The Phenomenon of Death: Elements for a Poetics of Origins

Abstract

Who are we? How far have we come? These immemorial questions resonate throughout history but are particularly pressing today when nihilism threatens to consign us to an immanent, collective death. This threat is captured by Valéry in his famous aphorism: “We civilizations now know that we are mortal (...) and we see that the abyss of history is big enough for everyone.”¹ (It should be noted that this quotation dates from the period just after the First World War.) Instead of simply acquiescing to our annihilation, will we known how to make of our descent to the tomb an initiation? Or, better yet, since it is necessary to die, will we be capable of discovering an incandescent truth capable of both rendering our annihilation more tragic and of recovering here and now the lost meaning of immortality?