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Three Girl Powered: Poetic Majesty against Sovereign Majesty
- Fordham University Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
This chapter revolves around the role played by the virgin girl in Derrida's The Beast and the Sovereign, vol. 1. Derrida suggests that the figure of the girl is between two marionettes, which I interpret as the machine of culture and the machine of nature. Extending Derrida's suggestion, I argue that the virgin girl both erects and undermines sovereign phallic power, which makes her appearance both necessary and threatening to it. Here I begin to discuss a theme that becomes important in my last chapter, namely, the way in which poetic majesty works against sovereign majesty. One nail of majesty takes out the other. In the end, I analyze the rhythms of Derrida's style in terms of the temporality of erection and dissemination.