The Ending of 'Tintern Abbey' and Paul de Man's Theory of the Performative Nature of Language

Abstract

The main purpose of this paper is to explain the puzzling changes that occur at the end of Wordsworth's "Tintern Abbey" by the help of a theoretical structure outlined in Paul de Man's essay "Rhetoric of Persuasion (Nietzsche)." Besides, it also argues that the poem can be used to elucidate some theoretical procedures that de Man deploys in another essay of his, "Promises (Social Contract)."