Allegories of Reading

Allegories of Reading

Paul de Man • Yale University Press

ISBN-10: 0300028458 · ISBN-13: 978‑0300028454 · 1982

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Completeness 51

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This important theoretical work by Paul de Man sets forth a mode of reading and interpretation based on exemplary texts by Rousseau, Nietzsche, Rilke, and Proust. The readings start from unresolved difficulties in the critical traditions engendered by these authors, and they return to the places in the text where those difficulties are most apparent or most incisively reflected upon. The close reading leads to the elaboration of a more general model of textual understanding, in which de Man shows that the thematic aspects of the texts—their assertions of truth or falsehood as well as their assertions of values—are linked to specific modes of figuration that can be identified and described.

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23 live copies of this book from $13.54 (as of 2026-09-08).

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