Blindness & insight;: Essays in the Rhetoric of Contemporary Criticism

A clean, tight copy sans tears, stains, discoloration, etc. with all text clear/unmarked. "Literary studies in America and Europe today are often held to be shaped by tensions between thematic, structural, and phenomenological criticism. Not so long ago critical approaches were said to be historical, formalist, or existential. In these nine interpretive essays Professor de Man holds that such labels, while useful for historical classification, are often misleading when applied to the study of literature: the best critical insights are frequently the least systematic, and an emphasis on schools or movements "tends to blot out the individuality of the finest contributions." This first collection of Professor de Man's work concentrates upon patterns that recur among all critics, whatever their nationality or method, and the author seeks for these in certain discrepancies between critical theory and practice." 189 pages. LH4.