A theopoetics of the icon

Abstract

This dissertation presents a theological poetics of the icon established by integrating Martin Heidegger’s poetic considerations of unconcealing and concealing with the Orthodox icon’s characteristics of presence and absence. I argue that interpreting the icon poetically through Heidegger enriches and expands our conceptions of iconography while maintaining Orthodoxy’s theological convictions. In so doing, we see the present and absent qualities of the icon mirrored in the nature of language and things themselves. I begin by explicating major figures in the field of theopoetics, which serves to both situate and distinguish my project from the normative theopoetic discourse. Turning to Heidegger explicitly, I explore the function of unconcealing and concealing in his poetic philosophy, attending especially to his conception of language, our experience of things, the fourfold, and poetic dwelling. Through Heidegger, we see the reciprocal relationship between us and Being, which is always marked by elusiveness and rebuffs the totalization of Being. From Heidegger, I transition to explore the nature of presence and absence in theologies of the icon. Here we see how an icon’s essential difference from whom it depicts gives way to various layered notions of presence. Through Byzantine iconodules and contemporary theologians, I demonstrate how an icon’s present and absent characteristics invites us into a deeper participation in the ineffability of God’s love and the mystery of the incarnation. Finally, I bring Heidegger and the icon together in order to construct a theopoetics of the icon. I begin by offering an iconic and Heideggerian reinterpretation of language and our encounter with things, wherein both their elusive and Christological nature becomes clear. From here, I return to the icon itself and offer an iconic rendering of the fourfold and poetic dwelling. Ultimately, bringing Heidegger and the icon together expands the present absent nature of the icon beyond the image itself of things, inviting us ever deeper into the mystery of the incarnation. A theopoetics of the icon, then, is grounded on the notion that an icon is a prism from which to interpret the world. And so, the present and absent nature of creation is reflected in the present and absent nature of our participation in Christ.