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A major reassessment of the work of Jean Paulhan within the context of his own times as well as in the light of contemporary debates in literary theory.
Defying Gravity is a major reassessment of the work of Jean Paulhan within the context of his own times, as well as in the light of contemporary debates in literary theory. Best known for his long-serving editorship of the influential Parisian literary review, La Nouvelle Revue Française, Paulhan is now widely acknowledged as one of the most central yet least understood figures of twentieth-century French intellectual and literary history. Syrotinski's study admirably performs the dual purpose of introducing a genuinely innovative and distinctive writer to a general anglophone readership, while engaging critically with his texts and their reception. Syrotinski's readings of Paulhan are both original and provocative, and firmly establish him as an unavoidable point of reference for twentieth-century French literary history and theory.
"This book constitutes the first English-language book devoted to the work and influence of Jean Paulhan, and is written by someone who is remarkably familiar with his work. But, more importantly, it is the first one, no matter what language, to do full justice to the historical and intellectual implications of Paulhan's work and to do it in light of contemporary Anglo-Saxon academic debates. One has been waiting for a major reassessment of the work of Paulhan. In this informative and intellectually challenging work, Syrotinski manages to promote this elusive, multifaceted, but central French literary figure as a key reference for deconstructionist and postcolonial debates." — Denis Hollier, Yale University
"This book is important as a study of one figure, Paulhan, whose texts have never been so brilliantly explored, and who was a central figure in French letters during an extremely interesting period of French history. It is also significant as a polemical contribution to current debates about the nature of literary studies: their relation to the study of history, to the encounter with non-Western cultures, to political and ethical issues, to gender questions." — Ann Smock, University of California, Berkeley
Acknowledgments
Introduction.
Figures of Duplicity Paulhan and Contemporary Literary Theory
1. Allegories of Ethnography
i. Malagasy Proverbs2. Underwriting the Personal: Modesty and the récits
ii. Sacred Language
i. Jean Paulhan and Jacques Maast3. Blanchot reading Paulhan
ii. Modesty, Mania and Other Wor(l)ds
iii. Coda: Progress in Love?
i. Who Said Anything About Terror?4. Resistance, Collaboration, and the Postwar Literary Purge in France
ii. Poetic Justice
5. Domestic Spaces, Aesthetic Traces
i. Cubes, Cubes, and More CubesConclusion
ii. Painting by Letters
Notes
Bibliography
Index