Much of the philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein can be brought to bear directly on the theoretical and critical determinations made by literature scholars. Like a language game which consists of a structural center in its essential grammar or rules and a temporal and contingent diversity in its actual uses or playing moves, Wittgensteinian philosophy as adapted herein for literary criticism points us toward a strategy of descriptive investigations whose coherence and usefulness is demonstrated in its circumstantial adaptability and responsiveness to (...) diverse texts . A reliance on Wittgensteinian philosophy adds to our work a means of discriminating among divergent critical perspectives insofar as certain perspectives will be more or less appropriate or useful in opening up different texts. For Wittgenstein, every path to a text may be different, but that does not make all equally useful or efficacious in every case. ;Chapter One discusses Wittgenstein's heuristic of the language game, his rejection of theory, and his methodology of descriptive investigations as they might be applied to literary criticism. The second chapter investigates the similarities and differences between Wittgensteinian philosophy and the deconstructive project. In the third chapter, a Wittgensteinian literary methodology is applied to the poetry of several women poets as the poems' language games and their "resemblances" are discussed. The fourth and concluding chapter points the way for future uses of Wittgenstein for literary criticism and theory: specifically regarding axiological determinations of literary and critical texts, deliberations of canonicity, and the parallels with and divergences from the poststructural critical approach of the New Historicism. The crucial point of the dissertation is that of fit: which critical methods prove most useful towards opening up which texts? Close investigations into the parameters of the language games of texts, critics, and methods will enable us to determine which paths to take towards more complete descriptive analyses and critiques. Wittgenstein's philosophical approach provides us with a strong means of developing such a method for literary criticism. (shrink)

The crucial point of Brill’s study is that of fit: which critical methods prove most useful towards opening up which texts? Close investigations into the parameters of the language games of texts, critics, and methods enable us to determine which paths to take towards more complete descriptive analyses and critique. Such an emphasis on the philosophical method of Ludwig Wittgenstein reorients literary criticism to involve a conjoint responsibility to both reader and text as the literary critic assumes the humbler role (...) of a guide who assists a reader in/to diverse literary texts. Wittgenstein’s philosophical approach provides us with a strong means of developing such a method for literary criticism—a method that points the way forward beyond postmodern criticisms and to a categorically new approach to literary texts. Brill’s work discusses at length the implications of Wittgenstein for literary criticism and theory. The volume specifically investigates the implications of Wittgenstein’s work for a number of contemporary critical orientations. In addition, the research includes actual applications of Wittgenstein for literary criticism: diverse literary texts are approached via a Wittgensteinian method as a means of discerning which critical approaches might be more or less efficacious. Not only does the book provide a solid introduction to Wittgensteinian philosophy for the critical scholars, but it also provides a clear methodology useful to critics seeking a means to navigate through the entanglement of contemporary criticism and theory. Brill argues that a reliance upon the philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein can enable literary critics to escape the seemingly endless dialectic between modern and postmodern theory. Instead of debating which theory is theoretically best, we need to describe when theories work—and when they do not. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Culture of LiteracySusan B. BrillThe Culture of Literacy, by Wlad Godzich; 317 pp. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1994, $49.95 cloth, $18.95 paper.This is a collection of essays that spans the range of Wlad Godzich’s work in the 1980s, including several pieces on Paul de Man and a number of others that served as introductions to works by Jauss, Maravall, Nerlich, and Certeau. Even though most of the (...) essays in this volume have already seen the light of publication (only one is new), grouping them together in one volume recasts them into an interdiscursive realm. Rather than being narrowed by their initial venues of publication, they are arranged around the subject of The Culture of Literacy, eliciting new and different questions.In the introduction, Godzich emphasizes that literacy programs in American universities, which developed out of the “New Vocationalism” of the seventies and eighties, “evince a profound distrust of interpretation and other critical functions in relation to language, and proclaim mastery and competence as their goals” (p. 14). Within this framework, theory has raised the voice of difference, challenging the established organization of knowledge as displayed in the academic disciplines and sub-disciplines. Writing programs are one example of the extent to which theory’s original hope of destabilizing [End Page 385] hierarchies of power through greater accessibility to university education has been co-opted and transformed into the commodity of the New Vocationalist literacy programs.This discussion poses the larger problem of the entire collection. Godzich perceives an “epochal shift” in concepts and practices of literacy not only in regards to writing programs but in the struggles over theory, in the reception of de Man, and in the challenge offered by emergent literatures whose voices raise new questions about the literary and critical presuppositions within which all university scholars function.Reprinted alongside such essays as “In-Quest of Modernity,” “The Further Possibility of Knowledge,” “The Changing Face of History,” and “After the Storyteller,” Godzich’s earlier essays on de Man are recontextualized beyond the debates concerning de Man’s wartime writings. The question whether it is possible to consider de Man’s later work divorced from his earlier writings is elided. I almost wish that Godzich had simply brought together his already published essays without the inclusion of the one new piece, “Paul de Man and the Perils of Intelligence,” which largely serves as Godzich’s defense of de Man and of Godzich’s own earlier writings on him. A footnote appended to one of the other articles would have been sufficient. Most readers would place Godzich’s articles on de Man in the context of the years when they were written—prior to the public knowledge of de Man’s collaborationist work. But when Godzich writes, “I doubt whether de Man was personally antisemitic—certainly nothing in his postwar life suggests it—but he certainly was culturally antisemitic during the war and probably before as well” (p. 136), he mires his subsequent essays even more deeply in the very difficulties he attempts to set aside. Even if de Man were antisemitic throughout his life, that in no way invalidates his criticism. We might read de Man differently, but we would read him nevertheless. Godzich’s discussions of Blindness and Insight and The Resistance to Theory demonstrate de Man’s contribution to the poststructural “overturning of modernity” and to our linguistic reconceptualizing of our notions of the self and the social. De Man becomes the pivotal focus that frees the reader from the seductive narratives of written history, official or state-sanctioned culture (specifically Spanish literary history), storytelling authority, disciplinary specialization, and the New Vocationalism. As Godzich says, “de Man’s remapping has liberated praxis from the hold that theory has had over it” (p. 169).There is courage in this collection—the courage to republish that which in a new context takes on a significance other than what the original articles bespoke. In this way, The Culture of Literacy itself exemplifies the “further possibility of knowledge” that Godzich’s essays celebrate and describe.Susan B. BrillBradley UniversityCopyright © 1995 The Johns Hopkins University Press... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Culture of LiteracySusan B. BrillThe Culture of Literacy, by Wlad Godzich; 317 pp. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1994, $49.95 cloth, $18.95 paper.This is a collection of essays that spans the range of Wlad Godzich’s work in the 1980s, including several pieces on Paul de Man and a number of others that served as introductions to works by Jauss, Maravall, Nerlich, and Certeau. Even though most of the (...) essays in this volume have already seen the light of publication (only one is new), grouping them together in one volume recasts them into an interdiscursive realm. Rather than being narrowed by their initial venues of publication, they are arranged around the subject of The Culture of Literacy, eliciting new and different questions.In the introduction, Godzich emphasizes that literacy programs in American universities, which developed out of the “New Vocationalism” of the seventies and eighties, “evince a profound distrust of interpretation and other critical functions in relation to language, and proclaim mastery and competence as their goals” (p. 14). Within this framework, theory has raised the voice of difference, challenging the established organization of knowledge as displayed in the academic disciplines and sub-disciplines. Writing programs are one example of the extent to which theory’s original hope of destabilizing [End Page 385] hierarchies of power through greater accessibility to university education has been co-opted and transformed into the commodity of the New Vocationalist literacy programs.This discussion poses the larger problem of the entire collection. Godzich perceives an “epochal shift” in concepts and practices of literacy not only in regards to writing programs but in the struggles over theory, in the reception of de Man, and in the challenge offered by emergent literatures whose voices raise new questions about the literary and critical presuppositions within which all university scholars function.Reprinted alongside such essays as “In-Quest of Modernity,” “The Further Possibility of Knowledge,” “The Changing Face of History,” and “After the Storyteller,” Godzich’s earlier essays on de Man are recontextualized beyond the debates concerning de Man’s wartime writings. The question whether it is possible to consider de Man’s later work divorced from his earlier writings is elided. I almost wish that Godzich had simply brought together his already published essays without the inclusion of the one new piece, “Paul de Man and the Perils of Intelligence,” which largely serves as Godzich’s defense of de Man and of Godzich’s own earlier writings on him. A footnote appended to one of the other articles would have been sufficient. Most readers would place Godzich’s articles on de Man in the context of the years when they were written—prior to the public knowledge of de Man’s collaborationist work. But when Godzich writes, “I doubt whether de Man was personally antisemitic—certainly nothing in his postwar life suggests it—but he certainly was culturally antisemitic during the war and probably before as well” (p. 136), he mires his subsequent essays even more deeply in the very difficulties he attempts to set aside. Even if de Man were antisemitic throughout his life, that in no way invalidates his criticism. We might read de Man differently, but we would read him nevertheless. Godzich’s discussions of Blindness and Insight and The Resistance to Theory demonstrate de Man’s contribution to the poststructural “overturning of modernity” and to our linguistic reconceptualizing of our notions of the self and the social. De Man becomes the pivotal focus that frees the reader from the seductive narratives of written history, official or state-sanctioned culture (specifically Spanish literary history), storytelling authority, disciplinary specialization, and the New Vocationalism. As Godzich says, “de Man’s remapping has liberated praxis from the hold that theory has had over it” (p. 169).There is courage in this collection—the courage to republish that which in a new context takes on a significance other than what the original articles bespoke. In this way, The Culture of Literacy itself exemplifies the “further possibility of knowledge” that Godzich’s essays celebrate and describe.Susan B. BrillBradley UniversityCopyright © 1995 The Johns Hopkins University Press... (shrink)