This important theoretical work by Paul de Man sets forth a mode of
reading and interpretation based on exemplary texts by Rousseau,
Nietzsche, Rilke, and Proust. The readings start from unresolved
difficulties in the critical traditions engendered by these
authors, and they return to the places in the text where those
difficulties are most apparent or most incisively reflected upon.
The close reading leads to the elaboration of a more general model
of textual understanding, in which de Man shows that the thematic
aspects of the texts-their assertions of truth or falsehood as well
as their assertions of values-are linked to specific modes of
figuration that can be identified and described. The description of
synchronic figures of substitution leads, by an inner logic
embedded in the structure of all tropes, to extended, narrative
figures or allegories. De Man poses the question whether such
self-generating systems of figuration can account fully for the
intricacies of meaning and of signification they produce.
Throughout the book, issues in contemporary criticism are addressed
analytically rather than polemically. Traditional oppositions are
put in question by a rhetorical analysis which demonstrates why
literary texts are such powerful sources of meaning yet
epistemologically so unreliable. Since the structure which
underlies this tension belongs to language in general and is not
confined to literary texts, the book, starting out as practical and
historical criticism or as the demonstration of a theory of
literary reading, leads into larger questions pertaining to the
philosophy of language. "Through elaborate and elegant close
readings of poems by Rilke, Proust's Remembrance, Nietzsche's
philosophical writings and the major works of Rousseau, de Man
concludes that all writing concerns itself with its own activity as
language, and language, he says, is always unreliable, slippery,
impossible....Literary narrative, because it must rely on language,
tells the story of its own inability to tell a story....De Man
demonstrates, beautifully and convincingly, that language turns
back on itself, that rhetoric is untrustworthy."-Julia Epstein,
Washington Post Book World "The study follows out of the thinking
of Nietzsche and Genette (among others), yet moves in strikingly
new directions....De Man's text, almost certain to be endlessly
provocative, is worthy of repeated re-reading."-Ralph Flores,
Library Journal "Paul de Man continues his work in the tradition of
'deconstructionist criticism,'... [which] begins with the
observation that all language is constructed; therefore the task of
criticism is to deconstruct it and reveal what lies behind. The
title of his new work reflects de Man's preoccupation with the
unreliability of language. ... The contributions that the book
makes, both in the initial theoretical chapters and in the detailed
analyses (or deconstructions) of particular texts are
undeniable."-Caroline D. Eckhardt, World Literature Today
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