Derrida, de Man, Barthes, and Music as the Soul of Writing

Abstract

We cannot say what music is. Is this because music has no stable identity, or because its stable identity is not accessible to words? Music, for Derrida and Barthes, can be understood through an analogy with the soul. Its mode of existence is problematic (is it a material thing, or not?), but if we allow ourselves to think through how the concept has been used and why we continue to need it in our experience of love and in the face of death, we see what music might do for writing.