On the Repetition of Difference in Contemporary Critical Theory

The brutal fact of being repeated with/in the representational matrix of truth and reality has been a perennial and constant source of fear and anxiety to most of the philosophers belonging to the lineage of western thought since Plato. However the repetition which has caused difficulties to this tradition of western philosophy has not been either clearly perceived or candidly explicated. Most of the secondary critics working in the area of repetition take it for granted that the concept of repetition that appears in the writings of Plato as a homogeneous and unified notion harbouring only the elements of integrity, singularity and linearity. With the publications of The Logic of Sense and Difference and Repetition by Gilles Deleuze, the forerunner in the second wave of post-structuralism, the monolithic image of repetition has been redrawn in favour of heterodox, heterogeneous and pluralistic factors that went deep into the making of representation as a conceptual modality.

In the metaphysical pantheon of Plato the concept of repetition is perceived and deployed as a generator of copies---repetition could only create and produce images of semblance in relation to a greater real or truth. So the repeated forms of representation could never out do or excel the real or the true. This platonic idea can be termed as a kind of pre-occupation with the motif of originality regarding the sources of origin and authenticity. In other words what we call truth and reality can only come out of original and authentic sources of truthfulness. Hence, the artists and poets do belong to the realm where fake and inferior forms and means of truth making are peddled with.

Deleuze argues in his key writings on the concept of Platonic representation that the earlier theorists have misperceived the distinctions which Plato makes within and among various levels of representation with regard to the functions and roles he assigns to the phenomena of repetition. Delueze makes a close perusal of Platonic ideals such as copies, icons and simulacra. In the platonic system of representation these three concepts are endowed with different theoretical attributes and functional properties. According to Plato the notion of copy comes closer to the original idea while the iconic form of reality would be much closer to its original version. But the third type of representation, i.e. simulacrum stays away from and eludes the grasp of truth. In the first two categories of representation the artistic forms do offer one-to-one correspondence and linear relationality to the domain of the real. But the third one refuses to make any such compromises with the real and constructs and legitimates its own forms and types of reality different from that of the authentic source of the real. Delueze reminds us of the fact that actually it is the third category of representation; simulacra, which has really troubled and perplexed Plato and left him in philosophical anguish and desolation.

Even within the fold of Greek mythology various beings and personae of simulated imagination can be catalogued. For example, centaurs, minautor, nymphs and other anamorphic types of existence contest the existing parameters that regulate and control the complexion and nature of human life. So repetition could be used as a vital force of vibrant energy that may help one to neutralise and invalidate the authoritarian forms of representation. In the modernist canon of early twentieth century one can see the adept and effective use of simulacra abundantly. Deleuze cites the instance of Finnegans Wake of James Joyce, the maverick scribbler who turned the canonical ladder of the west turtle down. The miraculous energy released by the Zind book of Joyce has so many followers worthy of fame and name like Allain Robbe Grillet   in France, Jorge Luis Borges   in Argentina and Anthony Burgess in England.    

In the theoretical system of Deleuze and other post-structuralist and postmodernist thinkers repetition appears not as a generator-guaranteer of second hand truths and realities but as a generator-disrupter of differences. In order to understand the real nature of these differences one has to encounter the truths and realities that the repetition proffers into making. Hence, repetition is not a finished product either of metaphysical brooding or artistic contemplation but rather a process alluding to an incomplete and imperfect activity of image-making.