This volume, 'Representations of the Self', explores a theme that has become central in our time, as 'the death of God' is widely seen to be succeeded by 'the death of Man'. Our contributors set forth its urgency in a variety of contexts. Peter Stern gives the paradigmatic history of the bereft, damaged, and repudiated self in German philosophy and literature from Kleist to Ernst Jilnger. In 'Not I' Michael Edwards pursues the theological and psychological consequences of a self without substance. Peter France supplies a witty account of the marriage of self and commerce more at home in the eighteenth-century tradition of British empiricism, and the challenge of Rousseau's refusal of the terms of commerce. Raman Selden explores views of the self from the Romantics to the poststructuralists. Roger Cardinal probes the secret diary: is the genre a contradiction in terms? Stephen Bann explores the representations of Narcissus in recent psychoanalytic theory. Pierre Dupuy analyses the self-referential logic of current literary and social theory. David James extends Wolfgang Iser's analysis of textual indeterminacies to construct new readings of Stendhal. Julie Scott Meisami writes on the subtle conventions of Persian lyric in the presentation of persona; reviewing a major study by Rene Etienible, Gregory Blue traces the distorting European visions of the Chinese 'self'. Mark Ogden reviews recent books on Holderlin, the supreme lyricist of the self and its loss. A. D. Nuttall looks at the influential new-historicist readings of Shakespeare.

Table of Contents:
List of illustrations; List of contributors; Acknowledgements; Frontispiece; Editor's introduction: purloined letters: searching for the self; Part I. Representations of the Self: 1. Representations of the self, singular and collective, from Kleist to Ernst Jünger J. P. Stern; 2. Not I Michael Edwards; 3. The commerce of the self Peter France; 4. From persona to the split subject Raman Selden; 5. Unlocking the diary Roger Cardinal; 6. René Girard and the revisionist view of narcissism, with illustrations Stephen Bann; 7. Tangled hierarchies: self-reference in philosophy, anthropology and critical theory Jean-Pierre Dupuy; 8. Persona and generic conventions in medieval Persian lyric, with illustration Julie Scott Meisami; 9. Representations of the self: a phenomenological approach to Stendhal's Le Rouge et le Noir David James; Part II. Literature and Translation: 10. 'Writing (to) One's Self': a selection of Strindberg's letters August Strindberg; Translated and with an introduction 'Strindberg the letter-writer' Michael Robinson; 11. 'The Graveyard by the Sea' Paul Valéry; Translated Alistair Elliot; 'Palm Tree' and other poems, translated James Greene; 12. 'Portrait of the Yellow Apricot Tree': a short story Norman Manea; Translated from the Romanian with an introduction note and 'Selected writings' Rosalind Belben; 13. On fathers, wet-nurses, and wars; 'The Poet and the Angel', from Croquis dans les ténèbres, a prose poem Stefan Themerson; Translated Barbara Wright; Introduction Nicholas Wadley; Illustrations Franciszka Themerson and Stefan Themerson; Part III. 14. Power dressing: on Greenblatt's Shakespearean Negotiations A. D. Nuttall; 15. Hölderlin's wager on transcendence: a review of S. Corngold, The Fate of the Self and D. Constantine, Hölderlin Mark Ogden; 16. The Chinese presence in Europe: a review of Etiemble, L'Europe chinoise I and II Gregory Blue; Part IV. Bibliographies: 17. Books and periodicals received Mark Ogden; 18. Bibliography of comparative literature in Britain and Ireland 1987 Joseph Th. Leerssen; 19. Special bibliography: 'Bibliography is my biography, the rest is irrelevant': A bibliography of Stefan Themerson Joseph Th. Leerssen