Juste le poème, peut-être (Derrida, Celan)

Abstract

Throughout his philosophical work, Jacques Derrida has incessantly questioned the category of the contemporary taken as the very presence of the present, stressing on the contrary the contretemps, the « out of joint », the heterogeneity of temporalities, « the times of more than one time » returning in it. This question is analyzed here in the philosopher’s exemplary relation to Paul Celan’s poetic work, which impacts profoundly many of Derrida’s writings, from Schibboleth (1986) to his last Seminar. The Beast and the Sovereign (2002-2003). If in the « here and now of the poem », says Celan in The Meridian, « the otherness gives voice to what is most its own : its time », how does one do justice to such a poetic event and read with justesse and justice ? In « Justices », Derrida writes that the ethical responsibility « is exposed not only in what is called life or existence, but in the task of deciphering, reading, and writing ». It is this aspect of the poetic contresignature of and in reading that is examined in the response/responsibility assumed by Derrida in Rams, jointly yet dissymetrically toward Gadamer, Celan, and lastly, the poem itself.