Sad News, Sad Tropics
We have learnt with great sadness
of the death of Lévi-Strauss,
whose inspiration was decisive
in the genesis and first developments
of Lacan’s teaching.
We bow with respect
to the memory of this great man.
I will recall here the name of Roman Jakobson,
whose students and friends Lévi-Strauss and Lacan were,
and to whom we are all indebted.
There must be a fourth:
Saussure? Dumézil? Bourbaki? The Foucault of The Order of Things?
Who was their philosopher, their Minerva’s owl?
Or Mallarmé, who knows?
As he was wont, Lévi-Strauss has passed away,
the haughty and melancholy genius of structuralism.
He had to fight hard to be recognised,
and to clear the room, to build the house,
we live in still.
We shall not see his like again.
Jacques-Alain Miller, 3 November 2009, 6.15pm.
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