The Kabbalah following Mallarmé From a Jewish hermeticism to a Christian hermeneutics

Abstract

Stéphane Mallarmé showed a sustained interest in the occult sciences. He conducted linguistic research to write the Absolute Book and was interested in the Kabbalah, which developed a philosophical reflection on language. His early poems reflect an increased interest in religions and faith. They serve as a ground for a more thorough reading of his mature works, a reading done through the hermeneutic filter of Isaac Luria’s new Kabbalah, notably popularized by Alphonse-Louis Constant (Éliphas Levi) and Alexander Weil. This perspective allows the poet to develop a poet(h)ics which tries to divert the rise of selfishness towards a more noble altruism based on election. In an attempt to escape this fin-de-siècle that forebodes the horrors of the Great War and its post-human apprehensions, he opened a breach in its finitude towards infinity.