Spectral Gatherings: Derrida, Celan, and the Covenant of the Word

Abstract

Taking as its point of departure Derrida's essay “Shibboleth: For Paul Celan,” this article is concerned with the relation between the poetic discourse of several Celan lyrics and the problematic of circumcision—as religious operation, wound, inscription, linguistic structure—foregrounded in Derrida's reading, and thus on the relation between the event of Celan's lyric, the critical language with which Derrida and other readers engage it, and the discourse of Jewish identity. Also crucial is the relation to Kafka, since the lyric principally under investigation here, Celan's “Einem, der vor der Tür stand,” alludes to Kafka's parable “Before the Law.”