In the present climate of polemical exchange one may doubt whether Gabriel Josipovici would take very kindly to being enlisted on the side of 'literary theory'. Though his essays make reference to figures like Barthes and Derrida, they do so with an air of studied detachment, as if to forestall any charge of deeper complicity. If it comes to a straight choice between 'interpretation' and 'theory' - however unreal the terms of that choice - Josipovici is in the business of interpreting texts, and only has time for theoretical diversions when they happen to point up a reading or adorn a theme. Yet it is fair to remark that these essays (based on his Northcliffe Lectures for 1980-81, delivered at University College, London) could scarcely have taken their present form had it not been for Josipovici's involvement with recent literary theory. Indeed, it is one of the merits of this book that it moves between 'theory' and 'interpretation' with an unforced naturalness which helps to discredit that false and misleading dichotomy.

LRB 21 April 1983 | PDF Download