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The Literary Criticism of Georges Poulet

1963; Johns Hopkins University Press; Volume: 78; Issue: 5 Linguagem: Inglês

10.2307/3042757

1080-6598

J. Hillis Miller,

French Literature and Criticism

Prior to criticism, and the origin of it, is the act of reading. The special virtue of reading, for Georges Poulet, is that it gives a man unique access to another mind: sans sortir de soi, sans abandonner son interiorit6 propre, celui qui, comme on dit, 'se plonge' dans la lecture, de ce seul fait s'enfonce dans la profondeur d'une interiorite seconde, avec laquelle son esprit coincide. 2 To plunge into a book does not mean entering an impersonal realm created by words. It means entering another consciousness, for la conscience de liseur, et, a fortiori, la conscience de ce liseurtype qu'est le critique, ont pour trait caracteristique de s'identifier avec une pensee autre que la leur. 3 A central theme of much literature, especially of fiction, is the interplay of consciousness with consciousness. One writer may