Pygmalions' Reading of Reading Pygmalions

Rhetorical Self-Quest in de Man, Rousseau, and Ovid

Abstract

This paper discusses issues of autobiography, or life-writing, that is, the writing of (a) life/self, focusing on two images: the stony statue and the sealing, melting wax that appear in the readings of narcissistic Pygmalions and their prosopopoeia. Although the apropos of this reading is provided by the 'blind statue' of Rousseau and Pygmalion, I cannot help writing about Narcissus, who as a wax-figure or, rather, 'as a reverant ghost' keeps reappearing. While the text is concerned with the question of self/life-writing and life work in literary criticism, I also pay attention to the self-reflexive, life-giving and all-demanding irony of postmodern reading theories. Although the analysis centres on Rousseau's works (Narcissus, Pygmalion), the central classical Ovidian figure is Pygmalion, whose creative 'life-giving' story is often alluded to in Anglophone deconstructive critical writings.