Synopses & Reviews
Review
"Whither deconstruction? If this most recent offering by one of the foremost of the old Yale school of critics is any indication, first-generation deconstructionists are following both their detractors and their former disciples into the real world of material history, ethics, and politics. Moving through a series of apparently unrelated narratives by Kleist, Blanchot, Melville, and Henry James, Miller uses Ovid's Pygmalion as the model for the reading, writing,
and teaching of each in an effort to show that deconstructive literary criticism has always been, uh, essentially ethical. So now we know." Reviewed by Daniel Weiss, Virginia Quarterly Review (Copyright 2006 Virginia Quarterly Review)
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. [245]-256) and index.
Table of Contents
Proem: Pygmalion's Prosopopoeia
1. The Ethics of Narration
2. Reading, Doing: James's
What Maisie Knew 3. Just Reading: Kleist's "Der Findling"
4. Who Is He? Melville's "Bartleby the Scrivener"
5. Death Mask: Blanchot's
L'arrêt de mort 6. Facing It: James's "The Last of the Valerii"
Notes
Acknowledgments
Index