REMAKING THE PRESENT THROUGH LANGUAGE: MESSIANIC TIME IN THE WORKS OF YVAN GOLL AND ISIDORE ISOU CONTRA BENJAMIN AND AGAMBEN

Abstract

This essay studies kabbalistic themes addressing temporality in Yvan Goll's and Isidore Isou's poetry, which are evident via the idea of messianic time. It evokes Jewish messianism that promotes a continuous anticipation of the Messiah: the original unity with God (creation) is to be restored by the advent of the Messiah (redemption). However, time infinitely expands between these points, as the Messiah is always yet to arrive. Messianic time is a historical narrative that has no organic, non-symbolic link with the present. In the present, these junctures manifest as incompleteness, as the lack of divine unity. Such a view of messianic time is diametrical to that of Walter Benjamin and Giorgio Agamben, who conceive the present as the only realistic messianic alternative. In Goll's and Isou's poetics, language embodies the lack of unity by incorporating the messianic promise of redemption, which entails that a text and meaning are never completely present before the redemption. It also entails that language will undergo a significant metamorphosis due to the interdependence of language and things. By emulating the letter mysticism of medieval Kabbalah and the temporal aspect of messianism, the poets reiterate and renew the idea of messianic time in their avant-gardist works.