Il n’y a pas de hors-texte
Hamann can repeat this Derridean scandal, quite literally. As Gwen Dickson puts it, “Hamann’s conception of language as speech as a ‘translation’ reveals that at the basis of his thinking there is no language-world dichotomy; language, after all, is part of the world, and moreover the ‘world’ or ‘reality’ or ‘things’ are somehow linguistically conceived, so that speech is not a first depiction or description or representation but a translation of something that already is a ‘text.’”
That “somehow” is too coy: Creation is a text because the Creator speaks to creatures through creatures. The world is text because it is the speech of the world’s Maker.
Peter Leithart
Peter J. Leithart is President of Theopolis Institute. He is the author of numerous books on theology, literature, and culture, including Theopolitan, Defending Constantine, and Baptized Body.
In Medias Res
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