Beyond symbolism : textual history and the future of reading

Is literary language an event like any other, and can the meaning of its occurrence be documented according to ordinary principles of historical analysis and understanding? Arguing that such a question lies at the heart of all "symbolist" writing, Kevin Newmark examines the problematic nature of the literary symbol in French poetry, narrative, and criticism from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. In challenging new readings of Nerval, Baudelaire, Mallarme, Proust, Gide, Blanchot, and de Man, Newmark explores the implications of the perception that "symbolism" can be simultaneously a formal structure and a historical occurrence.Throughout, Newmark considers the consequences of his readings of literary texts for the very notion of what constitutes history. Demonstrating how history itself may involve a more complex relation between form and event than has often been recognized, he seeks to provide a new model of "textual history" based on the critical analysis of the dynamic interplay between meaning and action.Literary theorists, intellectual historians, and students and scholars of nineteenth- and twentieth centry French literature will want to read and debate Beyond Symbolism