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Literature and Theology Advance Access originally published online on September 3, 2009
Literature and Theology 2009 23(4):442-458; doi:10.1093/litthe/frp043
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© The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press 2009; all rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

God's Invisible Traces: The Sacred in Fallen Language, Translation and Literariness

Elisabeth M. Loevlie

Department of Literature, Area Studies and European Languages, University of Oslo, PB 1003, Blindern 0315, Oslo, Norway e.m.lovlie{at}ilos.uio.no


  Abstract

The story of the Fall inscribes the myth of a fallen language as the absolute other of the original sacred. Hence the dualistic scheme between a fallen materiality and a metaphysical God. This article explores how the death of this God is not merely a secular turn, but the opening of a different, anti-theological, or fallen religiosity that allows us to trace the sacred in unexpected places—also within fallen language. Translation and literature will be explored as instances where language performs its own fallenness—its materiality, arbitrariness and difference—and thereby releases a sacred expression. The essay considers 17th-century theologian Martin de Barcos’ letters regarding translation, Derrida's essay ‘Des Tours de Babel’ and notions of literariness based on Blanchot and Mallarmé.


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