Figures of failure

Figures of Failure offers a comprehensive interpretation of Paul de Man´s theoretical itinerary prior to his emergence as the doyen of deconstruction in Amercia. The book includes sections on Hegelian poetics, Heidegger´s thought, and romanticism, the main areas in which de Man carried out his critical work before 1970. His encounters with dialectical negations in Mallarmé and Blanchot, Heideggger´s existetial analytic and poetics of Being, the antagonism of symbol and allegory in Benjamin, and Derrida´s deconstruction of Rousseau all present opportunities for tracing the figures which, in various guises, remained crucial in de Man´s theory: Being inaccessible, intention unfulfillable, truth unattainable - in brief, Figures of Failure.