Allegories of Reading: Figural Language in Rousseau, Nietzsche, Rilke, and Proust by Paul de Man
Published 1979 · 305 pages · 75,000 words · about 6 hours at an average pace · Essays & Criticism
How hard is Allegories of Reading: Figural Language in Rousseau, Nietzsche, Rilke, and Proust to read?
Allegories of Reading: Figural Language in Rousseau, Nietzsche, Rilke, and Proust scores 81 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it very challenging. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.
- Vocabulary: 80 out of 100
- Assumes deep familiarity with literary theory, rhetoric, and the primary texts analyzed; de Man does not define his terms for newcomers.
- Sentence structure: 76 out of 100
- Abstraction: 92 out of 100
- Operates at a high level of rhetorical and philosophical abstraction; primary texts are instruments for theoretical argument.
- Information density: 82 out of 100
- Dense theoretical argument with sustained close readings; little redundancy.
- Narrative indirection: 26 out of 100
- Theoretical claims emerge from reading; de Man never states his position as a thesis outside the analyses.
- Symbolic density: 16 out of 100
- Tropes and figures are the central objects of study rather than symbols in the usual sense.
- Ironic distance: 22 out of 100
- The deconstructive method is itself ironic; de Man's prose performs the irony it theorizes.
- Resolution withholding: 24 out of 100
- The argument about irreconcilable rhetorical and grammatical levels cannot resolve; aporia is the conclusion.
- Structural complexity: 55 out of 100
- Two-part structure (theory and readings) that interlock; the readings presuppose the theory and the theory is demonstrated only in the readings.
How Allegories of Reading: Figural Language in Rousseau, Nietzsche, Rilke, and Proust is regarded
Allegories of Reading: Figural Language in Rousseau, Nietzsche, Rilke, and Proust holds a literary regard score of 82 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.