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Synopsis
An analysis of "difference" through subtle and probing analyses of texts by Wordsworth, Poe, Baudelaire, Mallarme, Thoreau and others.
Library Journal
Johnson's form here is the short critical essaywitty, elliptical, provocative. This doesn't mean she avoids weighty subjects. We find shrewd defences of deconstruction; a variety of approachesnuanced, challenging, sometimes reconditeto the feminine; other studies on the marginality of writing (e.g., Zora Neale Hurston); and continuing explorations of the Symbolist aesthetic. Throughout, Johnson foregrounds a major preoccupation of recent theory: ``Is a willingness to carry an inquiry to the point of undecidability necessarily at odds with political engagement?'' In meeting this challenge she is led beyond formalism to ``a much messier form of bricolage,'' a style that runs certain risks but that is here justified by a consistent seriousness and commitment. Alexander Gelley, English & Comparative Literature Dept., Univ. of California, Irvine