Speech that merely returns another’s words can preserve its own subject-position

Evidence

Caught in the discrepancy between second person interrogative (fugis) and the imperative (fugi), Ovid cannot allow her to be, even Echo, so that Narcissus, flying from her, could have made of the ethical structure of response a fulfilled antiphone. He reports her speech in the name of Narcissus: quot dixit, verba recepit (M, 150, line 384)—he receives back the words he says. The discrepancy is effaced in the discrepancy of translation. In English, Echo could have echoed “Fly from me” and remained echo. — Donna Landry and Gerald MacLean, The Spivak Reader, 1487

Categorization

• DEFINE: Shows how Ovid’s grammar (fugis vs fugi) offers a model of response that differs from the sender’s intention — the seed of Echo as differance.
• XREF: connects to: Subaltern speech fails as a transaction between speaker and listener, not as utterance — Donna Landry and Gerald MacLean, The Spivak Reader: Selected Works of…, 2296; Creating space for marginalized vernacular speech can itself begin healing; Words become one’s own only through intentional appropriation and accenting — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent: The Women’s…, 1544 (+3 more)