In the closing paragraph of the text De Man says how language can be just as limited a representation of a subject as the sound a picture of a storm makes.
The word Prosopeia is afigure of speech in which an absent or imaginary person is represented as speaking. In this text it has been used to describe someone talking from the grave.
De Man says autobiography is like prosopopeia in that it can represent the voice and name of the subject but the result is a deprived and disfigured representation.
Autobiography provides a distorted view of one's true self/mind.
http://blogs.ign.com/Englew/2007/11/05/70858/
Monday, November 5, 2007
Section 4
In the latter part of the text De Man decides to focus on the works of William Wordsworth who was a major English romantic poet.
In Wordsworth's work there are many fictional characters and events that can be mirrored as figures for the authors poetic self.
In other words Wordsworth fiction is really autobiography under a veil of poetry.
De Man says all of Wordsworth's texts have an autobiographical dimension in common
Wordsworth's texts are described as "autobiographical narrative" which is also a huge system of tropes (metaphors).
De Man says the language of tropes or metaphors is the "specular language of autobiography" which I believe means the metaphors used mirror the lives of the author and therefore remain autobiographical in nature.
http://blogs.ign.com/Englew/2007/11/05/70857/
In Wordsworth's work there are many fictional characters and events that can be mirrored as figures for the authors poetic self.
In other words Wordsworth fiction is really autobiography under a veil of poetry.
De Man says all of Wordsworth's texts have an autobiographical dimension in common
Wordsworth's texts are described as "autobiographical narrative" which is also a huge system of tropes (metaphors).
De Man says the language of tropes or metaphors is the "specular language of autobiography" which I believe means the metaphors used mirror the lives of the author and therefore remain autobiographical in nature.
http://blogs.ign.com/Englew/2007/11/05/70857/
Section 3
Since one can now say that all text are somewhat autobiographical then none of them can be considered to be in the autobiographical genre.
De Man says this is the issue with generic definition and that it affects the study of autobiography
The interest of autobiography is not to reveal reliable self knowledge because according to De Man it is impossible.
Philippe Lejeune, in De Man's words, stubbornly insisted autobiography is not representational and cognitive but contractual. Claiming that the name on the text is a legal signiture on a contract and the reader is the judge.
The readers judge the authenticity and consistency of the signer's behavior. The signer who was the subject of the text is not the subject anymore. The outcome we get is the reader's attitude toward this contractual subject rather than a true understanding of the true subject.
http://blogs.ign.com/Englew/2007/11/05/70856/
De Man says this is the issue with generic definition and that it affects the study of autobiography
The interest of autobiography is not to reveal reliable self knowledge because according to De Man it is impossible.
Philippe Lejeune, in De Man's words, stubbornly insisted autobiography is not representational and cognitive but contractual. Claiming that the name on the text is a legal signiture on a contract and the reader is the judge.
The readers judge the authenticity and consistency of the signer's behavior. The signer who was the subject of the text is not the subject anymore. The outcome we get is the reader's attitude toward this contractual subject rather than a true understanding of the true subject.
http://blogs.ign.com/Englew/2007/11/05/70856/
Section 2
De Man refers to Gerard Genette who was a french theorist along the lines of Roland Barthes. He discusses Genette's discussion of figuration in examples he makes in "Proust". The question being brought up is how much metaphors possibly distort autobiography.
Has any part of the text or truth been manipulated in order to produce a metaphor?
If someone uses enough metaphors does the line between autobiography and fiction become too blurry?
De Man says that the distinction between autobiography and fiction if discussed becomes undecidable.
The point he must be trying to make is that if you can't at some point differentiate an autobiography from fiction then they can't be two different genres and therefor autobiography cannot be a genre in itself.
He says it best by stating "autobiography, then is not genre or a mode, but a figure of reading or of understanding that occurs, to some degree, in all texts."
Since the description of autobiography is so wide De Man mentions that anything with a readable title page ("Text" by "John Doe" like the work stated to be "by" someone) could be, to some extent, autobiographical.
http://blogs.ign.com/Englew/2007/11/05/70815/
Has any part of the text or truth been manipulated in order to produce a metaphor?
If someone uses enough metaphors does the line between autobiography and fiction become too blurry?
De Man says that the distinction between autobiography and fiction if discussed becomes undecidable.
The point he must be trying to make is that if you can't at some point differentiate an autobiography from fiction then they can't be two different genres and therefor autobiography cannot be a genre in itself.
He says it best by stating "autobiography, then is not genre or a mode, but a figure of reading or of understanding that occurs, to some degree, in all texts."
Since the description of autobiography is so wide De Man mentions that anything with a readable title page ("Text" by "John Doe" like the work stated to be "by" someone) could be, to some extent, autobiographical.
http://blogs.ign.com/Englew/2007/11/05/70815/
Section 1
Paul De Man's "Autobiography As Defacement"
In the following blog posts we will give brief summaries and responses to the text broken up into different posts between two different blogs.
De Man begins by establishing that he is against defining autobiography as a genre by claiming that it creates a convergence of aesthetics and history that would be unnacceptable.
De Man claimes that if we were to make autobiography a genre is would elevate it above the literary status of "mere reportage, chronicle, or memoir" and put it along side major literary genres.
He states that autobiography cannot live up to the aesthetic values of these other genres and tends to look slightly "disreputable"
Each autobiographical text varies tremendously from one another making it difficult to define a somewhat stable genre.
De Man discusses autobiography in comparison to fiction saying both may contain phantasms and dreams but autobiography is rooted to a single subject who is referenced by his proper name.
De Man in so many words asks a very important question. If one believes that life produce autobiography as an "act produces consequences" then can you not reverse that and ask does autobiography produce the life the author has because of the demand it takes for self-portraiture.
http://blogs.ign.com/Englew/2007/11/05/70810/
In the following blog posts we will give brief summaries and responses to the text broken up into different posts between two different blogs.
De Man begins by establishing that he is against defining autobiography as a genre by claiming that it creates a convergence of aesthetics and history that would be unnacceptable.
De Man claimes that if we were to make autobiography a genre is would elevate it above the literary status of "mere reportage, chronicle, or memoir" and put it along side major literary genres.
He states that autobiography cannot live up to the aesthetic values of these other genres and tends to look slightly "disreputable"
Each autobiographical text varies tremendously from one another making it difficult to define a somewhat stable genre.
De Man discusses autobiography in comparison to fiction saying both may contain phantasms and dreams but autobiography is rooted to a single subject who is referenced by his proper name.
De Man in so many words asks a very important question. If one believes that life produce autobiography as an "act produces consequences" then can you not reverse that and ask does autobiography produce the life the author has because of the demand it takes for self-portraiture.
http://blogs.ign.com/Englew/2007/11/05/70810/
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