Allegories of Reading: Figural Language in Rousseau, Nietzsche, Rilke, and Proust [Paperback]

Paul de Man (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 305 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press (September 10, 1982)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0300028458
• ISBN-13: 978-0300028454
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #302,477 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

40 of 56 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A RESPONSE TO THE ABOVE REVIEW, December 9, 1999

By 

Aaron C Sparenberg - See all my reviews

This review is from: Allegories of Reading: Figural Language in Rousseau, Nietzsche, Rilke, and Proust (Paperback)

This is to serve as a rebutal to the earlier so- called review. De Man's war time involvement with the Dutch fascists was indeed unfortunate, as was Heideggar's espousal of nazism, as well Eliade's support of the Romanian fascists. This does not however take away from the beauty of their literary and philisophical works. Something that as a Jew I have had to grapple with. Derrida is an Algerian Jew, and was Paul de Man's close friend. His approach to reading is principly an ethical one. Perhaps you should turn your attention to his book on de Man. And perhaps also, you should reread the above book, or first read some other books on deconstruction, as your characterization of it was terribly off base. Deconstruction in it's Derridean form is extremely subtle, requiring a mental agility to grasp the closeness of it's readings. You would be doing yourself a service by reapproaching it more with an attentive honestness not exhibited in the above review. As to the book in question, I have always enjoyed Paul de Man's work, however if you are not familiar with continental philosophy it may not be the best opening into that world-Derrida, Delueze, Cixous and later Hedeggar may prove more stimulating and enjoyable.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars great for a time of tremendous repudiations, December 1, 2010

By 

Bruce P. Barten (Saint Paul, MN United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Allegories of Reading: Figural Language in Rousseau, Nietzsche, Rilke, and Proust (Paperback)

I have been reading Nietzsche for 42 years, since The Will To Power was translated into English by Walter Kaufmann and Hollingdale. The issues that concerned me then are central to the discussion by Paul de Man in Allegories of Reading on fictitious truths. Chapter 6 allows Nietzsche to suggest that Aristotle's law of contradiction about A that opposite attributes cannot be ascribed to A merely applies to the apparent or assumed state for a logic that allows us to arrange a world that should be true for us. "In fact, logic (like geometry and arithmetic) applies only to fictitious truths." (p. 121, section 516 of Der Wille zur Macht by Nietzsche).

Thinking is considered a fiction, too. Having an artificial arrangement for the purpose of intelligibility falls apart when "Considered as persuasion, rhetoric is performative but when considered as a system of tropes, it deconstructs its own performance. Rhetoric is a text in that it allows for two incompatible, mutually self-destructive points of view, and therefore puts an insurmountable obstacle in the way of any reading or understanding." (p. 131). The aporia both generates and paralyzes rhetoric.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars For more support:, September 15, 2007

By 

D. Atkins "logos kai chaos" (Gainesville, FL USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Allegories of Reading: Figural Language in Rousseau, Nietzsche, Rilke, and Proust (Paperback)

I agree with Aaron C Sparenberg, and for further support suggest a reading of Dr. James Paxson's article "Historicizing Paul de Man's Master Trope Prosopopeia: Belgium's Trauma of 1940, the Nazi Volkskörper, and Versions of the Allegorical Body Politic," published in Historicizing Theory. Being at all familiar with de Man's work, one inevitably would understand how complex such issues can be, and would refrain from making such rash generalizations, particularly when the evidence at hand is printed materials -- as is quoted at the opening of The Allegories of Reading, "Quand on lit trop vite ou trop doucement on n'entend rien." The book itself is, as has been noted before, complex and filled with intense close readings of challenging texts. But these readings are truly rewarding when you reach a full understanding. (The end of each chapter tends to ignite a triumphant climax in which you at once understand how the intricacies of close readings reflect a grander picture of literature and the act of reading as we know it.) The Allegories of Reading deserves not one reading, but many close rereadings for full comprehension.