The Post-Romantic Predicament PDF
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The Frontiers of Theory The Frontiers of Theory The Series Editor: Martin McQuillan, Kingston University This series brings together internationally respected figures to comment on and re-describe the state of theory in the twenty-first century. Post-Romantic T h The Post-Romantic Predicament e Paul de Man P Predicament Edited by Martin McQuillan o s ‘De Man’s readings of Mallarmé, Yeats, and George in the 1950s demonstrate how a reflection t on an authentically poetic vocation cannot help but produce a concomitant reflection on - R what constitutes a genuinely literary criticism and theory. It is fascinating to see how de o Man’s pushing of a Hegelian phenomenological “method” to its limits engenders what we m now call “de Manian” rhetorical or “deconstructive” reading. The Post-Romantic Predicament Paul de Man is essential reading for anyone concerned with the question of “the literary”.’ a Andrzej Warminski, University of California, Irvine n Edited by Martin McQuillan t i First publication of a collection of critical texts from Paul de Man’s Harvard University years c P From 1955–1961 Paul de Man was a Junior Fellow at Harvard University where he wrote a r doctoral thesis entitled ‘The Post-Romantic Predicament: a study in the poetry of Mallarmé e and Yeats’. These texts from this period include de Man’s extended considerations of d Stéphane Mallarmé and W. B. Yeats as well as essays on Hölderlin, Keats and Stefan George. i This writing reflects recognisable concerns for de Man: the figurative dimension of language, c the borders between philosophy and literature, the ideological obfuscations of Romanticism, a and the difficulties of the North American heritage of New Criticism. These essays, brought m together from the Paul de Man papers at the University of California (Irvine), make a significant contribution to the cultural history of deconstruction, and to the present state of e literary theory. n t Paul de Man (1919–1983) was the Sterling Professor of French and Comparative Literature at Yale University. He is the author of some of the most important works of literary theory and deconstruction including Blindness and Insight, Allegories of Reading, The Rhetoric of P a Romanticism and Aesthetic Ideology. u l Martin McQuillan is Professor of Literary Theory and Cultural Analysis and Dean of the d e Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at Kingston University, London. His recent publications M include Deconstruction After 9/11 and Roland Barthes, or, The Profession of Cultural Studies. a n Edinburgh University Press 22 George Square ISBN 978–0–7486–4105–5 Edinburgh EH8 9LF www.euppublishing.com E ISBN 978 0 7486 4105 5 d in Jacket image: Beach at Heist Georges Lemmen, b u 1891-92 © akg-images / Erich Lessing r g Jacket design: Michael Chatfield h Approx. Pantone colour 365 - spine 668 The Post-Romantic Predicament DDEE MMAANN 99778800774488664411005555 PPRRIINNTT..iinndddd ii 1122//0033//22001122 1155::4400 The Frontiers of Theory Series Editor: Martin McQuillan The Poetics of Singularity: The Counter-Culturalist Turn in Heidegger, Derrida, Blanchot and the later Gadamer Timothy Clark Dream I Tell You Hélène Cixous Scandalous Knowledge: Science, Truth, and the Human Barbara Herrnstein Smith Geneses, Genealogies, Genres and Genius Jacques Derrida Insister of Jacques Derrida Hélène Cixous Not Half No End: Militantly Melancholic Essays in Memory of Jacques Derrida Geoffrey Bennington Death-Drive: Freudian Hauntings in Literature and Art Robert Rowland Smith Of Jews and Animals Andrew Benjamin Reading and Responsibility: Deconstruction’s Traces Derek Attridge To Follow: The Wake of Jacques Derrida Peggy Kamuf Volleys of Humanity: Essays 1972–2009 Hélène Cixous Veering: A Theory of Literature Nicholas Royle The Post-Romantic Predicament Paul de Man Poetry in Painting: Writings on Contemporary Arts and Aesthetics Hélène Cixous, ed. Marta Segarra and Joana Masó The Paul de Man Notebooks Paul de Man Visit the Frontiers of Theory website at www.euppublishing.com/series/tfot DDEE MMAANN 99778800774488664411005555 PPRRIINNTT..iinndddd iiii 1122//0033//22001122 1155::4400 The Post-Romantic Predicament Paul de Man Edited by Martin McQuillan DDEE MMAANN 99778800774488664411005555 PPRRIINNTT..iinndddd iiiiii 1122//0033//22001122 1155::4400 © The Estate of Paul de Man, 2012 © Editorial Matter, Martin McQuillan, 2012 Edinburgh University Press Ltd 22 George Square, Edinburgh EH8 9LF www.euppublishing.com Typeset in 10.5/13 pt Sabon by Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Stockport, Cheshire, and printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978 0 7486 4105 5 (hardback) ISBN 978 0 7486 5623 3 (webready PDF) ISBN 978 0 7486 5625 7 (epub) ISBN 978 0 7486 5624 0 (Amazon ebook) The right of Paul de Man to be identifi ed as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. DDEE MMAANN 99778800774488664411005555 PPRRIINNTT..iinndddd iivv 1122//0033//22001122 1155::4400 Contents Series Editor’s Preface vi Acknowledgement viii Editor’s Note ix ‘No Country for Old Men’: Paul de Man and the Post-Romantic Predicament 1 Martin McQuillan Paul de Man: Essays 1. Introduction to ‘The Post-Romantic Predicament’ (1960) 33 2. Mallarmé (1960) 36 Part I ‘Hérodiade’ 36 Part II ‘Igitur’ 59 Part III ‘Un coup de dés’ 84 3. Drama and History in Yeats (1960) 124 4. Mallarmé, George and Yeats (c.1959) 166 5. Stefan George and Stéphane Mallarmé (1952) 182 6. Stefan George and Friedrich Hölderlin (1954) 196 Appendix: Dissertation Fragment on Stefan George (c.1955) 215 De Man’s Bibliography to Chapter 2 227 Index 231 DDEE MMAANN 99778800774488664411005555 PPRRIINNTT..iinndddd vv 1122//0033//22001122 1155::4400 Series Editor’s Preface Since its inception Theory has been concerned with its own limits, ends and after-life. It would be an illusion to imagine that the academy is no longer resistant to Theory but a signifi cant consensus has been estab- lished and it can be said that Theory has now entered the mainstream of the humanities. Reaction against Theory is now a minority view and new generations of scholars have grown up with Theory. This leaves so-called Theory in an interesting position which its own procedures of auto-critique need to consider: what is the nature of this mainstream Theory and what is the relation of Theory to philosophy and the other disciplines which inform it? What is the history of its construction and what processes of amnesia and the repression of difference have taken place to establish this thing called Theory? Is Theory still the site of a more-than-critical affi rmation of a negotiation with thought, which thinks thought’s own limits? ‘Theory’ is a name that traps by an aberrant nominal effect the trans- formative critique which seeks to reinscribe the conditions of thought in an inaugural founding gesture that is without ground or precedent: as a ‘name’, a word and a concept, Theory arrests or misprisions such think- ing. To imagine the frontiers of Theory is not to dismiss or to abandon Theory (on the contrary one must always insist on the it-is-necessary of Theory even if one has given up belief in theories of all kinds). Rather, this series is concerned with the presentation of work which challenges complacency and continues the transformative work of critical thinking. It seeks to offer the very best of contemporary theoretical practice in the humanities, work which continues to push ever further the frontiers of what is accepted, including the name of Theory. In particular, it is interested in that work which involves the necessary endeavour of cross- ing disciplinary frontiers without dissolving the specifi city of disciplines. Published by Edinburgh University Press, in the city of Enlightenment, this series promotes a certain closeness to that spirit: the continued DDEE MMAANN 99778800774488664411005555 PPRRIINNTT..iinndddd vvii 1122//0033//22001122 1155::4400 Series Editor’s Preface vii exercise of critical thought as an attitude of inquiry which counters modes of closed or conservative opinion. In this respect the series aims to make thinking think at the frontiers of theory. Martin McQuillan DDEE MMAANN 99778800774488664411005555 PPRRIINNTT..iinndddd vviiii 1122//0033//22001122 1155::4400 Acknowledgements The essays included in this volume are copyright Patsy de Man; I am extremely grateful for her permission to reproduce them here and for her unfailing support. ‘The Post-Romantic Predicament’ is reproduced courtesy of Special Collections and Archives, University of California, Irvine Libraries. Paul de Man papers. MS-C004. Box 1: Folders 19–24. I am indebted to Michelle Light, Andrew Jones and Stephen MacLeod for their assistance in co-producing this manuscript. I would also like to thank Jackie Dooley, J. Hillis Miller, Andrzej Warminski, Ellen Burt, Stephen Barker, Steve Mailloux, David Theo Goldberg, Rei Terada, Catherine Lui, Peter Krapp, Mark Currie, Robert Eaglestone, Simon Morgan Wortham and Linda Corcoran for their invaluable contribu- tions to the production of this book. This book was made possible by grants from the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the British Academy. I would like to thank Erin Obodiac who worked with me on the AHRC funded project. I am also grateful for travel allowances, which enabled this work, from both the University of Leeds and Kingston University, London. My thanks as ever go to Jackie Jones. This book is for Oscar and Felix, my odd couple. Martin McQuillan DDEE MMAANN 99778800774488664411005555 PPRRIINNTT..iinndddd vviiiiii 1122//0033//22001122 1155::4400 Editor’s Note on The Post-Romantic Predicament The texts that form this collection are held in the Special Collections and Archives at the University of California, Irvine. I have taken the decision not to attempt to revise de Man’s text in light of subsequent publications or attempt to amend it to correspond with contemporary editorial norms. These texts were written in a specifi c context and at a particular time. The reasons for presenting them here are connected to their historical relation to our own theoretical scene. I am sure that no one would thank me for attempting to prettify de Man’s graduate texts: to present them in such a way that did not take account of their place within the history of de Man’s own writing, or, present them as the ‘fi nished article’ approved for publication by de Man. The texts from 1960 were submitted by de Man for assessment as part of his PhD, the other texts either take the form of class work or abandoned sections of the doctoral thesis. In the case of the Appendix dissertation fragment, the text is often little more than a sketch towards further thought and writing. I believe that justice is best done to these texts and to de Man’s longer writing career by allowing them to retain their institutional and embryonic identity. This may occasionally result in a degree of incon- sistency in the referencing but not one that I believe will detract from understanding or appreciation of the text. Square brackets frequently appear in the text by way of expansion and explanation. These brackets are the work of de Man himself, unless otherwise stated in the text. I am extremely grateful to Tim Clark of Edinburgh University Press for his forensic attention to the quality of this manuscript. Any errors contained within it are my own. Martin McQuillan DDEE MMAANN 99778800774488664411005555 PPRRIINNTT..iinndddd iixx 1122//0033//22001122 1155::4400
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