The Necessary Angel

133 Pages·1994·7.63 MB·English

by  Massimo Cacciari

THE NECESSARY ANCEL
MASSIMO CACCIARI
TRANSLATED BY
MIGUEL E. VATTER
STATE l!NIVI~H.'->In· I W Nl~lV >·<mK PRESS
SUNY Series, Intersections:
Philosophy and Critical Theory
Rodolphe Gasche and Mark C. Taylor, Editors
Published by
State University of New York Press, Albany
© 1994 State University of New York
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Cacciari, Massimo,
[Angelo necessario. English]
The necessary angel I Massimo Cacciari ; translated by Miguel E.
Vatter.
p. em.-(SUNY series, intersections)
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 0-7914-2189-9 (alk. paper).-ISBN 0-7914-2190-2 (pbk.:
alk. paper)
1. Angels-Comparative studies. 2. Angel-History of doctrines.
3. Angels in art. 4. Angels in literature. I. Title. II. Series:
Intersections (Albany, N.Y.)
BIA77.C3313 1994
291.2'15-dc20 93-50119
CIP
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
CONTENTS
Preface to the French Edition/vii
Preface to the English Edition/viii
Translator's Note/ix
1. Since the Days of Tobias/1
2. Angel and Demon/15
3. The Problem of Representation/39
4. Zodiacs/55
5. Apokatastasis/67
6. Birds of the Soul/83
Notes/95
PREFACE
TO THE ENGLISH EDITION
With respect to the French edition, the English edition is
unchanged. Only some formal mistakes and some oversights have
been corrected.
MASSIMO CACCIAHI
TRANSLATOR'S
NOTE
Every translation comports a betrayal of the original that is
occasioned by the very project of transmitting its sense, and as a
condition for such transmission. In the crossing from one lan
guage to another, the translator makes innumerable decisions in
which some aspects of the original are downplayed, disregarded,
even sacrificed in the attempt to keep the vessel of the translation
from foundering. Thus it is only fair that the translator should
bring to attention what, in his opinion, has been lost during the
journey.
The difficulty of Cacciari's prose is in great part due to the
rhythm imposed by his practice of citation from foreign languages,
the production of neologisms, the breaking up of words with the
consequent release of polysemy. This writing, which, already in the
original, at one time both calls for and repels translation, destroys
the illusion of an organic language, and along with it the idea that
fluidity is a sigillum veri of any translation. Cacciari's style is
intrinsic to a philosophical project that views as problematic any
claim made on behalf of discourse to the systematic comprehen
sion, free of disruptions and holes, of that about which it speaks.
But in translation one loses this very style which stages the text's
oppositional complex of the continuous and the discontinuous,
the disturbing spectacle of a language struggling against itself in
the attempt to wrench from itself, or to bring into itself, semantic
possibilities that would remain otherwise unavailable.
Avoiding the impossible task of a mimesis of such a style, this
translator chose the alternative of exactitude in rendering the let-
IX
X Translator's Note
ter of the text, trusting that if its spirit would survive the transla
tion, it would do so through, and not against, its letter. In this
regard, Walter Benjamin's suggestion, that "if the sentence is the
wall before the language of the original, literalness is the
arcade," was taken to heart.
At the risk of burdening the text, but for the sake of that elu
sive quality of "readability", the following additions were made.
English translations were added for most foreign terms and
phrases when they first appear in the text; these are not intended to
replace the original but merely serve as pointers for the reader
unfamiliar with these languages. Notes were appended to explicate
word-play and hidden etymological references. Quotations were
rendered by standard English translations wherever possible,
otherwise the translations were made from the ones found in the
Italian original. The English editions of texts referred to in the
nolL'S have also been provided.
I, aslly, I wish to acknowledge those who have helped me carry
out I he task: Mark C. Taylor and Rodolphe Gasche for accepting
and I hen encouraging the project, Carola Sautter for her editorial
support, Pierre Adler for his work on the Greek and Latin, Clifford
Huprecht and Isabella Bertoletti for reading the various drafts and
making the necessary suggestions and corrections, each with a
trained eye to their respective mother-tongues, and Massimo
Cacciari for his "angelic" patience. To my parents, who always
somehow manage to make me bear lightly the immeasurable debt I
owe them, and to Rebecca Foster, who helps me find ways where
there seem to be none, I give thanks.
MIGUEL E. VATTER
THE NECESSARY ANGEL
I am the angel of reality,
Seen for a moment standing in the door.
I have neither ashen wing nor wear of ore
And live without a tepid aureole,
Or stars that follow me, not to attend,
But, of my being and its knowing, part.
I am one of you and being one of you
Is being and knowing what I am and know.
Yet I am the necessary angel of earth,
Since, in my sight, you see the earth again,
Cleared of its stiff and stubborn, man-locked set,
And, in my hearing, you hear its tragic drone
Rise liquidly in liquid lingerings,
Like watery words awash; like meanings said
By repetitions of half-meanings. Am I not,
Myself, only half of a figure of a sort,
A figure half seen for a moment, a man
Of the mind, an apparition apparelled in
Apparels of such lightest look that a turn
Of my shoulder and quickly, too quickly, I am gone?
Wallace Stevens. in Jlnqcl Surrounded by Paysans
XI

1
SINCE
THE
DAYS
OF
TOBIAS
The dimension of the Angel is ou-topic. Its place is the Land
of-no-where, the mundus imaginal is,* whose fourth dimensio
(axis) lies beyond the sphere that delimits the axes of the visible
cosmos. No one could point to the path that leads there. Only the
Angel, guardian of the divine Word, icon of the ad-verbum, 1 indis
pensable intermediary2 of all the prophets1 up to Muhammad, can
undertake long journeys from the invisible No-where, from its
Caelum Caeli (Heaven of Heaven), unchanging and eternal Domus
(dwelling) and Civitas (city) of the Lord (St. Augustine, Con
fessions, XII, 11), toward the interior temple of man, enter his
darkness, and help him recover his proper Orient. The Kabbalah
teaches that Angds ascend and descend in the vast space of the
Kingdom, so much so that they wonder whether their Lord dwells
"above" or "below."" The nostalgia for the supreme Point that irre
pressibly determines their movement, is itself the presence (the
only conceivable presence) of that Point in the regions of the
Kingdom. It gives itself in the intellectual light, in the matutinal
knowledge whose archetype is the Cherub; it offers itself in the
highest power to love of the Seraph, in the rotating spiritus (spirit)
of the Ofannim: all indivisible aspects of the same, incessantly cre
ative act of God,S of the advent that never ceases.