Paul de Man
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/* Wartime journalism and anti-Semitic writing */
'''Paul de Man''' ([[December 6]], [[1919]]{{ndash}} [[December 21]], [[1983]]) was a [[Belgium|Belgian]]-born [[deconstruction]]ist [[Literary criticism|literary critic]] and [[Literary theory|theorist]].
He completed his [[Doctor of Philosophy|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 (deconstruction)|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 almost two hundred articles he wrote during [[World War II]] for [[Collaborationism|collaborationist]] newspapers, including some explicitly [[Anti-Semitism|anti-Semitic]] articles, caused a scandal and provoked a reconsideration of his life and work. De Man oversaw the dissertations of both [[Gayatri Spivak]] and [[Barbara Johnson]].
==Academic work==
In [[1966]], de Man met [[Jacques Derrida]] at a conference at Johns Hopkins University on [[structuralism]] during which Derrida first delivered his essay "[[Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences]]". The two became close friends and colleagues. De Man elaborated a distinct [[deconstruction]] in his [[Philosophy|philosophically]]-oriented [[literary criticism]] of [[Romanticism]], both [[List of romantics|English Romanticism]] and [[German Romanticism]], with particular attention to [[William Wordsworth]], [[John Keats]], [[Maurice Blanchot]], [[Marcel Proust]], [[Jean-Jacques Rousseau]], [[Friedrich Nietzsche]], [[Immanuel Kant]], [[Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel|G.W.F. Hegel]], [[Walter Benjamin]], [[William Butler Yeats]], and [[Rainer Maria Rilke]].
While de Man's work in the 1960s is normally distinguished from his deconstructive work in the 1970s, there is considerable continuity. His 1967 essay "Criticism and Crisis" argues that because literary works are understood to be fictions rather than factual accounts, they exemplify the break between a [[Semiotics|sign and its meaning]]: literature "means" nothing, but critics resist this insight because it lays bare "the nothingness of human matters" (de Man quoting Rousseau, one of his favorite authors). De Man would later observe that, due to this resistance to acknowledging that literature does not "mean", English departments had become "large organizations in the service of everything except their own subject matter" ("The Return to Philology"), as the study of literature became the art of applying [[psychology]], [[politics]], [[history]], or other disciplines to the literary text, in an effort to make the text "mean" something.
Among the central threads running through de Man's work is his attempt to tease out the tension between rhetoric (which in de Man's usage tends to mean [[figural language]] and [[Trope (linguistics)|trope]]) and meaning, seeking out moments in the text where linguistic forces "tie themselves into a knot which arrests the process of understanding."<ref>de Man, Paul, "Shelley Disfigured", in Bloom, Harold, et al. ''Deconstruction and Criticism'' (New York, Continuum: 1979) 44.</ref> De Man's earlier essays from the 1960s, collected in ''Blindness and Insight'',<ref>See de Man, Paul, ''Blindness and Insight: Essays in the Rhetoric of Contemporary Criticism'' (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1971).</ref> represent an attempt to seek out these [[paradox]]es in the texts of [[New Criticism]] and move beyond [[Formalism_(literature)|formalism]]. One of De Man's central [[Topos|topoi]] is of the blindness on which these critical readings are predicated, that the "insight seems instead to have been gained from a negative movement that animates the critic's thought, an unstated principle that leads his language away from its asserted stand...as if the very possibility of assertion had been put into question."<ref>de Man, Paul, "The Rhetoric of Blindness", ''Blindness and Insight'', 103.</ref> Here de Man attempts to undercut the notion of the poetic work as a unified, atemporal [[Symbol|icon]], a self-possessed repository of meaning freed from the [[Intentionalism|intentionalist]] and affective fallacies. In de Man's argument, formalist and New Critical valorization of the "organic" nature of poetry is ultimately self-defeating: the notion of the verbal icon is undermined by the irony and ambiguity inherit within it. Form ultimately acts as "both a creator and undoer of organic totalities," and "the final insight...annihilated the premises which led up to it."<ref>de Man, Paul, "The Rhetoric of Blindness", ''Blindness and Insight'', 104.</ref>
In ''Allegories of Reading''<ref> See de Man, Paul, ''Allegories of Reading'' (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1979).</ref>, de Man further explores the tensions arising in figural language in Nietzsche, Rousseau, Rilke, and Proust. In these essays, he concentrates on crucial passages which have a [[Metalinguistics|metalinguistic]] function or [[Metacriticism|metacritical]] implications, particularly those where figural language has a dependency on classical philosophical oppositions ([[essence]]/accident, [[wikt:synchronic|synchronic]]/[[wikt:diachronic|diachronic]], appearance/reality) which are so central to Western [[discourse]]. Many of the essays in this volume attempt to undercut [[figural totalization]], the notion that one can control or dominate a discourse or phenomenon through [[metaphor]]. In de Man's discussion of Nietzsche's ''The Birth of Tragedy'', for instance, he claims that <!--Explain:-->genetic conceptions of history<!----> appearing in the text are undercut by the [[rhetoric]]al strategies Nietzsche employs: "the deconstruction does not occur between statements, as in a logical refutation or a dialectic, but happens instead between, on the one hand, metalinguistic statements about the rhetorical nature of language and, on the other hand, a rhetorical [[Praxis (process)|praxis]] that puts these statements into question."<ref>de Man, ''Allegories of Reading'', 98.</ref> For de Man, an "Allegory of Reading" emerges when texts are subjected to such scrutiny and reveal this tension; a reading wherein the text reveals its own assumptions about language, and in so doing dictates a statement about [[Undecidable|undecidability]], the difficulties inherent in totalization, their own readability, or the "limitations of textual authority."<ref>de Man, ''Allegories of Reading'', 99.</ref>
De Man is also known for subtle readings of English and [[German Romanticism|German]] [[Romanticism|romantic]] and post-romantic poetry and philosophy (''The Rhetoric of Romanticism'') and concise and deeply ironic essays of a quasi-[[programmatic]] theoretical orientation. Specifically noteworthy is his critical dismantling of the Romantic ideology and the linguistic assumptions which underlie it. His arguments follow roughly as follows. First, de Man seeks to deconstruct the privileged claims in Romanticism of [[symbol]] over [[allegory]], and [[metaphor]] over [[metonymy]]. In his reading, because of the implication of [[Self-concept|self-identity]] and wholeness which is inherent in the Romantics' conception of metaphor, when this self-identity decomposes, so also does the means of overcoming the [[dualism]] between [[Subject (philosophy)|subject]] and [[Object (philosophy)|object]], which Romantic metaphor sought to transcend. In de Man's reading, to compensate for this inability, Romanticism constantly relies on allegory to attain the wholeness established by the totality of the symbol.<ref> See de Man, "The Rhetoric of Temporality", ''Blindness and Insight''.</ref>
In addition, in his essay "The Resistance to Theory", which explores the task and philosophical bases of [[literary theory]], de Man uses the example of the classical ''[[Trivium (education)|trivium]]'' of grammar, rhetoric, and logic to argue that the use of linguistic sciences in literary theory and criticism (i.e. a [[structuralist]] approach) was able to harmonize the logical and grammatical dimension of literature, but only at the expense of effacing the rhetorical elements of texts which presented the greatest interpretive demands. Taking up the example of the title of Keats' poem ''The Fall of Hyperion'', de Man draws out an irreducible interpretive undecidability which bears strong affinities to the same term in Derrida's work and some similarity to the notion of incommensurability as developed by [[Jean-François Lyotard]] in ''[[The Postmodern Condition]]'' and ''The Differend''. De Man argues forcefully that the recurring motive of theoretical readings is to subsume these decisions under theoretical, futile generalizations, which are displaced in turn into harsh [[polemic]]s about theory.
==Influence and legacy==
De Man followed developments in contemporary [[French language|French]] literature, criticism, and theory. De Man's influence on literary criticism was considerable for many years, in no small part through his many influential students. He was a very charismatic teacher and influenced both students and fellow faculty members profoundly.
Much of de Man's work was collected or published posthumously. ''The Resistance to Theory'' was virtually complete at the time of his death. [[Andrzej Warminski]], previously a colleague at Yale, edited the works already published which were to appear in a planned volume with the tentative title ''Aesthetic Ideology''.
==Wartime journalism and anti-Semitic writing==
After de Man's death, almost two hundred articles he wrote during World War II for a collaborationist Belgian newspaper were discovered by Ortwin de Graef, a Belgian student researching de Man's early life and work.<ref>For facsimiles of the articles, see Warner Hamacher, Neil Hertz, and Thomas Keenan, eds., ''Wartime Journalism 1939-1943 by Paul de Man''. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1988.</ref> In one piece, titled “Jews in Contemporary Literature,” de Man examined the argument that “the Jews” had “polluted” modern literature. The article argued that “our civilization” had remained healthy by resisting “the Semitic infiltration of all aspects of European life.” It concluded that sending the Jews of Europe to a colony “isolated from Europe” as “a solution to the [[Jewish Question|Jewish problem]]” would lack any "deplorable consequences" for literature.<ref>”Les Juifs dans la litterature actuelle” appears in ibid., p.45.</ref> At the time De Man published the article, March 1941, Belgium had passed anti-Jewish legislation that expelled Jews from the professions of law, teaching, government service, and journalism. On August 4, 1942, the first trainload of Belgian Jews left [[Brussels]] for [[Auschwitz concentration camp|Auschwitz]]. De Man continued to write for the (during the war) [[Nazism|Nazi]]-controlled newspaper ''[[Le Soir]]'' until November 1942, although it is unlikely he was aware of what was happening to the Jews in Auschwitz.<ref>See “Paul de Man: A Chronology, 1919-1949”, in Warner Hamacher, Neil Hertz, and Thomas Keenan (eds.) ''Responses: On Paul de Man’s Wartime Journalism''. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1989.</ref>
The discovery of de Man's anti-Semitic writing made the front page of the ''New York Times'',<ref>”Yale Scholar Wrote for Pro-Nazi Newspaper”, ''New York Times'', Dec. 1, 1987, p.1.</ref> and angry debate followed. Jeffrey Mehlman, a professor of French at [[Boston University]], declared there were “grounds for viewing the whole of deconstruction as a vast amnesty project for the politics of collaboration during World War II”,<ref>Quoted in David Lehman, "Deconstructing de Man’s Life”, ''Newsweek'', Feb. 15, 1988, p.63.</ref> while Derrida published a long piece responding to critics, declaring that “to judge, to condemn the work or the man ... is to reproduce the exterminating gesture which one accuses de Man of not having armed himself against sooner.”<ref>Jacques Derrida, “Like the Sound of the Sea Deep within a Shell: Paul de Man’s War”, ''Critical Inquiry'' 14 (Spring 1988), 590-65; quote from 651; see also the “Critical Responses” in ''Critical Inquiry'' 15 (Summer 1989, 765-811) and Derrida’s angry reply, “Biodegradables: Seven Diary Fragments”, 812-873.</ref> That seemed to some readers to draw an objectionable connection between criticism of de Man and extermination of the Jews.<ref>See, for example, Jon Wiener, “The Responsibilities of Friendship”, ''Critical Inquiry'' 15 (Summer 1989), 797.</ref>
In addition to the debate over the significance of de Man’s wartime writings, there was also a debate over the significance of the fact that he had hidden his collaborationist past and his anti-Semitic writing throughout the thirty-five years of his life in America. De Man's colleagues, students and contemporaries attempted to come to grips with both his early anti-Semitic writings and his subsequent secrecy about them in the volume ''Responses: On Paul de Man's Wartime Journalism'' (edited by Werner Hamacher, Neil Hertz, and Thomas Keenan; Nebraska, 1989).
== Notes ==
{{reflist}}
==Works==
* ''Allegories of Reading: Figural Language in Rousseau, Nietzsche, Rilke, and Proust,'' (ISBN 0-300-02845-8) 1979
* ''Blindness and Insight: Essays in the Rhetoric of Contemporary Criticism'' (2nd ed.), (ISBN 0-8166-1135-1) 1983
* ''The Rhetoric of Romanticism,'' (ISBN 0-231-05527-7) 1984
* ''The Resistance to Theory,'' (ISBN 0-8166-1294-3) 1986
* ''Wartime Journalism, 1934-1943,'' (ISBN 0-8032-1684-X) eds. Werner Hamacher, Neil Heertz, Thomas Keenan, 1988
* ''Critical Writings: 1953-1978,'' (ISBN 0-8166-1695-7) Lindsay Waters (ed.), 1989
* ''Romanticism and Contemporary Criticism: The Gauss Seminar and Other Papers,'' (ISBN 0-8166-1695-7) eds. E. S. Burt, Kevin Newmark, and Andrzej Warminski, 1993
* ''Aesthetic Ideology,'' (ISBN 0-8166-2204-3) ed. Andrzej Warminski, 1996
==Selected secondary works==
*Cathy Caruth and Deborah Esch (eds.), ''Critical Encounters: Reference and Responsibility in Deconstructive Writing''
*Tom Cohen, Barbara Cohen, J. Hillis Miller, Andrzej Warminski (eds.), ''Material Events: Paul de Man and the Afterlife of Theory'' (essays pertaining to de Man's posthumously published work in ''Aesthetic Ideology'')
*[[Jacques Derrida]], ''Memoires for Paul de Man''
*Rodolphe Gasché, ''The Wild Card of Reading''
*Neil Hertz, Werner Hamacher, and Thomas Keenan (eds.), ''Responses to Paul de Man's Wartime Journalism''
*[[Jon Wiener]], "The Responsibilities of Friendship: Jacques Derrida on Paul de Man's Collaboration." ''Critical Inquiry'' 14 (1989), 797-803.
*Christopher Norris, ''Paul de Man: Deconstruction and the Critique of Aesthetic Ideology''
*David Lehman, ''Signs of the times: Deconstruction and the Fall of Paul de Man.''
==See also==
*[[List of deconstructionists]]
== External links ==
*[http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/tf6p30071t Guide to the Paul de Man Papers.] Special Collections and Archives, The UC Irvine Libraries, Irvine, California.
* [http://www.press.jhu.edu/books/hopkins_guide_to_literary_theory/paul_de_man.html Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory]
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[[Category:1919 births]]
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[[Category:20th century philosophers]]
[[Category:Continental philosophers]]
[[Category:Deconstruction]]
[[Category:Postmodernism]]
[[Category:Literary critics]]
[[Category:Irony theorists]]
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