Preferring or not preferring

derrida on bartleby as Kierkegaard's Abraham

Oona Eisenstadt

pp. 167-179

in: Yvonne Sherwood (ed), Derrida's Bible, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2004

Abstract

At the end of Chapter Three of The Gift of Death, Derrida quotes a passage from Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling. "Anyone who loves God," Kierkegaard writes, "needs no tears, no admiration; he forgets the suffering in the love. Indeed, so completely has [Abraham] forgotten it that there would be not the slightest trace of his suffering left if God himself did not remember it, for he sees in secret and recognizes distress and counts the tears and forgets nothing." Derrida tells us that we find buried in this passage a reference to the Gospels. He sees in secret: it is Matthew 6.

Cited authors

Derrida Jacques

Kierkegaard Søren