Year: 2026
Type: book-chapter
Abstract: This article examines the relationship between salvation, greeting, and citation as forms of recognizing the other and constituting language. Drawing on Jacques Derrida’s reading of the double meaning of the French word salut (“greeting” and “salvation”) in a prose poem by Michel Deguy, itself centred on Beatrice’s role in Dante’s Vita Nuova, it shows how Beatrice’s greeting simultaneously inaugurates love, poetry, and the possibility of redemption. The discussion then turns to an article by Antonio Gramsci, who interprets a patriotic deck of playing cards to question the idea of historical novelty, implicitly invoking Giosuè Carducci’s verse, “ciò che fu torna e tornerà ne i secoli”. The analysis highlights how citation transforms meaning over time and how language renews itself precisely through its resistance to attempts at innovation.
Author: Simão Valente
Language: English
Subfield: Literature and Literary Theory
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: gold
OpenAlex ID: W7214366055