Paul de Man's Postwar Criticism: The Pre-Deconstructionist Phase

Abstract

This paper is a critical assessment of Paul de Man's pre-deconstructionist work focussing mainly on the essays collected in the first edition of his influential book Blindness and Insight. It is argued that the simultaneity of insight and blindness de Man claims to have detected in other critics' writings bears a strong similarity to the later deconstructionist assumption that texts tend to deconstruct themselves. Where de Man's earlier more phenomenological and existentialist work differs from the later phase is in the emphasis he still placed on consciousness rather than language. An analysis of several key essays also shows that de Man's definition of the essential characteristics of literary language and its relation to reality, his conception of the human subject and of history, are based on an unsustainable epistemological skepticism and that his arguments are often far from clear. In addition, de Man's radical skepticism and textualist tendencies led to a depoliticised conception of history which many of his critics found unacceptable.