have preceded. In the early stages of "The Double
Session" Derrida offers a brief recapitulationof Heidegger's ac-
count of the historyand meaning of the concept of mimesis,consid-
ered as the frame withinwhich the notion of literaturehas always
been defined. Firstly,Derrida summarisesthat concept of mimesis
which Heidegger privileges in his phenomenological interpreta-
tion of ancient Greece:
evenbeforeitcan be translated as imitation,mimesissignifiesthepresen-
tationof the thingitself,of nature,of the physisthatproducesitself,
engendersitself,and appears(to itself)as itreallyis,in thepresenceof
itsimage,itsvisibleaspect,itsface....
(Diss.,p. 193)
Mimesis thus considered is in accordance witha notion of truthas
a-iiOela, uncoveredness,the simple appearing of what is presentin
its appearance. In fact,as Heidegger demonstrates,this simplicity
is nothingof the kind. Secondly,Derrida refersto the more famil-
iar sense of mimesisas imitation.In so faras what is involvedin this
notion is the imitationor re-presentationof somethingalready in
some way apparent this traditionalsense of mimesisis dependent
on the sense of mimesisas apparentness. Were nothingapparent as
such it could hardlybecome the object of an act of imitation.
At the risk of considerable simplificationone can venture that
the relation between that mode of language which Heidegger
terms"poetry"and language more commonlyconceived as repre-
sentationis crudelyanalogous to thatbetween the firstand second
modes of mimesis.On the one hand there is language considered
simplythe imitatoror signifieror what is already there,the kind of
language that admits of abbreviationor translationinto a merely
formallogic; on the other hand there is a "poetic" element in lan-
guage that summons to presence that which it names, a force that
brings the apparent into its own to stand unconcealed before us.
Furthermorethe former is derivativeas a curtailed mode of the
latter.Heidegger writesin "The Thing" (1951):10
Man can represent,no matterhow,onlywhathas previously come to
lightofitsownaccordand has shownitselfto himin thelightitbrought
withit.
(PLT., p. 171)
1006 TIMOTHY CLARK

It is in thisrealm that Heidegger makes some extraordinaryclaims

for language. It may not be grasped or conceptualized as an object
(as the representationalnotion of language would have it) pre-
ciselybecause it is throughlanguagethat objects come to lightand
stand in the openness of presence. Conceived according to the
phenomenological (or Greek) sense of truth as aR'Oela (uncov-
eredness) (as against truthas adequation in representation),lan-
guage would not so much signifyas show.In "Language" (1959)
(PLT., pp. 189-210), considering two lines from "A Winter Eve-
ning" by Georg Trakl, Heidegger argues that the notion of lan-
guage as human expression, while correct,does not touch the es-
sence of language as a mode of revealing.The lines are: "Window
with falling snow is arrayed / Long tolls the vesper bell." Hei-
degger, not so much glossing these lines as inhabitingthem,con-
tinues as follows:
The speakingnames the wintereveningtime.Whatis thisnaming?
Does it merelydeck out the imaginablefamiliarobjectsand events-
snow,bell,window,falling,ringing-withwordsof a language?
(PLT., p. 198)
In insisting"No" Heidegger grantsan ontological functionto lan-
guage:
This namingdoes nothandouttitles, itdoes notapplyterms,butitcalls
into the word. The namingcalls. Callingbringscloserwhatit calls.
Howeverthisbringing closerdoes notfetchwhatis calledonlyin order
to setitdownin closestproximity to whatis present,to finda placefor
it there.The call does indeedcall.Thus itbringsthepresenceof what
was previouslyuncalledintoa nearness.
(PLT., p. 198)
Obviouslywhat is called does not become presentin the sense that
objects in the room are present at hand. Heidegger insiststhatthe
poem neitherdescribes a winterevening that is somehow already
there nor does it "attemptto produce the semblance,leave the im-
pression, of a winter evening's presence where there is no such
winterevening" (PLT., p. 197). What would be traditionallycalled
the fictivestatus of this language has become Heidegger's bizarre
notion of "calling" into "nearness." Somethinglike the essence of a
winterevening becomes present (near) through poetryas a struc-
ture of manifestation. "Essence," moreover, as a translation of
Wesen,mustbe understood in a verbal or participialsense carefully
 M L N 1007

distinguishedfrom any suggestion of substantiality.At this point,

indeed, considerable precautions must be taken in the description
of poetryas a structureof manifestation.
What is most intractablein Heidegger's discussions of poetry,
especiallyperhaps when taken in an Anglo-Saxon context,is their
luring resemblance to certain cliches of empiricistthought. Hei-
degger would thus be conceived as rejectingconceptual represen-
tationalistthoughtin favour of an attentivenessto thoughtor lan-
guage as an experience.Even David Krell, a superb translatorof
Heidegger, in a discussion of Heidegger on "rhythm,"seems se-
duced by this traditionalvalorisationof the "concrete"or "living"
over and against the "abstract"or "derivative."1 Indeed some of
Krell's account seems a distortionof Heidegger into a merely"in-
carnationalist"metaphysics-what Derrida calls "one of the most
typicaland temptingmetaphysicalreappropriationsof writing..."
gives way to the
(Diss., p. 206). In short,the poem as representation
poem as enactment. Thus Krell cites the dictum of MacLeish, "A
poem should not mean /But be," apparentlywithoutany acknowl-
edgmentthatthisis a cliche of romanticaesthetics.Krell continues,
"the earlier couplets of MacLeish's poem, whichenacttheBeingofthe
poem,are thereforemuch more thought-provokingthan the asser-
toryconclusion!" (emphasis added).12 Krell is only, in fact,exem-
plary here of the manner in which Heidegger has invariablybeen
misappropriated.An examinationof the issue of Boundary2 (1976)
devoted to Heidegger bears this out. Alvin H. Rosenfeld, for in-
stance, while adumbrating the initialsteps of Heidegger's view of
language, moves too quicklyto an account of the poetryof Denise
Levertov.Rosenfeld assertsan all-too-easyconflationof image and
being. Of Levertov's "Relearning the Alphabet" (1970) he insists
that "It records and is a coming-into-beingof heightened and pri-
maryexperience...."13 This has perhaps far more to do withBio-
graphiaLiteraria(1817) than withMartinHeidegger. Whereas Hei-
degger stresses the ontico-ontological difference, Rosenfeld des-
cants of union and coalition:
languageand beingare coterminous: "thebeingof language"and "the
languageof being"coalesce.It is poetrythatunitesthem,hallowsand
celebratestheunion,thenretreatsbackintotheworldless, whereitre-
sidesuntilsummonedagainbya newOrpheus.'4
This kind of reception of Heidegger's readings of poetry is the
chief reason that the affinitybetween Heidegger's and Derrida's
1008 TIMOTHY CLARK

accounts of the literaryremain largelyunexplored. It is necessary

rather,as a countermeasure,to affirmwithRichard Palmer,15 the
radical effectsof Heidegger's work.
Somethingof the structureof the functionof language for Hei-
degger can be followed in a discussion of the sentence,"Language
is the house of Being," which Derrida has given in "The Retraitof
Metaphor" (RM., pp. 24-25). The movementof this image is not
from a familiarterm ("house") to an unfamiliarone ("being") ac-
cording to a traditionalnotion of metaphor as an illuminationof
the unknown by passage through the known. Rather a "tropical
inversionin the relationsbetween the predicate and subject,signi-
fierand signified,vehicle and tenor, discourse and referent,etc."
(RM., p. 24) must be conceived. For being alone, as it gives the
realm of entities into presence, lets "house or the habitat be
thought" (RM., p. 24). One must conclude that being says more
about the house, lettingthe house be said, than the house about
being. Only in being may any entity,such as a house, become
present as what it is. Moreover it is preciselyin language that this
illuminationof the essence (Wesen) of house or habitatis granted.
Language would thus be a mode in whichentitiesare appropriated
or come into their own. Derrida quotes a furtherinstance of this
movement:
"Die Mundartistnichtnurdie SprachederMutter,sondernzugleichund zuvor
die Mutterder Sprache"(Dialect is not only the language of the mother,
but is at the same time and firstlythe motherof language).
(RM., p. 18)

The familiarityof the term"mother"mustbe displaced in thislan-

guage. Derrida writes,"A mothertongue would not be a metaphor
in order to determine the meaning of language (le sens de la
langue), but the essential turn in order to understand what
'mother' means" (RM., p. 18). Something like the essence (Wesen)
or being of motherhood would thus be staged in this linguistic
turn or crossingof tropes.
Between being and entities(the "house" for example), the site of
language is the ontico-ontologicaldifference,the crucial site of
Heidegger's thought.Because no account of Heidegger's readings
of the literary(and consequently,I believe, no responsibleaccount
of Derrida's readings) can escape the ontico-ontologicaldifference,
the briefestand most schematic of summaries is necessary. Hei-
degger's dissatisfactionwith metaphysicswas its inabilityto think
 M L N 1009

the difference between being and entities.Rather the being of en-

tities,whereby they wereat all, was itselfconsidered merely ac-
cording to the model of another or supreme entity-substance,
firstcause, summumens. By the same token the difference between
being and entitiespassed into oblivion.
The structureof this ontico-ontologicaldifferenceis necessarily
a most peculiar one. The distinctionbetween a rose and (its) being
is clearlya problem totallydistinctfromthat of the differencebe-
tween one rose and another or any other two entities.The struc-
ture of this differencearises fromthe followingconsiderations.1)
It is only as (in) being that the realm of entitiesmay be presentor
be at all. 2) Being, thought rigorouslyin terms of its difference
from any entity,is not an entityitselfbut nothingand may never
become present or be in the manner of an entity.Derrida, in the
early sections of "The Double Session," clarifiesthisbizarre inter-
play as "the ambuguityor duplicityof the presence of the present,
of its appearance-that which appears and its appearing-in the
fold of the present participle" (Diss., p. 192). Being, as the ap-
pearing (as distinctfrom the entitywhich becomes so apparent),
necessarilydisappears in the veryunveilingof thatwhich it makes
present. Being withdraws, never becoming present, through the
verystructureof presentness-at-handwhichit effects.This, then is
the structure of the illusorily simple notion of mimesisas the
coming-into-the-openof that which is apparent. Following Hei-
degger's analysis of the Greek term "phusis"for being, one must
insinuate the fold of the present-participleinto this firstsense of
mzmeszs:
Mimesis is thenthemovement ofthephusis, a movement thatis somehow
natural(in the nonderivativesense of thisword),throughwhichthe
phusis,havingno outside,no other,mustbe doubledin orderto make
itsappearance,to appear (to itself),to produce(itself),to unveil(it-
self);in orderto emergefromthecryptwhereitprefersitself;in order
to shinein itsalitheia.
(Diss., p. 193)

As the brackets already suggest, being qua disclosure is precisely

that which does not appear in that which is disclosed (entities).
Presence or disclosure thus has, paradoxically,a structureof with-
drawal. In what is discloseddisclosure
itselfis erased.
Language, considered as a mode in whichbeing is passed over to
entities,thus participates in a structureof disclosureor appearing
1010 TIMOTHY CLARK

that may never itselfbecome an object.It is preciselyin the disclo-

sure of objectivitythat the appearing is erased in what becomes
apparent. As a medium of presence, language can never become a
simple objectof representation.We remain,as Heidegger writesin
"The Way to Language" (1959):16
committed to and withinthebeingof language,and can neverstepout
of itand lookat itfromsomewhereelse.Thus we alwayssee thenature
of languageonlyto theextentto whichlanguageitselfhas us in view,
has appropriatedus to itself.That we cannotknowthenatureof lan-
guage-know it accordingto thetraditional conceptof knowledgede-
finedin termsofcognitionas representation-isnota defect,however,
butratheran advantagebywhichwe are favoredwitha specialrealm,
thatrealmwherewe, who are needed and used to speak language,
dwellas mortals.
(WL.,p. 134)
Heidegger thus grants language an ontological function. More-
over, it is poetic language that most embodies this primordial
functionof the linguistic,a functionfromwhichthe notion of lan-
guage as representationis derivativeand a fallingoff. In partic-
ular, poetry effectsan ontico-ontologicaldifferencein that it is
throughlanguage that thingsstand revealed in theirbeing. At this
point however, the term "revealed" should be considerablycom-
plicated. To anticipateDerrida's terminologyin "The Double Ses-
sion" the structureof the ontico-ontologicaldifferencemay be de-
scribed as a "fold," specificallya dissymmetricfold. An entitybe-
comes apparent in an appearing (being) which withdraws in a
structureof erasure as folding-back.Language is itselfa fold of
this structurein that, in its very effectof bringingto presence, it
withholds itselfand may not appear as an object. "The Nature of
Language" (1959) (WL., pp. 57-108) informsus:
There is some evidencethatthe essentialnatureof language flatly
refusesto expressitselfin words-in thelanguage,thatis,in whichwe
makestatements aboutlanguage.If languageeverywhere withholds its
naturein thissense,thensuchwithholding is in theverynatureof lan-
guage.
(WL.,p. 81)

Obeying the structureof the ontico-ontologicaldifference,lan-

guage is not present (is no entity),ratherit gives (es gibt)presence.
Language appropriates or "brings into nearness" through a struc-
ture of non-apparent withdrawal.This structureinhabitsliterary
 M L N 1011

language in, for example, what is traditionallycalled its"imagery."

In "Language in the Poem" (1953) (WL., pp. 159-198), Heidegger
describesthe relationof an image of Trakl's (the blue of the sky)to
being, rathermisleadinglytermed the "holy" (Trakl's figure):
... Animal face
Freezeswithblueness,withitsholiness.
Blue is notan imageto indicatethesenseof theholy.Bluenessitselfis
the holy,in virtueof itsgatheringdepthwhichshinesforthonlyas it
veils itself.
(WL.,p. 166)
The peculiar qualityof the sky'sblueness-its peculiar self-veiling
characterof depth, its strange interplayof darkness and illumina-
tion-seems firstto be an imagefor the withdrawalof being in a
structureof revealing/concealing.This is by no means the case,
however. The image is not a mere representationin the second
sense of mimesis as imitation.The skyis not an image for being in
the manner of an externallyrelated matter-rather, throughlan-
guage,the ontological structureof the skyis broughtforwardin all
its uncanniness. As Heidegger writes in regard to H6lderlin (in
"'. . . PoeticallyMan Dwells. . .'" (1954) (PLT., 213-229), the poet
does notdescribethemereappearanceofskyand earth.The poetcalls,
causesthe
in thesightsof thesky,thatwhichin itsveryself-disclosure
appearanceof thatwhichconcealsitself,and indeedas thatwhichcon-
cealsitself.
(PLT., p. 225)
It would be less accurate to say that somethingis revealedin this
language than that the sky becomes present as an appearancethat
conceals.Yet what is concealed, being/appearing,is it-
tantalizingly
self no-thing. It is more than the very structureof self-conceal-
ment in a world it effects("that which in its very self-disclosure
causes the appearance of that which conceals itself,and indeed as
that which conceals itself"). The sky in its appearance is made,
throughpoetry, to undergo a tremblingin itsveryphenomenality.In
thistremblingthe meaning of being as thatwhichwithdrawsin its
uncovering is undergone. The ontological structureof a world is
staged in the language of the poet:
In thefamiliarappearances,thepoetcallsthealienas thatto whichthe
invisibleimpartsitselfin order to remain what it is-unknown.
(PLT., p. 225)
1012 TIMOTHY CLARK

In shortone mightconclude thatbeing, as the appearing thatmust

remain invisiblein that which it renders apparent, is unveiled in
poetic language according to a simple interpretationof the first
sense of mimesisas presentation.This would be a superficialcon-
clusion however,for two reasons. First,being itself(the appearing)
could never become the object of any language preciselybecause it
is structurallyin withdrawal.One cannot say, then,thatpoetryun-
veilsany meaning of being. Second, language is itselfthe medium
of this appearing/concealing. This latter structure, therefore,
cannot be language's object,ratherthe poetryitselfboth effects and
is a structureof appearing/concealing.Language, as we have seen,
is for Heidegger a medium of presence (as withdrawal)and may
not be objectified.It would seem then,in a structurenot dissimilar
to that of the miseen abymethat preoccupies Derrida,17that poetic
language engages in a fold of revealing/concealing a fold
overitself,
in which neither language nor being is but as a "gathering depth
which shines forthonly as it veils itself" (WL., p. 166).
This argument has some strange consequences for the tradi-
tional notion of poetic language as ontologicallyderivativein rela-
tion to what is. Rather,it becomes necessaryto conceive a mirroring
that brings forthwhat is. Consider Heidegger's discussion of the
"image" of the pond in Trakl's "GhostlyTwilight." The "image"
does not image,it is no longer a secondaryrepetition:
On blackcloud,you
Drunkwithpoppytravel
The nightingpond,
The starrysky.
Alwaysthesister'slunarvoice
Soundsthroughtheghostlynight.
(WL., p. 169)
Usually it would be said that the pond "portrays"the night sky.
However, through the appropriating nature of language as it
bringsentitiesinto being, a bizarre reversal takes place-"But the
night sky,in the truthof its nature, is this pond" (WL., p. 169).
Moreover, the supposedly familiarphenomenon of night,in con-
trast to night as brought into its own throughthe mirrorof the
pond, is itself"a mere image, the pale and empty counterfeitof
night'snature" (WL., p. 169). It is not a case of a simple entity(the
night) being doubled in the image. Rather something single, in
becoming double through the pond, is revealed more trulyin its
 M L N 1013

nature (Wesen).The image is no longer a doubling but is in a pecu-

liar way originary.The literaryfigureis a coveringthat obeys the
unique structureof withdrawal/unveiling in the sense of mimesis as
apparentness/dissimulation.
The reading, therefore,could not or should not argue or reach
conclusions about Trakl in the manner of representational
thought,affirminga, denying b etc. On the contrary,the way into
the question of language must become a transformationof this
path itself.Thus one should not strictlyspeak of a Heideggerian
"concept"or "view" of literarylanguage, whichwould at once efface
the issues at stake. The poem, as it is inhabited and transformed,
comes into its own in a displacementof the realm of conceptuality
(representation)in general.
By way of conclusion at this point, several points of similarityin
divergencebetween Heidegger and Derrida should be anticipated,
albeit with an unavoidable effect of schematism. 1) For both
writersthe question of literarylanguage is raised on the terrainof
the most fundamental issues in ontology. In short, the work of
Trakl and Mallarme becomes the site for a movementof thought
in whichthe whole of metaphysicsitselfis implicated.2) Both Hei-
degger and Derrida reject the metaphysicalnotion of imitationac-
cording to which the literaryhas always been understood. More-
over thisrejectionimplicatesthe totalityof metaphysicsas it effects
thisattemptedsubordinationof literarylanguage. The literaryde-
mands, in fact,a reconsiderationof all received notions of being
itself.
What then, of the all-too-apparentdivergence between Derrida
and Heidegger?

II Derrida on Mallarme
It is common to introduce Derrida's work as a radicalization of
some of the implicationsof structuralism,especially in relationto
the diacriticalnature of the sign ("there are only differences"etc.).
The hollow term,"post-structuralism," withwhichDerrida is invar-
iably associated, may be understood to say it all. Examination of
"Force and Signification"(1963),18 however, reveals a rather dif-
ferentpicture. In this essay, in which Derrida gives a critique of
structuralism,an opposing account of literarylanguage is offered.
This is of broadly a Heideggerian character.
1014 TIMOTHY CLARK

Literarylanguage is characterizedby its ontological effects.As in

Heidegger's account of "poetry,"the literaryis peculiar in its rela-
tion to thatwhich is in excess of any entity-"the essentialnothing
on whose basis everythingcan appear and be produced withinlan-
guage" (WD., p. 8):
The pure book,thebook itself,byvirtueof whatis mostirreplaceable
withinit,mustbe the "bookaboutnothing"thatFlaubertdreamedof
mustbe acknowledged
... This emptinessas thesituationof literature
bythecriticas thatwhichconstitutes of hisobject,as that
thespecificity
aroundwhich he alwaysspeaks.
(WD., p. 8)19
Moreover, the consideration that this absence-of-any-entity may
never itselfbecome an object of any representationrenders the
literarya peculiar structureof appearanceas withdrawal. The critic,
'since nothingis not an object,' must be concerned with"the way
in whichthisnothingitselfis determinedby disappearing" (WD., p.
8). The genesis of a literarytextin a movementof manifestationas
effacementis what Derrida calls "force." It is "force" that is then
opposed to the fixationon "form"thatcharacterizesstructuralism,
whose metaphysicalassumptionsoccupy "Force and Signification."
Rather however, than explore this specific argument against
structuralism,I prefer to move on to the broader implicationsof
the discussion of literaturein "The Double Session." The bizarre
relationof literatureto "nothing"is clarifiedby Derrida's reading
of Mallarme's Mimique.
Despite the precautions which must be added to the notion,
Derrida's reading of Mallarme has somethinglike exemplary status
in relation to the question of the ontological position of the lit-
erary. Mimiqueis introduced as a text that will question the two
concepts of mimesis fromwhichthe concept of literaturehas always
been constructed.
A briefresume of Mallarme's textis necessary.Mimiquepurports
to be a transcription,from gesture into language, of a minidrama
consistingentirelyof a mime. One Pierrot mimes (in retrospect)
his plotting and eventual murder of his wife by ticklingher to
death. He re-enacts the series of events, miming the actions of
both murderer and victimin turn. Derrida, after Mallarme, fo-
cuses on the odd temporal structureof Pierrot'sgestural writing:
"he mimes -'in the present'-'under thefalseappearanceofa present,
the perpetrated crime" (Diss., p. 200). Derrida points out several
 M L N 1015

remarkabletraitsof this performance.First,the mime must be di-

vorced from the classical understanding of mimesis as representa-
tion-"There is no imitation.The Mime imitatesnothing.And to
begin with, he doesn't imitate. There is nothing prior to the
writing of his gestures" (Diss., p. 194). He does not repeat a
presentalready prescribed.The mime is an originary"writing"(or
so it seems) in the sense of production. Pierrot,in the mime,is both
producer, product and, most oddly, the stage itselfor scene of
production. "The histrionproduces himselfhere. Right here-'A
veracioushistrion wasI ofmyself!' " (Diss., p. 198). The bookletwhich
Mallarme describes (PierrotMurdererofhis Wife)is not a scriptbut
an inscriptionafterthe event,a mute writingwhich is gesturaland
which imitatesnothing. Second,because Mimiquedoes not accord
with the classical notion of mimesisas imitationit does not follow
that it obeys the phenomenological sense of mimesisas the un-
veiling or presentation of a present appearance. Derrida insists
that "Thereis mimicry.Mallarme sets great store by it" (Diss., p.
206). Pierrot mimes, alludes to, a perpretratedmurder "underthe
falseappearanceofa present."The mime thus retains,in itsstructure,
a movementof reference that is also, as in the firsttrait,a move-
ment of production. It is this seeming paradox that brings us to
the third trait.Mimiqueseems to incorporate,dissimulateor con-
taminatebothreceived sense of mimesis. Mimesisas representationis
displaced in the structure of a mime which nothing precedes,
which is thus a formof originarywriting.At thesametime,however,
the mime as "originarywriting"is also a structureof allusion and
imitation.So, although nothing precedes it, this gestural writing
could no longer be strictlytermed "originary."Mimesis(sense one)
dissimulates mimesis(sense two) and vice versa. It is a structure
termed by Mallarme " 'a perpetualallusionwithout breakingtheice or
themirror' " (Diss., p. 206). Derrida stressesthe structuralpeculiar-
itiesof this operation:
We are facedthenwithmimicry nothing;faced,so to speak
imitating
witha doublethatdoublesno simple,a doublethatnothinganticipates,
nothingat least thatis not itselfalreadydouble. There is no simple
reference.
(Diss.,p. 206).
Mimesisnot only mimes but is itselfwhat is mimed.
It is necessaryto consider how Mimiquehas thus come to disrupt
the Heideggerian account of poetic language in relationto the on-
1016 TIMOTHY CLARK

tico-ontologicaldifference.In particular,the primarysense of mi-

mesis(the appearingof the appearance) mustlose the prioritywhich
Heidegger accords to it.
The displacement which Derrida brings to the structureof ap-
pearing(mimesis, can
sense one) as a movementof (self-)effacement
be followed in terms of the recurrentquestion of the stage.This
theatricalmodel neatlyraises the question of the invisiblemedium
throughwhich a presentationbecomes apparent. If the geometry
of the stage is a square, everythinghinges on the fourth,open or
"missing"side. This is the side that does not appear:
The openingalready goes unnoticedas opening(aperity, aperture),as a
diaphanouselementguaranteeing thetransparency of thepassageway
to whateverpresentsitself.Whilewe remainattentive, fascinated,glued
to whatpresentsitself,we are unableto see presenceas such,sincepres-
ence does notpresentitself,no morethandoes thevisibility of thevis-
ible,the audibilityof the audible,the mediumor "air,"whichdisap-
pearsin theactof allowingto appear.
(Diss.,pp. 3 13-314)
In almost any of those essays in which the question of literatureis
to the fore, this theatricalmodel is one of Derrida's principal re-
sources. It is prominent in the two essays on Antonin Artaud
(especially "The Theatre of Crueltyand the Closure of Represen-
tation")20as well as "Dissemination"and "The Double Session." As
the quotation shows, the "stage" becomes a philosophical and spe-
cificallya Heideggerian space. It engages withthe structureof the
fold in the ontico-ontologicaldifference,concerningas it does that
''presence [which] does not present itself. . . which disappears in
the act of allowing to appear" (Diss., p. 314).
In Mimiquethe stage is a particularlystrange set-up, since it is
Pierrothimself.However the staging,far frombecoming the invis-
ible fourthside of a scene of representation,has become here itself
theonlyoccupantof the stage. What mightseem to be simplypresence
(mimesis sense one) here "represents"itself.Moreover what is rep-
resented and referredback to does not pre-existPierrot'smime,
the act of referral.By the same token there is no representation,
no correspondence between some pre-existenttheme and itssigni-
fication.Signification,withoutanchoring, envelops the totalityof
what seems to take place even as it produces it. "This speculum
reflectsno reality;it produces 'reality-effects'" (Diss., p. 206). All
that seems staged is the visibilityof the visible-"Nothing but the
 M L N 1017

many-facetedmultiplicity of a lustrewhich itselfis nothingbeyond

its own fragmentedlight"(Diss., p. 208).
The implicationof this reading is that the visibilityof the visible
or the presence of the present is only an effectof the structureof
the fold. When nothingis staged but the stage itselfthe illusion of
theatricaldepthmust be dispelled. The fourthside of the square of
the stage is a mere surface-the reality-effect of a structureof
inter-referral:"The presence of the present only formsa surface"
(Diss., p. 303).
The immediacyof Pierrot'spresentationbecomes an effectof a
structureof difference.There is no temporal present that might
anchor the movementsof referral.He mimes, "underthefalse ap-
pearanceof a present,"the deliberationsthat led up to a crime sup-
posedly perpetrated at the time of the mime. The "action" of the
murder itself,therefore,is temporallycomplex to an extraordi-
naryextent-an anticipationof what willhave already taken place.
The apparent immediacyof the mime is in fact a non-place. The
immediacyof the mime remains ineluctablyinhabited by a struc-
ture of referral.Nothing simplyis at hand or happensin the differ-
ence of the various tenses of the mime's movementsof referral:
Suchdifferencewithoutpresenceappears,or ratherbafflestheprocess
of appearing,by dislocatingany orderlytimeat the centerof the
present.The presentis no longera mother-form around whichare
thefuture(present)and thepast(present).
gatheredand differentiated
(Diss.,p. 210)
Thus the apparent depth of the stage as classicallyunderstood in
termsof a scene of representationgives way to a structureof inter-
referralwithouta centre. Derrida poses this strange inter,under
various guises and verbal variants,as peculiarly prior to the illu-
sions it effects.A betweenmustbe conceived withouta centrein any
meaning of being or structure of phenomenality. Mallarme's
curious stage may thus be related to the more general questioning
of Heidegger on timegiven in Ousia and Grammi(1968).21 In short,
the Heideggerian gathering of the extases of timetowardsthe pres-
ence of the present must give way to a movementor irreducible
temporalizationand to paradoxically unanticipatedafter-effects.
In the initialanalysisof the two notions of mimesisit was argued
(after Heidegger) that the second, as re-presentation,was deriva-
tivein respectof the first,presence, the appearance of the present
in itsappearing. Mimique,however,not onlychallenges thisderiva-
1018 TIMOTHY CLARK

tiveness but scrambles the distinctionbetween presentationand

representation.Mimiquethereforequestions Heidegger's valorisa-
tion of the formeragainst the latter.In an essay on Holderlin, for
example, Heidegger contrastsmere "copies and imitations"with
the "genuine image" of which they are variations. Poetic images
maintain a peculiar phenomenalforce. The "genuine image" "lets
the invisible be seen and so imagines the invisiblein something
alien to it" (PLT., p. 226). In thisstructureof appearance/dissimu-
lation,somethingcomestobe. In Mimiquehowever,it is necessaryto
argue that nothingtakes place, or is presented. Derrida's work
challenges the "genuine image" as a mere effectof mirror-play.If,
as was suggested above, the structureof language as a peculiar
fold of being over "itself" (sic) in a movementof withdrawal,is a
mise en abyme,this abyss must, with Derrida, be considered as
having become bottomless. "No present in truth presents itself
there,not even in the formof its self-concealment"(Diss., p. 230).
The reality-effects of Mimique(what a traditionalcriticwould have
called representation)are merely a surface structure.It is at this
juncture that a decisive break with the Heideggerian example
mightbe said to occur, renderingthe second part of "The Double
Session" the site of concerns forwhich no precedent mightbe sug-
gested as a propadeutic in Heidegger. The scene of representation
as the depth of a stage must give way to surface movementsacross
the text.All the reality-effects of Mimiqueare productsof a textual
play "Wherein allusion becomes a game conformingonly to its
own formalrules" (Diss., p. 219). The second part of "The Double
Session" concerns movements of textual generation through the
play of signifiers.Whereas Heidegger, valorising the revealing/
concealing structuredescribed,concerned himselfwithetymology,
for Derrida, in a text when nothing presents itself,even in the
mode of its self-concealment,it is a matterof a text "less engaged
in settingforththingsor the image of thingsthan it is in settingup
a machine" (Diss., p. 238). The operations of thistextual machine,
however,are beyond the limitsof this present essay.

III Conclusion

Can Mimiquebe said then to have any ontological status if it is an

act (if one may call it that) that refers back to the presence of
nothing that is? Derrida's claim is that Mimiqueconstitutessome-
 M L N 1019

thing that, conversely, challenges the privilege of being as it

governs Western metaphysics.
Many of the peculiar movements of reference traced in "The
Double Session" are already at work in the early sections of Of
Grammatology (1967),22 especially in that section explicitlydevoted
to the question of significationand itsstandingin the wake of Hei-
degger's work. Derrida recapitulatesin these pages the manner in
which being, qua giftof presence, may never become simplythe
theme of any language. Moreover, insistingthat the grammatolo-
gist must "go byway of the question of being as it is directed by
Heidegger and by him alone" (Gr., p. 23), Derrida writesthat the
concept of representationmust be displaced:
The necessary, and irreducible
originary, of themeaning
dissimulation
of being,itsoccultationwithinthe veryblossomingforthof presence
. . . all thisclearlyindicatesthatfundamentally nothingescapes the
movement and that,in thelastinstance,thedifference
of thesignifier
betweensignified is nothing.
and signifier

Yet thislack of differencebetween signifiedand signifieris not the

simple presence of something in itself.Dissimulation is the con-
cern in Grammatology, mimicryin Mimique.More peculiarly,it is not
a case of the presence of anything(sense one of mimesis)or itsrep-
resentation(sense two) but somethingthat is between and neither
while it yet envelops both-"What is lifted,then, is not difference
but the different,the differends,the decidable exteriorityof dif-
feringterms"(Diss., p. 210).
For Heidegger language has a precarious ontologicalfunctionin
its effectuatingthe appearance of a world in its being. Language
would thus have a remarkable privilege,most potentlyin poetry,
in making available the meaningof being, even if the latter is so
elusive and complex a structureas thatof the concealing/revealing
already discussed. The movementfollowedin relationto Mallarme
is thus in line with Derrida's more general questioning of Hei-
degger as it focuses on the notion of meaning in any under-
standing,however subtle,of a "meaning of being."23For Derrida
the fold
neveris-the present-; ithas no proper,literalmeaning;itno longer
in meaningas such,thatis,as themeaningofbeing.The fold
originates
renders(itself)manifoldbut(is) not(one).
(Diss.,p. 229)
1020 TIMOTHY CLARK

This has the effectof renderingthe literarysomethingthatcannot

be subordinated to any metaphysicsor would-be philosophyof lit-
erature. Derrida's polemic against thematiccriticism in "The
Double Session" is relativelyfamiliar ground and need only be
brieflycharacterized here. If literatureis trulyaside frombeing,
and if nothing is simply present in its structureof mimeticplay,
the presence withinit of any theme or subject mattercould hardly
be determined: "there is no essence of literature,no truthof litera-
ture, no literary-beingor being-literaryof literature." (Diss., p.
223) To determinewithinMimiquesome sort of thematicelement,
something it might be said to be about,would merely repeat the
gesture of equating the literarywith representationwhich,as has
been argued, is preciselywhat may not be done. A thematiccriti-
cism would subordinate the text once more to an ontology,the
jurisdictionof what is.24

ofOulu, Finland
University

NOTES

1 Was ist Neostrukturalismus? (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1984).

Frank's concern is to defend an irreducibleindividualityagainst the arguments
of both Heidegger and Derrida.
2 Les fins de l'homme:A partirdu travailde JacquesDerrida,colloque de Cerisy 23
juillet-2 aofit 1980 (Paris: Editions Galilee, 1981).
3 In MarginsofPhilosophy, trans.Alan Bass (Chicago: Universityof Chicago Press,
1982), pp. 109-136. All dates in bracketsgiven in the main textreferto original
publication.
4 In Lesfins del'homme,pp. 133-159.
5 In The Yale Critics:Deconstruction in America,ed. Jonathan Arac, Wlad Godzich,
Wallace Martin (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1983), pp.
156-175. See also Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe's essay to which Gasch6 refers,
"L'6cho du sujet," in Le sujetde la philosophie, I (Paris: Aubier-Flam-
Typographies
marion, 1979). This present essay is indebted to Gasch6's work.
6 In Enclitic,2:2 (1978), trans. eds. (henceforthRM.).
7 On Deconstruction: Theoryand Criticism afterStructuralism
(London: Routledge and
Kegan Paul, 1983), p. 213.
8 "The Limits of Professionalism,"The OxfordLiteraryReview,Vol. 5 (1982), pp.
59-79, 60. Weber's admittedlyad hocdefinitionremains insufficiently distanced
froma brand of negative dialectics,ratherthan somethingwhich (most promi-
nentlyin Derrida's work on Mallarm6) cannotbe reduced, as Lacoue-Labarthe
writesof Heidegger, to "aucune logique (philosophique) de l'identit6et de l'op-
position,""Au nom de . . .," in Lesfins de l'homme, pp. 415-438, 423.
9 In Dissemination, trans. Barbara Johnson (Chicago: Universityof Chicago Press,
1981) (henceforthDiss.), pp. 175-286.
10 In Poetry,Language, Thought,trans. Albert Hofstadter (New York, Harper &
Row, 1971) (henceforthPLT.), pp. 165-186.
 M L N 1021

11 "The Wave's Source: Rhythmin the Language of Poetryand Thought," in Hei-

deggerand Language: A Collectionof Original Papers (Universityof Warwick:
Parousia Press, 1981), pp. [25]-50.
12 Ibid, p. 31.
13 "'The Being of Language and the Language of Being': Heidegger and Modern
Poetics,"Boundary2, Vol. 4, no. 2 (1976), pp. 535-557, 546.
14 Ibid, p. 546.
15 "The Postmodernity of Heidegger," Boundary2, Vol. 4, no. 2 (1976), pp.
411-432.
16 In On theWaytoLanguage,trans.Peter D. Hertz, (San Fransisco: Harper & Row,
1971) (henceforthWL.), pp. 111-136.
17 Compare the followingpassage from"Passe-Partout,"which serves as an intro-
duction to La Vegrite en Peinture(Paris: Flammarion, 1978). In a movementof
thought that must be carefullydistinguishedfrom any of the so-called para-
doxes of reflexivity,Derrida considers the traditionalnotion of the truthof
paintingas the simple presentationof what is (mimesis in the firstsense), folding
this notion of truth and its self-presentationover itself in a miseen abyme.
Paintingpresents
la verit6restitueeelle-meme,en personne, sans mediation, fard, masque ni
voile. Autrementdit la vraie verit6ou la veritede la verit6,restitueedans son
pouvoir de restitution,la verit6se ressemblantassez pour 6chapper a toute
meprise,a toute illusion; et meme a toute representation-mais assez divis~e
deja pour se ressembler,produire ou engendrer deux fois, selon les deux
genitifs:veritede la veriteet veritede la verite.(p. 9)
18 In Writing and Difference,trans.Alan Bass (Chicago: Universityof Chicago Press,
1978) (henceforthWD.), pp. 3-30.
19 Compare Heidegger on being as nothing in Nietsche,VolumeFour, Nihilism,
trans. Frank A. Capuzzi (New York: Harper & Row, 1982):
the default of Being as such is Being itself.In its default Being veils itself
with itself.This veil that vanishes for itself,which is the way Being itself
essentiallyoccurs in default,is the nothingas Being itself.(p. 214)
20 In WD., pp. 232-250; also "La Parole Souffle," in WD., pp. 169-195.
21 In Margins,pp. 31-67, I have discussed the question of time in a forthcoming
article,"Time afterTime: Temporality,Temporalization,"in TheOxfordLiterary
Review.
22 Of Grammatology, trans. G. C. Spivak (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins
UniversityPress, 1974) (henceforthGr.).
23 See "The Ends of Man," p. 51. Compare also Derrida's displacement of the
Heideggerian event of appropriation in EperonslSpurs(Chicago: Universityof
Chicago Press, 1979): "Truth, unveiling,illuminationare no longer decided in
the appropriation of the truthof being, but are cast into its bottomlessabyss as
non-truth,veiling and dissimulation"(p. 119).
24 At the time of writinga book is about to appear certain to be of great impor-
tance to the issues raised in this article, Lacoue-Labarthe's L'imitationdes mo-
dernes:Typographies II (Paris: editions galilee, 1986), concerning the double
sense of mimesisin relationto Diderot, Holderlin, Nietsche,Heidegger, Derrida
and Lyotard.