ABSTRACT
It has been rightly observed that, half-way down the cat’s throat, any self-respecting mouse ought at least to consider saying a few words about ‘us cats’. For similar reasons, perhaps an essay entitled ‘Bryn Glas’ ought at least to consider saying a few words about Jacques Derrida’s work called Glas. That dismaying celebration of the relationship between texts confronts the reader with two parallel columns of print. On the left-hand side, the philosopher Hegel engages in a rational analysis of the concept of the family, the Law and the State. Meanwhile, on the right, the text cites and discusses the writings of a notorious thief, homosexual and transvestite – Jean Genet – along with passages about matters such as proper names, signatures, onomatopoeia and the process of signification at large. The mode of negotiation between the columns becomes, of course, a crucial factor.
