The Critical I

by Norman N. Holland

Asserting that literary theory needs a dose of common sense, this treatise attacks Saussurean linguistics as outmoded and discredited in its elimination of its subjects. It claims that postmodernist ideas of the individual rest on false linguistic and psychological premises.

Paperback

First published January 1, 1992

About the author

Norman N. Holland (born 1927) is an American literary critic and Marston-Milbauer Eminent Scholar Emeritus at the University of Florida.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_...

Reviews

[Benoit Lelièvre · Rating 3 out of 5]

I loved the first part of this book, which attempts to define criticism and make a viable and intelligible model that differentiates reviewing from criticism. I felt vindicated that an academic like Holland took the time to do this.

But it starts going off the rails when he goes over the post-structuralist critics and starts systematically tearing them down, saying they were all wrong for making the self disappear from literature, film and cultural production as a whole. They're all wrong and he's right or so to speak. Now, I'm as critical of Derrida and what he's done to contemporary culture as the next guy, but if there is a truth that emerged from his legacy, it's that there's no truth and that meaning is malleable.

And Holland is not disagreeing with that. At least inherently. So, it ends somewhat in a whimper.