Seminar XXIV Final Sessions 1 - Lacan in Ireland

Seminar 8: Wednesday 8 March 1977What one writes..., I say ‘one’, because – anyone at all can write – I say‘one’ because it embarrasses me to say ‘I’. It is not without reason that itembarrasses me. Why should the ‘I’ be produced on this particularoccasion? Therefore it happens that I said and by that fact it can be found inwriting, I said that there is no metalanguage, namely, that one cannot talkabout language.As it happens I reread something which is in Scilicet IV that I called,anyway that I entitled, that is how, it is something like that that carries yourbrand, anyway that I entitled L’étourdit, and in L’étourdit, I noticed, Irecognised something, in L’étourdit, this metalanguage, I would say that Ialmost brought it to birth. Naturally that would mark an epoch. It wouldmark an epoch, but there is no epoch because there is no change. Thisalmost that I added to my sentence, this almost underlines that it neverhappened. It is a semblance of metalanguage and since I make use in thetext, I make use of this way of writing, s’embler, s’emblant tometalanguage. Making a reflective verb of this s’embler, detaches it fromthis coming to fruition which being is, and as I write, il parest, parest meansa s’emblant of being. There you are.And then, in this connection, I notice that it was for a preface that I openedthis writing, for a preface that I had to write for an Italian edition that I hadpromised, it is not sure that I will do it, it is not sure that I will do it becauseit annoys me, but I noticed in this connection, I consulted someone who isItalian for whom this tongue, that I understand nothing about, is hismaternal tongue, I consulted someone who pointed out to me that there issomething that resembles this s’embler, which resembles this s’embler, butwhich is not, which is not easy to introduce with the deformation in the wayof writing that I give it. In short, it is not easy to transcribe, that is why Iproposed that my preface should not be translated, after all, this all the more90