ABSTRACT
Jacques Derrida wants to interrogate the relation between literature and truth, and to show how literature escapes the hold of the ontological question in a way which can provide something like a 'Derrida formalisation' of the question of truth. To do this, Derrida is concerned first to explicate a traditional interpretation, Platonic mimesis. Secondly, he considered to establish the theoretical possibility of this schema's being disrupted by a feature or process he calls the re-mark. Third, he considered to posit Mallarmé as an exemplary instantiation of that theoretical possibility. Finally, he considered to show that this cannot be accounted for by a thematic reading, and that it entails a practice of reading which takes more seriously than a thematic criticism one ever could the play of syntax, and sub-lexical items in the text. Each of these points is presented in recognisably argued form, and could in principle be the object of critical debate and refutation.
