‘Let us Italicise’

Abstract

This essay examines the abundant emphasising through italics that goes on in Derrida's work and its English translations and argues that the use of italics can be seen to reiterate some of Derrida's major theoretical concepts on the level of literary practice. The paper is divided into three sections, preceded by an introduction that expounds the importance of emphasis in Derrida's writing and on the history of the use of the italic font in general. The first section, ‘Italics-as-Supplement’, offers a general theory of italics as a mode of signification peculiar to print and raises the question of just what the verb ‘italicise’ might entail. The second section, ‘Italics-as-Trace’, focuses on the use of italics in Derrida's prose and the notion of authorial investment that any italic implies. The third section, ‘Italics-as-Spectre’, examines how Derrida uses italics to condition our readings of the texts that he himself cites.