“Prior to any generalization about literature, literary texts have to be read, and the possibility of reading can never be taken for granted. It is an act of understanding that can never be observed, nor in any way prescribed or verified.”

— Paul De Man

Blindness and Insight: Essays in the Rhetoric of Contemporary Criticism, Oxford University Press. 1971 p. 107.

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Paul De Man 1

literary theorist 1919–1983

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