Author: Ermira Mitre Kokomani
Publisher: www.revuerevolution.com - Murielle Mobengo
ISBN:
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 65
Book Description
André Malraux, a French secretary of state for cultural affairs and author of Man's Fate (1933), is said to have said, "The 20th century will be spiritual or will not be," a statement still valid in our times. What needed to happen in the 20th century is not happening in the 21st either. This issue has been created in the aftermath of the pandemic and questions inertia with poetry and mythology, which has been the doorway to spirituality from times immemorial. But Reality commands myth and the Spirit commands us to drop stories. This second edition of our initial fourth issue features 19 archetypes, 9 poets, and 2 artists who have collaborated to R4 and whose poetry harmonizes somehow with our core message. Note: Revue Révolution has moved away from free verse after 2022. Contributors: Michael Brosnan, Sue Burge, Darek, Joe Kidd, Maria Linares Freire, Joanna Makoumbou, Catherine McGuire, Ermira Mitre Kokomani, Murielle Mobengo, Ben Nardolilli, and Charles Baudelaire. _____ On attribue à André Malraux, secrétaire d'État français aux affaires culturelles et auteur du Destin de l'homme (1933), les mots suivants : "Le XXe siècle sera spirituel ou ne sera pas". Cette affirmation, qui ne serait finalement pas de lui, est moins poncive qu'il n'y paraît. Ce qui devait se produire au 20ème tarde à se produire au 21ème. Les religions organisées décrépissent et abandonnent la noblesse des symboles, de l'Universel même, qu'elles avaient juré de protéger. Ce numéro de Revue Révolution est né en quarantaine, peu avant la fin de la pandémie de Covid 19. Il questionne l'inertie et la pertinence du symbole et de la mythologie en poésie. Que devient un symbole vidé de sa substance, de son essence, de Dieu lui-même? Peut-on réellement ôter le Divin de l'équation humaine, et si oui, à quel prix? C'est dans le Réel que se trouve la réponse à cette question. Notre histoire récente est terrifiante, complexe, comme une histoire de grands, une histoire d'adultes. Si l'on ne peut plus voir le Divin dans Ses symboles, il faut murir et le chercher dans la Raison. Le Réel lui-même nous le commande. Guidée par 19 archétypes, ce quatrième numéro de Revue Révolution présente 9 poètes et 2 artistes en quête de sens et d'harmonie. Cette deuxième édition de R4 a fait place nette, table rase, avant l'abandon d'une certaine vision de la poésie, qui serait purement cathartique, égoïste et aurait perdu de son universalisme. C'est le Divin, l'absolu, qui parle à travers le poète, dans l'éternité. Le petit moi qui tempête et rage en vers maladroits est déjà obsolète. Revue Révolution remercie les Poètes et Artistes d'Amérique, d'Europe et d'Afrique ayant répondu à son appel à textes de 2022 en collaborant à ce numéro bilingue: Ermira Mitre Kokomani, Catherine McGuire, Sue Burge, Michael Brosnan, Darek, Maria Linares Freire, Joanna Makoumbou, Murielle Mobengo, Ben Nardolilli, Joe Kidd, et Charles Baudelaire.
Revue Révolution issue 4 : 11 Poets, 19 Archetypes, 1 Inertia (bilingual English/French)
Author: Ermira Mitre Kokomani
Publisher: www.revuerevolution.com - Murielle Mobengo
ISBN:
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 65
Book Description
André Malraux, a French secretary of state for cultural affairs and author of Man's Fate (1933), is said to have said, "The 20th century will be spiritual or will not be," a statement still valid in our times. What needed to happen in the 20th century is not happening in the 21st either. This issue has been created in the aftermath of the pandemic and questions inertia with poetry and mythology, which has been the doorway to spirituality from times immemorial. But Reality commands myth and the Spirit commands us to drop stories. This second edition of our initial fourth issue features 19 archetypes, 9 poets, and 2 artists who have collaborated to R4 and whose poetry harmonizes somehow with our core message. Note: Revue Révolution has moved away from free verse after 2022. Contributors: Michael Brosnan, Sue Burge, Darek, Joe Kidd, Maria Linares Freire, Joanna Makoumbou, Catherine McGuire, Ermira Mitre Kokomani, Murielle Mobengo, Ben Nardolilli, and Charles Baudelaire. _____ On attribue à André Malraux, secrétaire d'État français aux affaires culturelles et auteur du Destin de l'homme (1933), les mots suivants : "Le XXe siècle sera spirituel ou ne sera pas". Cette affirmation, qui ne serait finalement pas de lui, est moins poncive qu'il n'y paraît. Ce qui devait se produire au 20ème tarde à se produire au 21ème. Les religions organisées décrépissent et abandonnent la noblesse des symboles, de l'Universel même, qu'elles avaient juré de protéger. Ce numéro de Revue Révolution est né en quarantaine, peu avant la fin de la pandémie de Covid 19. Il questionne l'inertie et la pertinence du symbole et de la mythologie en poésie. Que devient un symbole vidé de sa substance, de son essence, de Dieu lui-même? Peut-on réellement ôter le Divin de l'équation humaine, et si oui, à quel prix? C'est dans le Réel que se trouve la réponse à cette question. Notre histoire récente est terrifiante, complexe, comme une histoire de grands, une histoire d'adultes. Si l'on ne peut plus voir le Divin dans Ses symboles, il faut murir et le chercher dans la Raison. Le Réel lui-même nous le commande. Guidée par 19 archétypes, ce quatrième numéro de Revue Révolution présente 9 poètes et 2 artistes en quête de sens et d'harmonie. Cette deuxième édition de R4 a fait place nette, table rase, avant l'abandon d'une certaine vision de la poésie, qui serait purement cathartique, égoïste et aurait perdu de son universalisme. C'est le Divin, l'absolu, qui parle à travers le poète, dans l'éternité. Le petit moi qui tempête et rage en vers maladroits est déjà obsolète. Revue Révolution remercie les Poètes et Artistes d'Amérique, d'Europe et d'Afrique ayant répondu à son appel à textes de 2022 en collaborant à ce numéro bilingue: Ermira Mitre Kokomani, Catherine McGuire, Sue Burge, Michael Brosnan, Darek, Maria Linares Freire, Joanna Makoumbou, Murielle Mobengo, Ben Nardolilli, Joe Kidd, et Charles Baudelaire.
Publisher: www.revuerevolution.com - Murielle Mobengo
ISBN:
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 65
Book Description
André Malraux, a French secretary of state for cultural affairs and author of Man's Fate (1933), is said to have said, "The 20th century will be spiritual or will not be," a statement still valid in our times. What needed to happen in the 20th century is not happening in the 21st either. This issue has been created in the aftermath of the pandemic and questions inertia with poetry and mythology, which has been the doorway to spirituality from times immemorial. But Reality commands myth and the Spirit commands us to drop stories. This second edition of our initial fourth issue features 19 archetypes, 9 poets, and 2 artists who have collaborated to R4 and whose poetry harmonizes somehow with our core message. Note: Revue Révolution has moved away from free verse after 2022. Contributors: Michael Brosnan, Sue Burge, Darek, Joe Kidd, Maria Linares Freire, Joanna Makoumbou, Catherine McGuire, Ermira Mitre Kokomani, Murielle Mobengo, Ben Nardolilli, and Charles Baudelaire. _____ On attribue à André Malraux, secrétaire d'État français aux affaires culturelles et auteur du Destin de l'homme (1933), les mots suivants : "Le XXe siècle sera spirituel ou ne sera pas". Cette affirmation, qui ne serait finalement pas de lui, est moins poncive qu'il n'y paraît. Ce qui devait se produire au 20ème tarde à se produire au 21ème. Les religions organisées décrépissent et abandonnent la noblesse des symboles, de l'Universel même, qu'elles avaient juré de protéger. Ce numéro de Revue Révolution est né en quarantaine, peu avant la fin de la pandémie de Covid 19. Il questionne l'inertie et la pertinence du symbole et de la mythologie en poésie. Que devient un symbole vidé de sa substance, de son essence, de Dieu lui-même? Peut-on réellement ôter le Divin de l'équation humaine, et si oui, à quel prix? C'est dans le Réel que se trouve la réponse à cette question. Notre histoire récente est terrifiante, complexe, comme une histoire de grands, une histoire d'adultes. Si l'on ne peut plus voir le Divin dans Ses symboles, il faut murir et le chercher dans la Raison. Le Réel lui-même nous le commande. Guidée par 19 archétypes, ce quatrième numéro de Revue Révolution présente 9 poètes et 2 artistes en quête de sens et d'harmonie. Cette deuxième édition de R4 a fait place nette, table rase, avant l'abandon d'une certaine vision de la poésie, qui serait purement cathartique, égoïste et aurait perdu de son universalisme. C'est le Divin, l'absolu, qui parle à travers le poète, dans l'éternité. Le petit moi qui tempête et rage en vers maladroits est déjà obsolète. Revue Révolution remercie les Poètes et Artistes d'Amérique, d'Europe et d'Afrique ayant répondu à son appel à textes de 2022 en collaborant à ce numéro bilingue: Ermira Mitre Kokomani, Catherine McGuire, Sue Burge, Michael Brosnan, Darek, Maria Linares Freire, Joanna Makoumbou, Murielle Mobengo, Ben Nardolilli, Joe Kidd, et Charles Baudelaire.
The Twilight of the Avant-garde
Author: Jonathan Mayhew
Publisher: Liverpool University Press
ISBN: 1846311837
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 180
Book Description
Twilight of the Avant-Garde addresses the central problem of contemporary Spanish poetry: the attempt to preserve the scope and ambition of modernist poetry at the end of the twentieth century. Offering a critical analysis of Luis Garcìa Montero’s “poetry of experience,” and the work of José Angel Valente and Antonio Gamoneda, among others, Mayhew challenges received notions about the value of poetic language in relation to the society and culture at large. Ultimately championing the survival of more challenging and ambitious modes of poetic writing in the postmodern age, this volume argues that the cultural ambition of modernist poetics remains alive and well in our age of cynicism.
Publisher: Liverpool University Press
ISBN: 1846311837
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 180
Book Description
Twilight of the Avant-Garde addresses the central problem of contemporary Spanish poetry: the attempt to preserve the scope and ambition of modernist poetry at the end of the twentieth century. Offering a critical analysis of Luis Garcìa Montero’s “poetry of experience,” and the work of José Angel Valente and Antonio Gamoneda, among others, Mayhew challenges received notions about the value of poetic language in relation to the society and culture at large. Ultimately championing the survival of more challenging and ambitious modes of poetic writing in the postmodern age, this volume argues that the cultural ambition of modernist poetics remains alive and well in our age of cynicism.
Fire in the Minds of Men
Author: James H. Billington
Publisher: Transaction Publishers
ISBN: 0765804719
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 694
Book Description
This book traces the origins of a faith--perhaps the faith of the century. Modern revolutionaries are believers, no less committed and intense than were Christians or Muslims of an earlier era. What is new is the belief that a perfect secular order will emerge from forcible overthrow of traditional authority. This inherently implausible idea energized Europe in the nineteenth century, and became the most pronounced ideological export of the West to the rest of the world in the twentieth century. Billington is interested in revolutionaries--the innovative creators of a new tradition. His historical frame extends from the waning of the French Revolution in the late eighteenth century to the beginnings of the Russian Revolution in the early twentieth century. The theater was Europe of the industrial era; the main stage was the journalistic offices within great cities such as Paris, Berlin, London, and St. Petersburg. Billington claims with considerable evidence that revolutionary ideologies were shaped as much by the occultism and proto-romanticism of Germany as the critical rationalism of the French Enlightenment. The conversion of social theory to political practice was essentially the work of three Russian revolutions: in 1905, March 1917, and November 1917. Events in the outer rim of the European world brought discussions about revolution out of the school rooms and press rooms of Paris and Berlin into the halls of power. Despite his hard realism about the adverse practical consequences of revolutionary dogma, Billington appreciates the identity of its best sponsors, people who preached social justice transcending traditional national, ethnic, and gender boundaries. When this book originally appeared The New Republic hailed it as "remarkable, learned and lively," while The New Yorker noted that Billington "pays great attention to the lives and emotions of individuals and this makes his book absorbing." It is an invaluable work of history and contribution to our understanding of political life.
Publisher: Transaction Publishers
ISBN: 0765804719
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 694
Book Description
This book traces the origins of a faith--perhaps the faith of the century. Modern revolutionaries are believers, no less committed and intense than were Christians or Muslims of an earlier era. What is new is the belief that a perfect secular order will emerge from forcible overthrow of traditional authority. This inherently implausible idea energized Europe in the nineteenth century, and became the most pronounced ideological export of the West to the rest of the world in the twentieth century. Billington is interested in revolutionaries--the innovative creators of a new tradition. His historical frame extends from the waning of the French Revolution in the late eighteenth century to the beginnings of the Russian Revolution in the early twentieth century. The theater was Europe of the industrial era; the main stage was the journalistic offices within great cities such as Paris, Berlin, London, and St. Petersburg. Billington claims with considerable evidence that revolutionary ideologies were shaped as much by the occultism and proto-romanticism of Germany as the critical rationalism of the French Enlightenment. The conversion of social theory to political practice was essentially the work of three Russian revolutions: in 1905, March 1917, and November 1917. Events in the outer rim of the European world brought discussions about revolution out of the school rooms and press rooms of Paris and Berlin into the halls of power. Despite his hard realism about the adverse practical consequences of revolutionary dogma, Billington appreciates the identity of its best sponsors, people who preached social justice transcending traditional national, ethnic, and gender boundaries. When this book originally appeared The New Republic hailed it as "remarkable, learned and lively," while The New Yorker noted that Billington "pays great attention to the lives and emotions of individuals and this makes his book absorbing." It is an invaluable work of history and contribution to our understanding of political life.
The Archaeology of Knowledge
Author: Michel Foucault
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307819256
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 335
Book Description
Madness, sexuality, power, knowledge—are these facts of life or simply parts of speech? In a series of works of astonishing brilliance, historian Michel Foucault excavated the hidden assumptions that govern the way we live and the way we think. The Archaeology of Knowledge begins at the level of "things aid" and moves quickly to illuminate the connections between knowledge, language, and action in a style at once profound and personal. A summing up of Foucault's own methadological assumptions, this book is also a first step toward a genealogy of the way we live now. Challenging, at times infuriating, it is an absolutey indispensable guide to one of the most innovative thinkers of our time.
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307819256
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 335
Book Description
Madness, sexuality, power, knowledge—are these facts of life or simply parts of speech? In a series of works of astonishing brilliance, historian Michel Foucault excavated the hidden assumptions that govern the way we live and the way we think. The Archaeology of Knowledge begins at the level of "things aid" and moves quickly to illuminate the connections between knowledge, language, and action in a style at once profound and personal. A summing up of Foucault's own methadological assumptions, this book is also a first step toward a genealogy of the way we live now. Challenging, at times infuriating, it is an absolutey indispensable guide to one of the most innovative thinkers of our time.
A Reader's Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory
Author: Raman Selden
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 180
Book Description
Unsurpassed as a text for upper-division and beginning graduate students, Raman Selden's classic text is the liveliest, most readable and most reliable guide to contemporary literary theory. Includes applications of theory, cross-referenced to Selden's companion volume, Practicing Theory and Reading Literature.
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 180
Book Description
Unsurpassed as a text for upper-division and beginning graduate students, Raman Selden's classic text is the liveliest, most readable and most reliable guide to contemporary literary theory. Includes applications of theory, cross-referenced to Selden's companion volume, Practicing Theory and Reading Literature.
Teaching the Indian Child
Author: Jon Allan Reyhner
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Education, Bilingual
Languages : en
Pages : 296
Book Description
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Education, Bilingual
Languages : en
Pages : 296
Book Description
The Conservation of Cave 85 at the Mogao Grottoes, Dunhuang
Author: Neville Agnew
Publisher: Getty Publications
ISBN: 1606061577
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 476
Book Description
The Mogao Grottoes, a World Heritage Site in northwestern China, are located along the ancient caravan routes—collectively known as the Silk Road—that once linked China with the West. Founded by a Buddhist monk in the late fourth century, Mogao flourished over the following millennium, as monks, local rulers, and travelers commissioned hundreds of cave temples cut into a mile-long rock cliff and adorned them with vibrant murals. More than 490 decorated grottoes remain, containing thousands of sculptures and some 45,000 square meters of wall paintings, making Mogao one of the world’s most significant sites of Buddhist art. In 1997 the Getty Conservation Institute, which had been working with the Dunhuang Academy since 1989, began a case study using the Late–Tang dynasty Cave 85 to develop a methodology that would stabilize the deteriorating wall paintings. This abundantly illustrated volume is the definitive report on the project, which was completed in 2010.
Publisher: Getty Publications
ISBN: 1606061577
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 476
Book Description
The Mogao Grottoes, a World Heritage Site in northwestern China, are located along the ancient caravan routes—collectively known as the Silk Road—that once linked China with the West. Founded by a Buddhist monk in the late fourth century, Mogao flourished over the following millennium, as monks, local rulers, and travelers commissioned hundreds of cave temples cut into a mile-long rock cliff and adorned them with vibrant murals. More than 490 decorated grottoes remain, containing thousands of sculptures and some 45,000 square meters of wall paintings, making Mogao one of the world’s most significant sites of Buddhist art. In 1997 the Getty Conservation Institute, which had been working with the Dunhuang Academy since 1989, began a case study using the Late–Tang dynasty Cave 85 to develop a methodology that would stabilize the deteriorating wall paintings. This abundantly illustrated volume is the definitive report on the project, which was completed in 2010.
Notes for a Romantic Encyclopaedia
Author: Novalis
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 0791480704
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 322
Book Description
Novalis is best known in history as the poet of early German Romanticism. However, this translation of Das Allgemeine Brouillon, or "Universal Notebook," finally introduces him to the English-speaking world as an extraordinarily gifted philosopher in his own right and shatters the myth of him as a mere daydreaming and irrational poet. Composed of more than 1,100 notebook entries, this is easily Novalis's largest theoretical work and certainly one of the most remarkable and audacious undertakings of the "Golden Age" of German philosophy. In it, Novalis reflects on numerous aspects of human culture, including philosophy, poetry, the natural sciences, the fine arts, mathematics, mineralogy, history, and religion, and brings them all together into what he calls a "Romantic Encyclopaedia" or "Scientific Bible." Novalis's Romantic Encyclopaedia fully embodies the author's own personal brand of philosophy, "Magical Idealism." With meditations on mankind and nature, the possible future development of our faculties of reason, imagination, and the senses, and the unification of the different sciences, these notes contain a veritable treasure trove of richly poetic and philosophic thoughts.
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 0791480704
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 322
Book Description
Novalis is best known in history as the poet of early German Romanticism. However, this translation of Das Allgemeine Brouillon, or "Universal Notebook," finally introduces him to the English-speaking world as an extraordinarily gifted philosopher in his own right and shatters the myth of him as a mere daydreaming and irrational poet. Composed of more than 1,100 notebook entries, this is easily Novalis's largest theoretical work and certainly one of the most remarkable and audacious undertakings of the "Golden Age" of German philosophy. In it, Novalis reflects on numerous aspects of human culture, including philosophy, poetry, the natural sciences, the fine arts, mathematics, mineralogy, history, and religion, and brings them all together into what he calls a "Romantic Encyclopaedia" or "Scientific Bible." Novalis's Romantic Encyclopaedia fully embodies the author's own personal brand of philosophy, "Magical Idealism." With meditations on mankind and nature, the possible future development of our faculties of reason, imagination, and the senses, and the unification of the different sciences, these notes contain a veritable treasure trove of richly poetic and philosophic thoughts.
On the Margins of Modernism
Author: Chana Kronfeld
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520083474
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 311
Book Description
"A remarkable study. . . . The first book of its kind and essential for any future discussion of modernism and its embattled boundaries."—Françoise Meltzer, author of Hot Property "One of the very best books of literary criticism, literary scholarship, or literary theory I have ever read. . . . It illuminates interrelationships between historical studies and theory in any humanist discipline."—Menachim Brinker, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem "A milestone in the study of modern Jewish literature. It seriously engages and recontextualizes all the scholarship that came before, and by so doing sets it on a new course: applying a rigorous definition of modernism yet insistent upon methodological diversity; deeply grounded in Hebrew culture yet unabashedly diaspora-centered. This is not a book that readers will take lightly."—David G. Roskies, author of Against the Apocalypse
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520083474
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 311
Book Description
"A remarkable study. . . . The first book of its kind and essential for any future discussion of modernism and its embattled boundaries."—Françoise Meltzer, author of Hot Property "One of the very best books of literary criticism, literary scholarship, or literary theory I have ever read. . . . It illuminates interrelationships between historical studies and theory in any humanist discipline."—Menachim Brinker, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem "A milestone in the study of modern Jewish literature. It seriously engages and recontextualizes all the scholarship that came before, and by so doing sets it on a new course: applying a rigorous definition of modernism yet insistent upon methodological diversity; deeply grounded in Hebrew culture yet unabashedly diaspora-centered. This is not a book that readers will take lightly."—David G. Roskies, author of Against the Apocalypse
Allegories of Reading
Author: Paul De Man
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 9780300028454
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 324
Book Description
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
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 9780300028454
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 324
Book Description
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