Specters of the Baroque. Tenebrism, hyperbole and fantology in the deconstruction of Jacques Derrida

Abstract

The present study seeks to establish the internal relationship between the Baroque movement and its neo-Baroque update with the deconstruction of Jacques Derrida. For this, we will analyze, first, the nucleus of absence that runs through Derrida's thought in three aspects: absence of meaning, absence of identity (self) and absence or substraction of otherness. As will be seen, all three remain related to the idea of deus absconditus through the influence of Pascal, giving rise to what we will call deconstructive tenebrism. Secondly, we will resort to Severo Sarduy to account for the hyperbolization that deconstruction carries out of fundamental characteristics of the baroque and neo-baroque thematized by the Cuban thinker (substitution, proliferation and condensation). Finally, we will give an account of the concept of fantology (hantologie) that Derrida brings in various texts and in which a theatrical spectrality also typical of the baroque and neo-baroque is shown. We will conclude delving into the hyperbole, already mentioned, but in political-moral terms, that is, the neo-baroque of deconstruction would be nothing more than the tragic demand for the necessary impossible: justice, since injustice is inevitable.