Repetition - in The Kierkegaardian Sense of The Term)

"Repetition (In the Kierkegaardian Sense of the Term)"
Author(s): Arne Melberg

Source: Diacritics, Vol. 20, No. 3 (Autumn, 1990), pp. 71-87
Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/465332
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"REPETITION
(IN THE
KIERKEGAARDIAN
SENSE OF THE TERM)"
ARNEMELBERG
1. Kierkegaard'sGjentagelsen
The Text
Kierkegaardpublished Repetition in 1843; his pseudonym this time was

ConstantinConstantius. The Danish title is Gjentagelsen,meaningliterally
"thetakingback." It is not easy to decide what sortof text this is: a narration
or a philosophical essay or perhapsan ironic mixtureof both. Kierkegaard
has Constantinmake fun of this problematicin a sort of appendix,where he
turnsto "therealreaderof thisbook,"called "Mr.X, Esq."1Thisrealandideal
reader is apparentlynot a critic or an "ordinaryreviewer," since such a
specimen would have taken the opportunityto "elucidate that it is not a
comedy, tragedy,novel, epic, epigram,story and to find it inexcusable that
one tries in vain to say 1.2.3. Its ways he will hardlyunderstandsince they
areinverse;norwill theeffortof thebook appealto him,foras arulereviewers
explain existence in such a way thatboth the universaland the particularare
annihilated"[190/226]. This is said in the final pages, retrospectively,like
a "repetition"to remindthe reader-"Mr. X"-in whatway andgenrehe has
notreadand,perhaps,to hintat a failed dialectic("triesin vain to say 1.2.3.").
And that the "ways"of the text are "inverse."
"Inverse"?
This odd statementat the end of the text may persuade the reader to
"repeat" the very beginning of the text, where Constantin discusses
"movement"inrelationtotheconceptsof repetitionandrecollectionandcomes
up with this definition: "Repetitionandrecollectionarethe same movement,
only in opposite directions, for what is recollected has been, is repeated
backward;whereas the real repetitionis recollected forward"[115/131].
As a conceptual introductionto this text, where the "ways" at last are
called "inverse,"we areinvitedto think"repetition"and"recollection"as the
same movement-only in opposite directions. The same but opposite. And
"repetition"as a movement "forward."
"Forward"?
The beginning and the end of the text Repetitionthus give us two di-
rections, both quite surprising. The beginning I quoted is furthermore
prefaced by a little anecdote about directionsand movement: Diogenes is
1. I quote Kierkegaardfrom Samlede Vaerker5, in comparison with the English

translation by Howard Hong and Edna Hong in Kierkegaard's Writings 6, here 187/
223. Page references will be given in the text. I have in many cases modified the
English translation to make it more literal.
diacritics / fall 1990 diacritics 20.3: 71-87 71
theresaid to have "refuted"the Eleatics,who "deniedmotion"notby sayinganythingbut
by pacing "backand fortha few times" [115/131].
"Back and forth"?
If we then regardthe Diogenes of the anecdote ("backand forth")as a heading for
the text Repetitionandkeep divergingdirectionsin mind ("forward,""inverse")it could
perhaps in a preliminaryway be said that Repetition is a text on movement-and a
movementback and forth. This movementgoes on in the temporalityof the text: I will
show later how the text changes its narrativemode between past andpresenttime. And
philosophicallythetextdiscusses thepast of recollectionandthe nowof "repetition."The
text paces between temporalmodes andbetween narrativeandphilosophicaldiscourses.
The conditions for the movementof the text are defined in its framework,in the "back-
and-forth,""same-but-opposite,""backward-forward" of the beginning; and the "in-
verse" of the end.
This movabletext,Repetition,Kierkegaardwroteironicallyundera pseudonymthat
suggests permanence. The text was publishedtogetherwith Fear and Trembling-this
underthe pseudonymJohannesde Silentio-which concludesin a Heracliteananecdote:
Heraclitusis said to have had a disciple who developed the thoughtof the masterthatyou
cannot enter the same river twice by saying that one "cannot do it even once. Poor
Heraclitus,to have a disciple like that! By this improvement,the Heracliteanthesis was
amended into an Eleatic thesis thatdenies motion"[111/123].
Repetition startsin this logical problemof motion and movement;first Constantin
praises"repetition"for a couple of pages: "it is realityand the earnestnessof existence"
[116/133]. "Repetition"is called the "new"philosophicalidea of the same phenomenon
that "the Greeks"called "recollection"(anamnesis). Constantinthen startsto narrate:
"Abouta year ago," he writes and remembers,"I became very much aware of a young
man"(117/133). This young man-the Danish word is actuallymenneske 'humanbe-
ing'-is melancholicallyin love; Constantin'sdiagnosis is thatthe young man as a poet
lives in memoryandthatthe beloved girl lacks reality(for him). '"Theyoung girl was not
his beloved, she was the occasion thatawakenedthe poetic in him ... and precisely by
that she had signed her own sentence of death" [121/138]. Constantinsuggested a
treatment:the young man should fake his love to anothergirl-meaning thatConstantin
wanted the young man to say one thing and mean another,thatis, become ironic. This
is impossible, however,andConstantinhas to admitthatthe youngmanas a poet only has
one languagewhile the ironisthas two: theironist"discoversanalphabetthathas as many
lettersas the ordinaryone, thushe can expresseverythingin his thieves' languageso that
no sigh is so deep that he does not have the laughterthat correspondsto it in thieves'
language"[127/145].
Constantinmakes some furtherphilosophicalreflectionson the concept of "repeti-
tion" [131/149-I discuss this later] then changes to a new narrationon the "exploring
expedition I made to test the possibility and meaning of repetition"[132/150]. The
expedition heads for Berlin, where Constantinhas once been and where he now wants to
"repeat"what alreadywas. Extensively and enthusiasticallyBerlin is rememberedas it
once was, while the "exploringexpedition"is dismissed as ridiculousand impossible.
The longest descriptionis given the memoryof a Posse, a popularfarce, thatConstantin
once saw andloved butnow findsunbearable--"Theonly repetitionwas theimpossibility
of repetition"[149/170].
This partof the text, thisphilosophicaljourney,seems to me difficultto handle: why
this enthusiasmabout(a) memory? Why this drasticrefutationof "repetition"?If it is a
refutation-perhaps it is a hint that"repetition"of something,whateverit is, is doomed
to failure, while "repetition"as such-as movement-is necessary.
The text moves into its second part,called Gjentagelsen 'the taking back': Rep-
etition. The part-the second part-has the same nameas the whole. Or does this mean
72
that the second part"repeats"the whole as a "repetition"of Repetition? thatthe second
partis thesecundaphilosophia,which Kierkegaardin anothercontextcalls "repetition"?2
The narrativeof the second parttells us thatthe never-fulfilledlove story of the first
comes to its conclusion as real separation.The young man turnsup again writingletters
to Constantin,where we can follow his romanticoutburstsup to the point where the
beloved girl turnsout to have married! Something the young man in his last letter calls
areal"repetition"-"repetition"realizedas theyoung man'sseparationfromhisbeloved!
Gone are the ironies of the first partof the text and we meet instead the privileged form
of romanticself-expression: the sentimentalletter. Gone, too, is the temporaldistance
of the first part: Constantinmoves into the presenttense and his few comments remain
in the same vague now as the letters. NarratologicallyKierkegaardand Constantinmove
from diegesis to mimesis, to use the Platonic terminology. In the shape of mimesis the
doubling-repetition-reversalthat Kierkegaardcalls "repetition"is made acute.
The text is kept in this temporallyvague now until the young man has producedhis
last letter. Then Constantin writes his own letter, separated from part two-the
"repetition"of Repetition-by a page visualizingan envelope with Mr.X on it-"the real
readerof thisbook." We meet, in otherwords,a very literalanddrasticseparationdirectly
afterwe have separatedfrom the young man and the young man from his girl. What we
meet, again, is irony-and in contrastto the pathos of the young man. Constantinuses
this ironic momentto informhis readerof what has happenedand of whatkind of text he
has not read. He repeatshis diagnosis from the firstpart,calling the young man a "poet"
and in contrastto himself: "I myself cannotbecome a poet, and in any case my interest
lies elsewhere" [192/228]. He also calls himself a "vanishingperson"-and in relation
to the young man he has been like "a woman giving birth"[194/230].
Constantinsteps parabasicallyforwardto call himself "vanishing"andpromisingto
"serve"the readerby being "another"[192/228]. And by calling the "ways"of his text
"inverse"[190/226]. It seems thatthe only way to come to termswith his "repetition"
would be to read the text again, spelling out thatotheralphabet,the one thatConstantin
ascribed to the ironist.
The Concept
"Repetition"is, amongotherthingsin Kierkegaard'sRepetition,a philosophicalconcept,

formulatedby KierkegaardthroughConstantinas a reply to the Greek(that is, Platonic)
recollection (anamnesis)and the "mediation"(thatis, dialecticAufhebungof newer (that
is, Hegelian) philosophy.
Let me now afterthe paraphraseabove tryphilosophy: thereare two passages in the
firstpartwhere Constantindevelops the concept "repetition."The first is in the opening
pages, where Constantinsituatesthe concept in relationto "recollection":they are,as we
remember, "the same movement, only in opposite directions," "repetition"moving
"forward"[115/131]. The second is a transitionbetween the narrationon the young man
and thaton the expeditionto Berlin: here Constantindevelops his criticismof "whathas
mistakenlybeen called mediation"[130/148], that is, Hegelian dialectics. Against this
he remindsus of the "Greekdevelopmentof the teachingof being and nothingness,the
developmentof 'the instant,'of 'non-being,"'etc. [131/148]. This is apparentlyanother
Greek theory than the one connecting knowledge and reality with recollection, that is,
2. The expression comesfrom Begrebet Angest (The Concept of Agony) [SV 6:119]. One
willfind a discussionof "repetition"there,esp. 116n; also in PhilosophiskeSmuler(Philosophical
Trifles)[SV6]; Kierkegaard'sPapirer(Papers)from1844; Constantin'spolemicsagainstHeiberg;
and chap. 1 in Johannes Climacus's De omnibus dubitandumest.
diacritics / fall 1990 73
anotherPlato:conceptslike beingandnothingnesswe findin Plato'sdialogueParmenides,
which is also Plato's most rigorousanalysis of those "Eleatics"who became famous for
"denying motion,"accordingto the first page of Repetition.
Constantin's discussion makes it apparent that he has found more in Plato's
ParmenidesthanPlatonicanamnesis and Eleatic immobility. He has even found a term
thatsounds more like KierkegaardthanPlato: oieblikket,literally meaning"theglance
of the eye" and here translatedas the "instant." The term probably derives from a
suggestivepassageof Parmenides thatI will takeuplater. Herethe"instant"is associated
with "repetition"beforeConstantincontinueshis discussionof therelationof the concept
to Hegelian "mediation"(dialectics):
It is in our days not explainedhow mediationcomes about,if it is a result of the

movementof the two elements, and in what way it alreadyfrom the start is
containedin these, or if it is somethingnew thatis added, and in that case how.
In this regard the Greekideas about the conceptkinesis, which correspondsto
the moderncategory 'transition,'shouldbe consideredseriously. Thedialectic
of repetitionis easy; because what is repeated,has been, otherwiseit could not
be repeated, but thefact that it has been, makesrepetitioninto the new. When
the Greeks said that all knowledge is recollection, then they said that all of
existence, which is, has been, whenyou say thatlife is a repetition,you say: the
existence, that has been, now becomes. Whenyou haven't got the category of
recollection or repetition,all life dissolves intoan emptynoise devoidof content.
[131/149]
First Constantindiscusses dialectics: is the Aufhebungof synthesis ("mediation")the

resultof movementin or between thesis andantithesis("thetwo elements")or is it a new
movement? The question may seem narrow, but is interesting since it indicates
Constantin'sinterest: to makedialectics into a formof movement. The associationwith
"repetition"makesclearthatthemovementis a movementin time: a temporalfigure. The
second sentence preparesfor this temporalityby way of termslike kinesis (movement)
and "transition";the lattermay be Kierkegaard'sversion of metaballonand both these
termsare extensively used in Parmenides. The sentence seems unclearto me but under-
lines Constantin'sfascination: movement.
Then the "dialecticsof repetition"is established-in contrast,we may assume, to
Hegelian dialectics and in conflict with the "Eleatics"(who "deniedmovement"),but in
affiliationwithkinesis. "Repetition"is herea movementin time: re-take,re-peat,re-turn,
re-versemeansgoing backin time to what"hasbeen." But still, in spiteof this movement
backward,"repetition"makes it new and is thereforea movement forward: it is "the
new." The reasonthis movementbackwardis actuallya movementforwardis temporal:
you cannot re-peat/re-takewhat has been, since what has been has been. The now of
"repetition"is always an after. But not only: since the movement of "repetition"also
makes it new, makes"thenew"-simultaneously withbeing a repeatingre-duplication-
"repetition"suspendsthetemporalorderof before-afterin orby thatnow previouslycalled
"the instant."The temporaldialectics of "repetition"suspends temporalsequence: the
now that is always an after comes actually before-it is the now of "the instant,"the
sudden intervention in sequential time, the caesura that defines what has been and
prepareswhat is to become. If there is one sentence summarizing"Repetition(in the
Kierkegaardiansense of the term),"then this is that sentence.
Next Constantincontrasts"repetition"to Platonic anamnesis. The philosophy of
recollectionabsolutizeswhathas been, accordingto Constantin,andtherebyexcludes the
movementforward,"thenew." Recollected life is posthumouslife, whereas"repetition"
74
transcends recollectionandreduplication byits"takingback"andmakingnew. "Repeti-
tion"thusinstallsnowas theimpetusof existenceandbecomingas its movement.
Thethirdandfourthsentencesworkto give a temporalprivilegeto thenow. A few
sentencesearlierin the text Constantinassociatedthe "instant"and"nonbeing"with
"repetition."He is probablythinkingof a sequenceinPlato'sParmenides[156DE]that
discussesthe relationsamongmovement(kinesis),standstill(stasis),and changeor
transition(metaballon).PlatohasParmenides askhimselfandus whatstrangeposition
timeis takingwhenchange-movement-transition occurs.He answers:"theinstant"(to
eksacfnes;theLatintranslation is momentum). Furtherdiscussionunderscores thatthis
conceptis anonconcept, sinceitreferstoaphenomenon thatonlyexistsinthestateof what
Constantin wouldcall "nonbeing."PlatohasParmenides putit like this: "thisstrange
instantaneous nature,thissomethingthatis patchedbetweenmovementandstandstilland
thatdoesnotexistin anytime;butintothisinstantandoutof thisinstant,thatwhichis
in movementchangesinto standstilland thatwhich is at a standstillchangesinto
movement."
"Repetition"as a temporalfiguregives priorityto thatinstantaneous now thatis
calculatedaccordingto theparadoxical "instant"
of Plato'sParmenides.
The final sentenceof my quotationtakes a step backwardin the dialecticby
suggestingthatthecontrast between"repetition"and"recollection" wasnotabsoluteafter
all. Botharehereconceptsof orderbringingsomekindof conceptualorganization to an
existencethatwithoutthisorderwouldbe a "noise"withoutmeaning.It is worthnoting
that when he imaginesthe worldof nonmeaning,Constantinleaves his prominent
temporalor spatialvocabulary to evokean auditivehorror:purenoise.
* * *
TheconceptualexegesisI havetriedaboveshouldhavegivensomehintswhy"repetition"
is such a hauntingconceptfor problematicandproblematizing modemthinkerslike
Nietzsche,Freud,andDerrida.I will tryto show,in thesecondhalfof thisessay,why
and how "repetition" was obsessivefor Paulde Man. HereI can only mentionthat
Heidegger'sWiederholung as it is developedin SeinundZeit [especially65-74] may
wellbethelinkbetween Kierkegaard anddeconstructivethinking-exceptthatHeidegger's
associationof Wiederholung witha dramatictermlikeEntschlossenheit("openingde-
cisiveness")tendsto underscore the"existential"dimensionsof theconcept:itspathos.
The reasonwhy Kierkegaard mayhavemodemrelevance-even whenhe insiststhat
"repetition"is a "transcendental" categorygivingprivilegeto thepresenceof thenow;
andevento thinkerswhoelsewhereseemimmuneto thetranscendental andcriticalof all
ideasof "presence"-mustbe thathis"repetition" is an"existential"
as well as a textual
category.Thisis possiblesincehe insistson "repetition" as a temporalterm-tempus
havinggrammatical, andnarratological
syntactical, meaningbesidesbeingtheverymode
forbeingandbecoming,thuscombiningpathosandirony.
Kierkegaard's "repetition"is furthermorea paradoxicalterm: it temptswith the
presenceofaprivilegednowwhileexcluding thispresence.ThedialecticofKierkegaardian
"repetition"is-according to Constantin-"easy":"whatis repeated,hasbeen,other-
wiseit couldnotbe repeated,butthefactthatit hasbeen,makesrepetitionintothenew."
Thismeansthattheprivilegednowhasalwaysalreadybeen,andwhathasbeencould
alwaysbecome.Thisparadoxical movementcatchessomethingof thedialecticsof time
as instantandtimeas process;andtimeis, afterall, bothsequentialand"existential" in
thesenseof instantaneous. Theparadoxof Kierkegaardian "repetition"is thatit triesto
keepthesedivergentdimensionstogetherin onemovement-making"repetition" intoa
nonconceptor a conceptnegatingthepresenceit suggests;or a nonconceptrelatedto
Plato'sto eksaifnesin Parmenides:"thisstrangeinstantaneous nature,thissomething
patched between movement and standstill and that does not exist in any time"; or
Derrida'scontemporarynonconceptslike differanceor iteration.
The Story
The philosophicalpartsof Repetitionarenarrativelyframed,andthe questionis now how

concept andnarrativecombine: do they supporteach otheroraretheretensions? The text
is rich in possibilities, but I will discuss just two: its pathos, concentratedin the young
man's sublime wishes, and its irony, exemplified by Constantin'stextual "reversal."
a. SublimeSilence ?
Repetition tells us amongotherthingsof the namelessyoung manunhappilyin love with

a nameless young girl. The second partgives the young manthe floor throughthe letters
he sends to Constantinreportingon his feelings up to the point he learnsthatthe girl has
married.Afterhavingcomparedhis miserablelove storywith theordealof Jobof the Old
Testament,the young man seems preparedto interpretthe unhappyoutcome happily,as
a real"repetition.""Istherenot, then,a repetition?Did I not get everythingdouble? Did
I not get myself back and precisely in such a way thatI might have a double sense of its
meaning?"[185 f./220 f.].
The questionform hints thatthe young man is not quiteconfidentthathe has got the
thing right. His lack of confidence returnsin several commentaries,where problemsof
interpretationare solved by the idea thatKierkegaardmay have transformedan original
version, where the young man was to commit suicide.3 Our young man welcomes his
liberation. My "yawl is afloat,"he exclaims [186/221], looking forwardto sailing on the
sea where "ideas spume with elemental fury, where thoughtsarise noisily ... where at
other times thereis a stillness like the deep silence of the South Sea," etc. He compares
his new position to a "beakerof inebriation"andpraisesthe"crestingwaves, thathide me
in the abyss"and "fling me up above the stars." It is not self-evidentthatthe young man
should be inspired by learning that his beloved has married,nor is the "repetition"
a
apparent. The young man's metaphors,moreover,seem disturbing:the prospectsfor
"yawl"on a spumysea seem notverypromising.Andif theyoungmanis the"yawl,"who,
then, is the helmsman?
The young man's perhapsdisturbingenthusiasmis expressed in terms that only a
little earlierin aesthetichistorywere standardwhen describingthesublime: "spumewith
elemental fury,""waves thathide me in the abyss ... thatfling me up above the stars."
We recognize the vocabularyfrom one of this young man's closest predecessors, that
nameless, unfortunate,and sublime lover in Rousseau's Julie (1760), known by the
pseudonym "Saint-Preux."When he learns thathis beloved Julie actually has married,
he doesn't exactly welcome this, but he bids farewell to everythingfor the sea. And in
his final letter[3:26], which also is the lastof the thirdpartof thenovel andits very turning
the
point, he listens to the signal of the departingboat and welcomes the "vast sea,
immense sea, thatperhapswill engulf me."4
3. It shouldperhapsbe notedthatthetraditionalDanish interpretationofRepetitionis heavily

serious
biographical and connects the story with Kierkegaard'sbroken engagement. The only
treatment of the text as narrative text is found in Aage Henriksen, Kierkegaardsromaner
[Copenhagen, 1954].
4. Oeuvrescompletes 2:397: "Ilfautmontera bord, ilfautpartir. Mer vaste, mer immense,
qui doispeut-etre m'engloutirdans ton sein; puissai-je retrouversur tesflots le calme quifuit mon
coeur agite!"
76
ImmanuelKant,too, who was an avid readerof Rousseaubutcertainlynot excessive
in his vocabulary,comes upwith seaand starswhendiscussingthe sublime,dasErhabene,
in Kritik der Urteilskraft [1790, #29]. The sea in itself is not sublime, but it can be
experienced as sublime, according to Kant, if we manage to purge the experience of
purposeand meaning. To experience the sea as sublime, writes Kant,we must not see it
as we representit in thought,notas, forexample,anelementunitingpeople andseparating
continents,because "suchareonly teleologicaljudgments."To find the sea sublime,"we
mustregardit as the poets do, accordingto what the impressionupon the eye reveals, as,
let us say, when it is calm, a clear mirrorof waterboundedonly by the heavens, or when
it is agitated,like an abyss threateningto engulf all."5
Even the "thunderstorm,"which Kierkegaard'syoung man in his last letters is
looking forward to as an upsetting preparationfor the instant of "repetition,"has its
counterpartin Kant:in #27 he writesthatthe experienceof thesublimeis mobile (bewegt)
in contrastto the beautiful,which is experiencedcalmly, in ruhigerKontemplation.The
mobilityis morepreciselycalled an agitation(Erschiitterung),thatis, a "rapidlychanging
repressionandattractionof the very same object."6(Constantinwould have remindedus
of the usefulness of that Greek thinking of kinesis when it comes to the paradoxes of
"repetition.")
When the young man in his last letter exclaims that his "yawl is afloat," he is
apparentlyheadingfor a voyage withoutpurposeormeaning-but expectingthe sublime,
or, to say it with Kant,both abyss and heaven. Whatis remarkableis thatthe young man
describes his expected experiences in auditive terms: ideas are about to "spume,"
thoughts to "arisenoisily"; and he also expects a "stillness like the deep silence of the
SouthSea"[186/221]. Noise as well as silence indicatethattheyoung man's expectations
of the sublime point to the nonverbalor to puresound (thatis, languagewithoutpurpose
ormeaning). Orto deep silence. Thedesireof this textfor aprivilegednow canbe realized
only beyond a language of meaning.
This desire or expectationis realized, althoughwith heavy irony, thatis, in a mode
far from the young man's language. Whatfollows afterthe young man has expressedhis
spumingdesires to leave languageis neithersilence nor void-but text as object, thatis,
beyond purposeor meaning. Whatfollows on the page afterthe young man's last word
is the picture of an envelope addressed to the anonymous Mr. X and "containing"
Constantin'sletter to "thereal readerof this book."
But the text carries anotherexpectation that is not realized in any way, not even
ironically, when the young man heads for his sublime noise. I am thinking of the
conceptual analysis quoted above, where Constantinstated that both "repetition"and
recollectionareconceptsof orderandwithoutthese "alllife" would dissolve in "anempty
noise devoid of content"[131/149]. It was apparentin this passage thatrecollection and
"repetition"were not opposites in this respect but that both (in different directions?)
organized the "noise" of phenomenal world/life into meaning-we may guess from
circumstancesthat"repetition"would offer a paradoxicalmeaningbut still a contrastto
5. Kritikder Urteilskraft175f.: "denndas gibt lauter teleologische Urteile; sondern man

muss den Ozean bloss, wie die Dichter es tun, nach dem, was der Augenschein zeigt, etwa, wenn
er inRuhe betrachtetwird,als einenklarenWasserspiegel,derbloss vomHimmelbegrenztist, aber
ist er unruhig, wie einen alles zu verschlingen drohendenAbgrund, dennoch erhaben finden
konnen." The passage is thoroughly commentedon by Paul de Man in "Phenomenalityand
Materialityin Kant."
6. KritikderUrteilskraft155: "DasGemiitflihltsich in der Vorstellungdes Erhabenenin der
Natur bewegt: da es in dem isthetischenUrteile iiber das Sch6ne derselbenin ruhiger
Kontemplationist. Diese Bewegung kann... mit einer Erschiitterungverglichenwerden, d. i. mit
einer schnellwechselndenAbstossen undAnzieheneben desselben Objekts."
pure noise. The young man, however, expects a new life afterhis "repetition"in terms
that come suspiciously close to that "emptynoise" fearedby Constantin.
Something has gone wrong here in the relationbetween concept and narration-or
between Constantinand the young man. PerhapsConstantinshouldhave told us thatthe
young man had seriously misunderstoodthe concept of "repetition"and thatby leaping
into the nonlinguisticnonorderhe approachessomethinglike Kierkegaardian"despair"?
Nothing, however, preventsus from seeing the young man's sublime expectationsas a
(narrative) correction of Constantin's conceptual analysis-nothing, at least, until
Constantin'sfollowing and final letter. The correctionwould situate"repetition"in the
"abyss"or among the "stars"or in "noise"or "silence"-in any case beyond languageas
a hintthattheprivilegednow of the "instant"canbe foundonly outsidetimeandmeaning.
b. Ordo inversus
Constantininformsus repeatedlythatthe young man is a poet. "Imyself cannotbecome

a poet" [192/228], he says, and calls himself a "prose writer" [184/218]-the word
prosaist can also be understoodas "prosaicwriter." Developed full-scale in Hegel's
aesthetics,in Kierkegaard'sday this well-knownoppositionof prosevs. poetrycoincided
with something like romanticismvs. prosaicreality,and the romantic-poeticpole of the
opposition was associated with subjectivity,imagination,and an orphic vision.
Otheringredientsof the text makeConstantinandthe young maninto opposites: the
nameand the eye. While Constantinis a telling pseudonym,the young man is nameless.7
And in contrastto Constantinhe has troublewith his eyes: he escapes from his beloved
in ordernot to have to look at her;"Thinkof me spottingher,"he writes to Constantin,
"I believe I would have gone mad" [166/192]. Constantin,on the otherhand, does not
hesitate to use his eyes in contactwith girls: "my eyes soughther,""my eyes were upon
her" [146 f./167], he tells us when reportingon a meeting in Berlin. And thatglance of
the eye--ieblikket -of course has decisive importancefor Constantin'sdevelopment
of the philosophy of "repetition."
It is differentwith the young man, our orphicpoet: he escapes seeing his nameless
in
Eurydice,and his final fantasyof a sublimepresence is beyond the eye and its glance
the sense that his fantasy is auditive.
The eye and the glance were problemsalso for the mythicalOrpheus,who may well
be one allegoricalpatternbehindorbeforeConstantin'syoungpoet andhis sad love story;
anotherone could be Psyche, who is blindedby meetingEros, or could face the God only
in darkness. The mythof Orpheushas to do with the glance, with retrieval,and with that
manifest reversal of Eurydice's turningaround-and, of course, of inspiration,song,
poetry. The ambiguityof the mythhas been wonderfullyanalyzedby MauriceBlanchot,
when he points out, for example, thatthe orphic"turning"to Eurydicemeansdestruction
and Eurydice's returnto the shadows;but not turningwould not be a lesser "betrayal":
her
againstthat"movement"of Orpheusthatmeansthathe wantsto haveEurydicenot in
"daily truth"but in her "nocturnalobscurity," in her "distance,"that he wants to see her
"not when she is visible but when she is invisible."8 Like this Orpheus, our young man
7. Interestingviewsontheyoungman's namelessnessarefoundinLouisMackey,"OnceMore
with Feeling: Kierkegaard'sRepetition," Kierkegaardand Literature: Irony, Repetition and
Criticism,ed. RonaldSchleifer and RobertMarkley[Norman: UofOklahomaP, 1984] 98: "The
decisive event reportedin the letter of August 15 is the young man's loss of his name."
8. L'espace litteraire [Paris, 1955] 228: "en se tournant vers Eurydice, Orphee ruine
l'oeuvre, l'oeuvre immnediatement se d'efait, et Eurydicese retourneen l'ombre; l'essence de la
nuit, sous son regard, se revele commel'inessentiel. Ainsi trahit-il l'oeuvre et Eurydiceet la nuit.
78
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wants to see his girl but still not see her,and to worshipher at a distance. Alreadyat the
beginningof the text, Constantinpointsout thatthe young man's love is poetical: the girl
"awakenedthe poetic in him and made him a poet" [121/138], allegorically speaking
Orpheuscreates his Eurydicein orderto become the power of singing. Constantinadds
that"preciselythereby[she] had signed herown deathsentence": the orphic-poeticlove
demandsthe absence of the woman or needs the woman as shadow, as death.
On only one occasion does the girl stopbeing the shadowof thetext: by her suddenly
being married. This-her firstand last sign of life-makes herfinally dead to the young
man. The allegoricalreadingaccordingto Orpheuswould indicatethis as a result of the
young man's turningaround,his reversal. But this does not work: as faras I can see this
reversal-leading-to-"repetition" is the resultof her turningherback on him and walking
into theHadesof marriage.Hereanallegoricalreadingaccordingto Psyche andErosmay
be closer: in the decisive momentthe eye turnsaway or is blinded;the glance of the eye
makes it all dark.
No allegorical expectations,however, neitheraccordingto Orpheus's story nor to
Psyche's, fit the young man's final fantasies after the girl has turned around and
disappeared.His auditiveenthusiasmis insteadanalmostpolemical contrastto the visual
fantasies on the conditions of love and languagethatfound mythicalexpressions in the
tales of Orpheusand of Psyche and Eros.
It is at this decisive point in the text-when voice threatensglance and when sound
threatensmeaning-that Constantinmakes his visual coup: thatparabasicalpictureof a
letter, framinghis final message to the "realreader"Mr. X. It is an ironic intervention,
an ironic punctuation of the pathetic letters of the young man. And the irony is
underscoredby Constantin,in his letter,when he addressesthe type of writerwho knows
how to write "insuch a way thatthe hereticscould not understandit" [194/225]-that is,
the writerwho writes with double meaningor, as Constantinput it in the first partof the
text, who "canexpress all in his thieves' languageso thatno sigh is so deep thathe does
not have the laughterthat correspondsto it in thieves' language"[127/145].
Constantin's ironic position puts an end to the allegory according to Orpheusor
accordingto Psyche and Eros but also to the young man's auditive fantasies. There is
neverthelessa connectionbetween his irony and the allegory, and this connection is the
same as the concept, the story, and the text: "repetition."
In his well-known analysis of allegory Paul de Man writes that the "meaning
constituted by the allegorical sign can then consist only in the repetition (in the
Kierkegaardiansense of the term)of a previous sign with which it can never coincide,
since it is of the essence of this previous sign to be pure anteriority"["TheRhetoricof
Temporality"207]. This formaldefinitionof allegory de Man connects with irony and
arguesthatallegory and ironyare "linkedin theircommon discovery of a trulytemporal
predicament"[222]. This "predicament"I take to be the discovery of an instantaneous
now, or ratherthatthepresentnow, to become thepresenceof an instantaneousnow, must
have a precedence.
The Kierkegaardian"repetition"thatde Manhas in mindcan only be the"repetition"
in those senses I have analyzedabove, the "takingback"thattells us that"theexistence,
that has been, now becomes" [131/149]. This is a "temporalpredicament,"to use de
Man's judgment, because the now that is privileged by "repetition"is also an after,
meaning that the presence of the now presupposesan absence-something like the ab-
sence of the girl thatis needed to serve the young man's orphicpassion. Or something
Mais ne pas se tournervers Eurydice, ce ne serait pas moins trahir, etre infidele a la force sans
mesureet sans prudencede son mouvement,qui ne veutpas Eurydicedans sa veritddiurneet dans
son agrdmentquotidien,qui la veut dans son obscuritenocturne,dans son eloignement,avec son
corpsfermd et son visage scelle, qui veut la voir, non quand elle est visible, mais quand elle est
invisible. . "
80
like thatfamous nonmeetingof Psyche andEros: an allegoricalsign for presence, which
can take place only in the absence of blinded darkness.
How can such a temporaldialectic be recounted?
Kierkegaard'sanswer was the "indirectmessage." Kierkegaardcommunicated
indirectlythroughpseudonymsandby lettinga pseudonymlike Constantincommunicate
ironically, in "thieves' language." IndirectlyConstantintells the readerhow to read the
text Repetition, by telling him, in his concluding letter, how not to read it: not as a
"comedy, tragedy,novel." And not straight,since its "ways"are "inverse"[190/226].
"Inverse"?
The word hardlyexists in Danish but seems to be derived from the Latin inversio,
which in classical rhetorics was a term with both syntactical and semantical sense.
Syntacticallythe termmeanta reversedorderof the sentence or sentences;semantically
the termmeant"tosay in anotherway,"thatis, it translatedtheGreektermallegory. Both
these senses of an ordo inversus, a reversed order, combine in Repetition: the young
man's allegory is semanticalby repeatinga myth. Constantin'sironic interventionwith
his final letter is syntactical: a reversalin the text. Constantintherebygives us a sign
confirmedby the letter: thatthe "ways"of the textRepetition are "inverse,"makingthe
text into an ironicallegoryof motion: moving, like Diogenes, backandforthbetweeneye
and ear, between irony and pathos,between past and presenttime, between concept and
story.
Whetherall this mobilityfunctionsto organizeor disorganizethe text-and whether
ironyand allegoryare unitedor separatedin the conceptof "repetition"-may have to do
with our readingof the relationbetween the young man and Constantin,thatis, between
pathosandirony,between"repetition"as an "existential"andas a textualpossibility. The
irony of Constantinhas the firstandlast wordof the text, but the pathosof the young man
creates its tensions. The inversio of the young man seeks life but threatensto leave the
text. Constantin'sinversio is a back-and-forthin the wake of Diogenes, who according
to anecdote took a walk to refute those "Eleatics"who "deniedmotion"[1 15/131]. But
Constantindiffers from Diogenes in using words. Language is his field. The indirect
message seems to be that his mobile text keeps language alive-and keeps life within
linguistic order.
* * *
Ordoinversus,the reversed-repeatedorder,meansputtingthings on theirheads: putting

them right. The philosophy of the subject inauguratedby Kant and radicalized by
Kierkegaardmakes subjectivityinto truth. That is an inversio working ironically in the
textRepetition. But thisironyhardlylackspathosandhaseven got some sublimetouches.
A late follower of these pre- andpostromantics,Paul Celan, had a sense for this sublime
reversal; he once pointed out, "whoever walks on his head, ladies and gentlemen-
whoever walks on his head, he has the heavens as an abyss underneathhim."9
2. Paul de Man on the Point of Repetition
Paul de Man's interestin "repetition"and "movement"seems to be of an early date. In

one of his critical readingsof Heideggerfrom the fifties he finds thatHeideggerbetrays
nothing less than "the movement of being" ["TheTemptationof Permanence"38]. In
another from the same period he concludes that H6lderlin, contrary to Heidegger's
9. "Der Meridian," Der Meridianund andereProsa 51: "Werauf dem Kopf geht, meine
Damen undHerren,-wer auf dem Kopfgeht, der hat den Himmelals Abgrunduntersich."
assertions, shows no "singularontological reversal,but a lived philosophy of repeated
reversal, that is nothing more thanthe notion of becoming."10The odd expression "re-
peated reversal"readsretournementrepetdin the Frenchoriginal,which seems to be de
Man's formulationof the "movementof being"as repetition. Alreadyhere his notionof
repetitionseems closer to Kierkegaard'sthanto Heidegger'sWiederholung,thatis, fairly
free from thatEntschlossenheit("openingdecisiveness")thatHeideggeruses in Sein und
Zeit to connect "repetition"with "fate";insteadde Man seems to be open to "repetition"
as a textual phenomenonas well as an "existential"or at least intentionalpossibility.
Taking Kierkegaard'sRepetition as an allegory, we could say that Constantinand the
young man are strugglingfor the initiativewithin de Man's text.
Repetition as a textual phenomenonis developed into the concept of irony in the
already-mentionedessay "TheRhetoricof Temporality"from 1969, which must be the
startingpoint of an investigationof "repetition"in the de Maniansense of the term. Not
only has this been called his "mostfully achievedessay" [Waterslvi], but it has also been
judged as the very turningpointleadingfroman earlier,existential-phenomenologicalde
Man to a later, deconstructivede Man, exploring rhetoricalanalysis. "TheRhetoricof
Temporality" is also the only text (so far published) in which de Man refers to
Kierkegaard;and if one were to choose a turningpoint in the essay, itself a turningpoint
in de Man's writings,I would suggest the parenthesisin which de Manclaims "repetition
(in the Kierkegaardiansense of the term)"to be the "meaning"of the allegorical sign
[207]. In any case thisparenthesismarksa decisive turnin theessay: fromliteraryhistory
to epistemology and from allegory to irony.
"TheRhetoricof Temporality"is organizedin two parts,the first a historicalstudy
of the"symbol,"whereallegoryis introducedas a polemicalcounterpartto "symbol,"the
second a more epistemologicalstudyof "irony."In a conclusion the concepts are linked
togetherin "theircommon discovery of a truly temporalpredicament"[222]. Textual
allegory, in contrastto "symbol,"is said to producea "negative"insight in an "authen-
tically temporalpredicament"[208]-and we observe thatnot only "truly"and "authen-
tically"but also "predicament"seem to be favorite terms.
Allegorical insight is called "negative"because the allegoricalsign does not referto
"meaning" but to another sign, characterizedby "anteriority." Allegory therefore
accentuates"distance"in contrastto the "symbol,"to which de Man ascribes the effort
to reachthe full presenceof meaning(or of meaningas presence). But allegory not only
remindsus of "distance"but reaches its "negative"insight by establishingits language
"in the void of this temporaldifference"[207]. And therede Man's formaldefinitionof
allegorysuddenlyacquiresa mysticaltouch: how canlanguage-and notonly allegorical
language because allegorical language is here apparentlyan allegory of language in
general-be "established"in a "void"?The expressioncarriesa metaphoricalsuggestion
of the very type thatde Manis criticizingas mystifyingly"symbolic."But it does not take
much reading to discover that de Man in "The Rhetoric of Temporality"uses an
abundanceof spatialand/orvisual metaphorsto suggest the temporalityof language,and
most strikingare the metaphorsof mirrorsand mirroring.
The mirrorbecomes explicit at the end of the essay whereironyis linked to allegory
in that common "temporalpredicament." Irony is there called "the reversed mirror-
image"of allegory [225]. This expressionalso strikes me as mystical-are not mirror-
images always "reversed"?what,then,would the reversalof an alreadyreversedmirror-
image look like?-but thephrasegives a visualsuggestionof the"temporalpredicament"
10. "Heidegger'sExegesesof Holderlin,"BlindnessandInsight250. Theoriginal,in Cri-

tique100 (Sept.1955),has: "IIn'y a donepas, dansHilderlin,un retournement ontologique
unique,mais unephilosophievecuedu retournement qui n'est autreque la notiondu
repeted,
devenir."
82
thatincludesa "reversal."(Rememberyoungde Man'sinterestin theretournementrepete
'repeatedreversal'.) The following sentences "temporalize"the mirroringmetaphor,so
to speak, by a host of termsindicatingsuddenness: the ironic interventionin allegorical
narrationis called "instantaneous,"it takes place "rapidly,""suddenly,""in one single
moment." As an example we are given Baudelaire's prose poems, which are said to
"climax in the single brief moment of a final pointe" [225 f.].
Pointe could of course mean the "point"of meaningas well as a temporal"instant,"
the graphicaldot or grammaticalfull stop. Everythingde Man writes on irony in "The
Rhetoric of Temporality"emphasizes its sudden break in temporality: time as instant
breakinginto time as sequence. With a word like pointe (and all those other words for
suddenness),he indicatesa kind of "time"thatis so limited thatit is no longer"time"but
instead is a break in time, like a visual dot in the time line. We recognize by now the
phenomenonfrom Plato's to eksaifnes in Parmenides and from Kierkegaard'soieblikk
and Heidegger's Augenblick.
"Repetition(in the Kierkegaardiansense of the term)"is what de Man suggests as
a solution to the problem of time, "repetition"as the link uniting time as sequence
("allegory")and time as instantexistence ("irony"). De Man emphasizes, however, the
Kierkegaardianinterest in the eye that I noted above with allusions to the allegorical-
mythical complex Orpheus-Eros-Psyche(and the last is much alluded to in de Man's
essay as well). De Man expresses this visual interestby way of this "reversedmirror-
image." And the meaningof the mirroris establishedwith the help of Baudelaire'sDe
l'essence du rire (andBaudelaire'srire is unqualifiedlyidentifiedwith "irony").De Man
picks upBaudelaire'sexamplewith the manlaughingat himself when falling in thestreet.
This has to do with a doubling,dedoublement,of the individualinto a falling man andan
observing man. In the state that Baudelairecalls le comique absolue this doubling be-
comes permanent;according to de Man it is a split of the subject provoking uncanny
giddiness: "Ironyis unrelievedvertige, dizziness to the point of madness" [215].
Doubling,split, andvertigoareall spatialphenomenathatareinvestedwith temporal
irony by de Man. The intersectionof space with time takes place at that"point"that is
a turningpoint as well as a "pointof madness." When de Man a bit furtheron comes to
Baudelaire's"instantaneous,""rapid,"and"sudden"pointe,madnessseems againnot far
beside the point, so to speak. Thatpointe is namely "the instantat which the two selves
... are simultaneouslypresent,juxtaposed within the same moment";this moment is
called "the mode of the present" [226]. And this sounds both like a definition of
schizophrenia and like an evocation of that Platonic ousia, usually translated (by
Heidegger, for example) as the presence of the present.
We may note herethatthis sharp,thin,anddividingpoint-pointe-that de Manuses
to describe repetition,or repetitivereversalfrom time into space, is indeed thin but still
has a kind of extension: it allows for repetition in the form of reflexion, doubling,
mirroring. And it invites the "modeof the present."
The only comment I have found on de Man's visual metphors associated with
mirroringrepetitionis, of course,JacquesDerrida'sin PsycheM,wherehe quotesde Man's
assertion on the "trulytemporalpredicament"discovered by irony and allegory. "The
mirroris here the predicament,"writes Derrida,the mirroras a "deadlyand fascinating
trap.""
What is this-the mirroras trap? Perhaps it is the simple but uncanny effect of
mirroringmirrors,something thatWalterBenjaminonce describedbeautifully: "When
two mirrorslook intoeach other,Satanplays his mostpopularprankandopens in his own
11. Psyche28: "Lemiroirestici lepredicament....Onestenproieaupiegefataletfascinant

dumiroir."Thereis anEnglishtranslation
of thisinReadingdeManReading,ed.LindsayWaters
andWladGodzich[Minneapolis:U of MinnesotaP, 1989].
way (as his partnerdoes in the eyes of lovers) the perspectiveinto eternity."12Derrida,
for his part,alludes to the no-less-uncannymythof Eros and Psyche, alreadymentioned
here as a backgroundreadingnot only for Kierkegaardbut also for de Man. According
to Derridathe blinking meeting of Eros-Psychecreatesgrief, deuil, due to the impossi-
bility of transparencyand presence. The word, or at least "a traceof language,"makes
presence impossible and mirroringor reflexion necessary.13
De Man started his essay by defining allegory by way of "repetition (in the
Kierkegaardiansense of the term)"and ended with irony as a "reversedmirror-image."
The question is whether these suggestive termsare new versions of what the young de
Man called the moment of being as retournementrepete-or whetherhe has taken an
ironicand textualturn. And whetherthis ironic turnis thatof "Satan"or "hispartner"-
thatis, whetherit is caughtin a mirrortraporopensnew movementsof bothtext andbeing.
This is probablylike asking the confusing question whetherde Man's laterwriting
on ironyis itself ironic. And the realanswerto this question,andthose above, is probably
to be found in the curiously repetitive structureof the typical late-de Man essay: I am
thinkingof its convolutedor even circularstructure,with the end reflecting,repeating,or
doublingthe beginning. In the best(?) cases this can producethe "dizziness"he found in
Baudelaire'scomiqueabsolue and the "reversedmirror-image"of irony (in "TheRheto-
ric of Temporality").One well-known example is the programmaticarticle"Semiology
and Rhetoric,"which begins the collection Allegories of Reading (1979).
Here we first get a seductively easygoing polemic against the opposition inside/
outside, regardedas a metaphorand applied to literatureand criticism. Result: "The
recurrentdebate opposing intrinsic to extrinsic criticism stands under the aegis of an
inside/outside metaphor that is never being seriously questioned" ["Semiology and
Rhetoric"5]. De Manthenstartshis "questioning"withexamplesof growingcomplexity,
where he turnsgrammaticalmeaningagainstrhetoricalmeaning. Grammaticalmeaning
appearsto suspend rhetoricalmeaning; and rhetoricalmeaning suspends grammatical
meaning. Finalresult:a stateof "suspendedignorance"[19]. This meansthatwe arenow
"suspended"within the metaphorwith which we started,not knowing what is "in"and
whatis "out";we areneither"in"nor"out"butratherfallingbetween. Andperhaps,while
"falling,"we rememberthatthe "fall"in "TheRhetoricof Temporality"was associated
with vertige and irony andthereafterdevelops into de Man's most obsessive metaphor.14
Or is that "fall" taking place within a "reversedmirror-image"(or was it a "repeated
reversal"?)of thatvery "reversal"with which we began?
At theend of the whole collectionAllegories ofReading,a similar"reversal"is again
"repeated"but now explicitly as irony. De Man then finishes his readingsof Rousseau
by summarizinghis "mainpoint,"also called a "suddenrevelation": what is revealedis
a "discontinuity,"and this suddenand discontinuous"mainpoint"is "disseminated"all
over"thepointsof thefigurallineorallegory,"thusbecominga continuousdiscontinuity-
a permanentsuddenness,or "thepermanentparabasisof an allegory." Becoming: irony.
This irony repeatsthe "suspendedignorance"from the firstessay, but suspendsnot only
an innocentor limited or temporary"ignorance"but actually the whole "line": irony is
now nothing less than "the systematic undoing . . . of understanding"["Excuses
12. Das Passagen-Werk1049: "Blickenzwei Spiegel einanderan, so spielt der Satan seinen
liebsten Trick und offnetauf seine Weise (wie sein Partner in den Blicken der Liebendentut) die
Perspektive ins Unendliche."
13. Psyche 31: "Carnous l'avons vu, si le deuil n'estpas annonc par le brisdu miroirmais
survient comme le miroir lui-mnmeque par l'intercession du mot. C'est une invention et une
interventiondu mot ... Le tain, qui interditla transparenceet autorise l' inventiondu miroir,c'est
une trace de langue."
14. Some instances of "fall" are noted by Deborah Esch in "ADefence of Rhetoric I The
Triumphof Reading," Readingde Man Reading 73.
84
(Confessions)"300 f.].
Irony, which startedout as a sudden event, has now become permanent-and this
strikingparadoxcould well mean thatde Man has entereda trap: ironic"repetition"has
been reversed into its own "reversed mirror-image." Already in "The Rhetoric of
Temporality"de Man insisted-in contrastto most explorersof the concept of "irony"-
thattheironicbreakwas "repetitive."At theendofAllegories ofReadingironyhasbecome
a "permanent"effect "disseminated"all over the very "line"it was supposedto break. In
"TheRhetoric of Temporality"irony was still a "point"breakinglines; in Allegories of
Readingthis"point"has growninto the"mainpoint"spreadingover the "line"of all other
"points."
In anotherlate essay, "Pascal's Allegory of Persuasion,"we learn thatPascal uses
zero as a breakor "rupture"of the line of numbersquite analogous to the "parabasis"of
irony thatde Man uses as the rhetoricalfigure to breakan allegorical"line." The Pascal
essay goes even further:de Man states thatthe "rupture"of the line of numberseffected
by zero (read: the ironicbreakof an allegorical"line")cannot"belocatedin a single point
... but thatit is all-pervading"[12]. In "TheRhetoricof Temporality"the ironic effect
depended on the final pointe that, in Allegories of Reading, had grown into the "main
point." In thePascalessay thepointseems to be gone (orcannotbe found)while the ironic
effect remains. The conclusionon ironic"disruption"as "all-pervading"maybe an effect
of what Benjamincalled "Satan'smost popularprank": the mirroringmirrors. And it
takes de Man to remarkableconsequences, consideringhis earlieressays: in the Pascal
essay he states that irony is no longer "susceptible ... to definition," it is not even
"intelligible,"and "it cannot be put to work as a device of textual analysis" [12].
It follows thatirony disappearsas a concept or "device"from de Man's last essays.
"Repetition"in the sense of mirroringand reflexion does not disappear,however. In
"Autobiographyas De-Facement"we readabouta "specularmoment,"but this"moment"
is no "event"-that is, no "point"and thereforeno ironic interruption-but rathera "part
of all understanding"including"knowledgeof self" [70 f.]. This epistemological idea of
reflexion with its vaguely Freudiantouchcould no doubthave been developed into quite
another "repetition"than that ironic "point"we met earlier, but still being a kind of
"repetition"thatcould be associatedwith Kierkegaard.But late de Manhas a suggestion
of quite another "repetition"that seems far away from any "existential"sense of this
prolific term. Now it is "repetition"as mechanicalreduplicationwithoutthe slightesthint
of any "reversal"or ironic "point."
The termnow is stutter,coming up a few times in de Man's late essays on "aesthetic
ideology" and associated with something he calls "theessentially prosaic natureof art"
["Hegel on the Sublime" 152]. This "nature"he derives (as always) from a linguistic
axiom: thatthe linguistic sign refers to both itself as sign and beyond itself as reference
or meaning. Philosophicalaesthetics,as de Manreadsit in Kantand Hegel, operateson
the level of meaningbut presupposesa level where the sign is "inscribed"as sign-this
he calls the"prosaicmaterialityof theletter"-as thebasis or "bottomline"thataesthetics
can neitherdo withoutnormakeinto meaning["PhenomenalityandMaterialityin Kant"
144]. De Man may well be inspired by Derrida here, since Derrida uses terms like
repetition, iteration, differance in his deconstructionsof "Westernmetaphysics"and
always with the argumentalreadydeveloped in his criticismof Husserl: thatthe linguistic
sign has an "originallyrepetitive structure.""5De Man now states that the sign in its
materialaspect as "inscription"is alreadya "repetition"that cannotbe used to perform
anythingbut "repetition":"Likea stutter,or a brokenrecord,it [the sign] makes what it
keeps repeatingworthless and meaningless"["Hegel on the Sublime" 150].
15. Lavoix etlephenomene [Paris: PUF, 1967]56: "lastructureoriginairementrepetitive."
If this is the endof theline for de Man,thenameof thatend is apparently"repetition."
But is it ironic repetition? allegoricalrepetition? Is thereanythingleft of repetition(in
the Kierkegaardiansense of the term)?
Not according to program(but with the resevation that the stutter is by no means
developed into a program): the stutteringrepetition seems more like a mechanical
interruptionemerging from linguistic "materiality"but still purely auditive. Stuttering
has no "point"-and perhaps de Man associates it with "prosaicmateriality"since it
seems free from visuality. Stutteringis in any case devoid of anythinglike "intention"
and definitely has no "existential"pathos.
Still, visuality-and perhapsa kind of irony and even allegory-sneaks back into
"repetition"by way of the metaphorthat de Man uses to illustrate his meaningless
"stutter":the brokenrecord. The recordbeing brokenby its own signs is a kind of visual
interventionin the auditivescenery. But it is not only visual: it shows tracesof language
(as Derridano doubtwould put it). "Record"could be a gramophonerecordbut also a
documentor even a story, thatis, any sequence or line of events. If thereis an auditive
"break"in this "record"it is visually repairedby the expression"brokenrecord." This
metaphorgives visuality to the "break"andeven a kind of meaningto the "meaningless"
that the sentence refers to. By the symbolic power of the metaphor-and against what
seem to be de Man's prosaicintentionswith his "stutter"-the "break"in therecordleads
us back to thatsudden"break"or "point"thatde Manearlierassociatedwith "repetition"
and called irony.
Thus, irony ironicallycomes back to de Man's recordat the very moment when he
has droppedall irony. A reversaltakesplace when reversalsareleft out of consideration.
Perhapslanguageis takinga kind of revenge-that poor languagethatde Man (as quoted
above) found establishedin a "void"and then never tiredof criticizing for covering up
this basic baselessness with the feigned meaningof symbols and metaphors. Language
takes its revenge by providing de Man with a meaningful metaphor with symbolic
dimensions exactly when he declares language to be a "stutter,"a "meaningless"
repetitionof sounds. Or was it perhapsthe "movementof being"thatremindedus of its
retournementrepete',to say it with the young de Man-reminded us of kinesis, the Greek
termthatConstantinConstantiusaskedus to "considerseriously"as a preparationfor that
"easy"dialectic of repetition?
WORKS CITED
Benjamin,Walter. Das Passagen-Werk. Frankfurt-f-M:GSV, 1982.
de Man, Paul. "Autobiographyas De-facement." TheRhetoric of Romanticism. New
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"Repetition (In the Kierkegaardian Sense of the Term)"

Author(s): Arne Melberg

Kierkegaardpublished Repetition in 1843; his pseudonym this time was

1. I quote Kierkegaardfrom Samlede Vaerker5, in comparison with the English

diacritics / fall 1990 diacritics 20.3: 71-87 71

"Repetition"is, amongotherthingsin Kierkegaard'sRepetition,a philosophicalconcept,

diacritics / fall 1990 73

It is in our days not explainedhow mediationcomes about,if it is a result of the

First Constantindiscusses dialectics: is the Aufhebungof synthesis ("mediation")the

diacritics / fall 1990 75

The philosophicalpartsof Repetitionarenarrativelyframed,andthe questionis now how

Repetition tells us amongotherthingsof the namelessyoung manunhappilyin love with

3. It shouldperhapsbe notedthatthetraditionalDanish interpretationofRepetitionis heavily

5. Kritikder Urteilskraft175f.: "denndas gibt lauter teleologische Urteile; sondern man

diacritics / fall 1990 77

Constantininformsus repeatedlythatthe young man is a poet. "Imyself cannotbecome

il I uh8iiii:i; ,llii;l ;1; .ECB

Ordoinversus,the reversed-repeatedorder,meansputtingthings on theirheads: putting

2. Paul de Man on the Point of Repetition

Paul de Man's interestin "repetition"and "movement"seems to be of an early date. In

diacritics / fall 1990 81

10. "Heidegger'sExegesesof Holderlin,"BlindnessandInsight250. Theoriginal,in Cri-

11. Psyche28: "Lemiroirestici lepredicament....Onestenproieaupiegefataletfascinant

diacritics / fall 1990 83

15. Lavoix etlephenomene [Paris: PUF, 1967]56: "lastructureoriginairementrepetitive."

diacritics / fall 1990 85

diacritics / fall 1990 87

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