Vision y Ceguera: Ensayos sobre la retorica de la critica contemporanea

by Paul De Man

Paul De Man nacido en 1919 fue un importante crítico literario Belga quien desarrolló su actividad como profesor en los Estados Unidos. Renovó la crítica textual en varias universidades y apoyó activamente a Jacques Derrida en su trayectoria americana. Enseñó en la Universidad Cornell, en la Universidad Johns Hopkins, y en la Universidad de Zúrich, antes de alcanzar una posicion como profesor de la Universidad Yale, donde se le consideró partícipe de la denominada "escuela deconstructiva de Yale". De Man fue una figura muy conocida en los medios universitarios de Estados Unidos.

Genres: Philosophy, Theory, Literary Criticism, Essays, Nonfiction, Criticism, Literary Fiction

Paperback

First published January 1, 1971

About the author

Paul de Man was a Belgian-born deconstructionist literary critic and theorist.

He began teaching at Bard College. Later, he completed his Ph.D. at Harvard University in the late 1950s. He then taught at Cornell University, Johns Hopkins University, and the University of Zurich, before ending up on the faculty in French and Comparative Literature at Yale University, where he was considered part of the Yale School of deconstruction.

At the time of his death from cancer, he was Sterling Professor of the Humanities at Yale. After his death, the discovery of some two hundred articles he wrote during World War II for collaborationist newspapers, including one explicitly anti-Semitic, caused a scandal and provoked a reconsideration of his life and work. De Man oversaw the dissertations of both Gayatri Spivak and Barbara Johnson.

Reviews

[Uroš Đurković · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ova knjiga je dokaz da se i teoriji mogu radovati kao klinac. To moje raspamećivanje je, priznajem, pomalo jadno u naivnosti doživljaja jer, ako bi išta trebalo da bude ishod čitanja Pola de Mana, to je oštrenje interpretativno-kritičkih misaonih alata. Ipak, uživ(ljav)anje u tekstu ne mora da predstavlja i odbijanje analitičnosti. Naprotiv, dobra teorija može ujedno i da očara i da raščara. A ovo je sam vrh koji neko može da dosegne u mišljenju u književnosti. U nekoliko navrata sam, štaviše, pomislio da samo po „Problemima moderne kritike” može da se koncipira čitav jedan kurs teorije književnosti, a onda sam, naravno, ustanovio da je za razumevanje knjige potrebna ne samo izuzetna načitanost, već i vrlo dobra interpretativna kondicija. Treba sa knjigama postepeno – kao što svako ko ide u teretanu neće odmah dizati tonu na benču, tako se ne treba odmah usredsrediti na najdelikatniju literaturu (a ponešto se, sasvim moguće, ni ne može dosegnuti). Shodno tome, gotovo idiotski zvuči da književnost ne može bez književnosti, što bi, u prevodu, značilo da je književnost kao privilegovano polje komunikacije nemoguće bez dodira sa samom sobom u vidu susreta između dela. Svaka napisana reč nužno sudeluje u nadintertekstualnoj mreži, gde je ideja o obuhvatljivoj celini samo ideal. Umesto konačne sistematizacije, ostaje nam samo titranje mreže i ta stalna drhturavost ono je što književnost čini književnošću. Kad vibriranje, neprestano označavanje, prestaje, sve se gasi.

U svom raščaravajućem očaravanju, De Man nam poručuje da nije tačno da kritičar, odnosno, tumač, demistifikuje delo, već je obrnuto – literatura dimistifikuje kritičara. Posebno u vremenu krize jer kriza je pravo vreme kritike, a kritika, zapravo, manifestacija krize. (24) S tim u vezi je jedna od najpoznatijih školskih rečenica: „Šta je pisac hteo da kaže?”. Pisac je hteo da kaže ono što je napisao, ni više ni manje, a zabluda o konačnoj i jednoj interpretaciji potiče od pretpostavke o povlašćenom posmatraču (43), koji je, tobože, u posedu informacije o pravoj stvaralačkoj intenciji. Ljudi koji ovako doživljavaju stvari, a nema ih malo, negiraju ono što je u književnosti i za književnost najvažnije – a to je mogućnost višesmislenosti. Kritika tu predstavlja metaforu za čin čitanja, koji je po sebi neiscrpan. (175) Književnost nije zagonetka kojoj treba tumačenje u vidu odgonetke, već je pozornica mogućnosti za najrazličitija delovanja. Ključno je ne ono što delo „kaže”, već ono što mi možemo da kažemo u odnosu na delo, poštujući njegovu formu i sadržaj. Kao u najslađim razgovorima, priča vuče priču i teme se rasemenjavaju i iskrsavaju na neočekivanim mestima. Takođe, vrlo je važno shvatiti da književnost nikad nije izolovan sistem, što bi bio san nekih formalista i zagovornika unutrašnjeg pristupa, ali i da isto tako nije beseda o biću i/ili komentar o svetu i stvarima. Nevolja je što se toliko puta korišćena kategorija literarnosti, za koju su najdužniji ruski formalisti, ne da izlučiti iz svega što je prožima (16). Imajući to u vidu, opseg literarnosti je istorijski utemeljen fenomen – ono što je nekada bilo obeleženo kao književno, danas više nije, a pitanje je kako će se (i da li će) uopšte budućnost susresti sa kategorijom književnosti. Herojski zadatak da se ukroti ironija ironije (o kojoj je De Man napisao sjajne stranice, u rangu sa Jankelevičem), ambivalentnost pisanja, kao i da se „zanemari ili zaboravi da ova sadašnjost sadrži buduće sopstveno saznanje svog završetka” (303), samo delimično pokazuju šta sve „Problemi moderne kritike” još nose.

Kriza nam je suđena, a kritika je ne dete, već simptom krize. Problemi su njen pogon. Ko zaista dopre do problema, došao je tačno tamo gde treba. Problemi, slobodno navalite!

[Christian Haines · Rating 4 out of 5]

De Man is often merely lumped together with Derrida, Miller, and others aas representatives of "Deconstruction." There is a certain truth to this, but it is perhaps more useful to think of De Man in terms of a turn towards or return to rhetoric. Rhetoric is that material element of language consisting of tropes that makes attempts to abstract an interpretation of a text from the language of the text impossible or always already a failure. The essays in this volume are each an intervention into various tendencies in then contemporary criticism - Lukacs, New Criticism, Derrida, etc. They each orient the reader towards the relation between reader and text, especially towards the abstractions (or assumptions or jumps) that each interpreter tends to make. One of the main themes this volume is the questioning of the possibility of "literary history". De Man sees literature as an art that aims for presence, for an immediacy that it cannot but fail to achieve. From this, he will argue, it follows that a literary history intent on spreading literature over an axis leading from past to future (a genetic history) necessarily misses the object of literature. I am not sure that I accept his argument, but De Man's opening up of the problem of history is a significant project (see others like F. Jameson, S. Greenblatt, H. White etc. for similar if opposed missions). One last note: while many claim that "Deconstruction" is purely negative, that it takes interpretation apart without contributing anything interesting or significant, this not only neglects how important posing new questions is but also the complexity and potential of the field of rhetoric that it reopened.

[Shozo Hirono · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just reread this book after a gap of about 15 years (it's probably at least my sixth time rereading "Rhetoric of Temporality"). It's much more difficult following De Man's arguments all the way through now that I'm no longer a fresh young student. Also, the long passages of untranslated French and German quotes are a stumbling block, since I'm pretty rusty in both of those languages. Despite these difficulties, De Man is still the most interesting and inspiring writer on literature I've ever read, and this is one of my favorite collections of his work.

[Lobstergirl]

This paragraph in an essay by Louis Menand in the 3/24/14 New Yorker aroused my interest in this 1971 collection of De Man's writings.

Most people would agree that one of the things that make literature different from philosophy and self-help books is that in nonliterary texts rhetorical devices and figures of speech are incidental to the meaning, and in literary texts that sort of language - metaphors, symbols, allegories, all the forms and styles of fiction - are sources of meaning. We don't read literature literally. We assume that what is meant is more than, or other than, what the words literally say. This is the belief that de Man complicated (as he also complicated the belief that philosophical writing is fundamentally not figurative and rhetorical).

At this point though I either have to abort the mission, or find the Cliff's Notes for this book.

[Miyona Katayama · Rating 5 out of 5]

i cant believe its the first time im reading him lol. everyone talks about him (magician w words but later discovered to be a fascist, perhaps the reason he was always referenced but never assigned as an undergrad) but its still inspiring to read him today even just to see examples of what you can do w texts.

[Kristi Siegel · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Blindness" serves as Paul de Man's trope for cognition. Our acts of interpretation necessarily result in spatialization, the formation of "gaps," as we literally only see certain parts of the text. The blindness enables our insight, for if all were foregrounded, nothing would be foregrounded.

The only complete representation of the text is its replication. De Man depicts the lateral movement of interpretation by the term allegory. His use of allegory differs from its usual thematic connotations (such as the didacticism seen in Everyman) and refers instead to allegory's narrative impulse: a fragmented, metonymic, contiguous and diachronic passage along a horizontal axis.

Significantly, the writer--who is simultaneously reading his/her own text and s/he writes it--similarly highlights and represses what s/he is trying to represent. In the process of narrative, "like music, langugage is a diachronic system of relationships." De Man sees literary language, then, caught it a double-blind, its blindness inscribed into the very act of writing--of revelation--itself.

[Ned · Rating 4 out of 5]

The best essays in this collection are an elegant foray into the nature of reading, challenging established approaches to textual analysis. De Man's sparkling intelligence and depth makes this an essential work for understanding deconstruction, particularly in its early American incarnation. The most moving thing about engaging with De Man is that he forces you to question every preconception, opening up new and previously unimaginable avenues of thought.

[Jared Colley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another great collection of essays from one of the best readers of literature....

There is an interesting engagement with Derrida in this volume involving both figures' readings of Rousseau.

[Courtney Watson · Rating 1 out of 5]

Blah. But then, I really dislike literary criticism.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

special place in my heart for this ornery fascist