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Overview
This volume assembles for the first time material written by Paul de Man between 1954 and 1981, including his previously unpublished Gauss Seminar lectures delivered at Princeton in 1967, three papers on romantic and postromantic issues, a commissioned essay on Roland Barthes, and two substantial responses to papers by Frank Kermode and Murray Krieger. Romanticism and Contemporary Criticism represents de Man's reflections on some of the major texts of English, German, and French romanticism and their reception in twentieth-century literary criticism and theory. The Gauss Seminar lectures in particular convey de Man's consideration of romanticism as a distinct form of historical consciousness and illuminate his conviction that this romantic historical consciousness had been a powerful influence on our own development of a historical identity. De Man had planned to use the Gauss lectures as a basis for a major historical study of romanticism, but the volume was never completed, and de Man eventually abandoned the project. Drawn from four decades of de Man's career, these essays reflect the transition in the critic's work from the thematics and vocabulary of "consciousness" and "temporality" characteristic of his work in the 1960s to the language-oriented concerns and terminology of his later writings.Editorials
Library Journal
For de Man, the main problems and interpretive keys to romanticism lie in the distinction between self and author and the role of time and history in romantic thought. Written between 1954 and 1987, the essays included here discuss the romantics' imaginative project of art and use of language, focusing on Rousseau, Holderlin, Wordsworth, and Baudelaire. De Man has brilliant things to say about the history and function of romantic thought as a precursor to the modern world, and his close reading and wide knowledge of the romantics are evident. In addition, those looking for insight into the current controversy surrounding de Man's alleged ties with the Nazis will find that some of his comments have a seemingly autobiographical touch. Recommended for academic libraries and large literature collections in public libraries.-- Gene Shaw, NYPLBook Details
Published
October 3, 1983
Publisher
Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press, c1983.
Pages
339
Format
Hardcover
ISBN
9780816611348