Difference Unbound: The Rise of Pluralism in Literature and Criticism

Amsterdam & Atlanta: Rodopi, 1995. 268pp & index. 2nd enlarged edition with new index, notes and preface by Mary Ann Caws (Atlanta/Amsterdam: Rodopi, now Brill, 2012)

This is the first book to examine the precise relationship between pluralism and the production of Western literature and criticism from the eighteenth century to the present. It underscores the historical rather than exclusively epistemological reasons behind what is here called “the rise of literary pluralism.” This rise entails, on the one hand, the modern day phenomenon of an ever-increasing number of readings of both canonical and contemporary works of verbal art; and, on the other, our ever-growing body of literature written with an eye towards different types of characters, situations, forms and styles. Reviewing a wide range of authors and thinkers-from German, French and English Romantics to Anglo-American and European poststructuralist theorists-it shows how and why the current literary emphasis on difference derives from an unquestioned allegiance to the notion of cultural pluralism. While never denying the value of the latter, it seeks instead to analyze the oftentimes unquestioned implications of this historically-situated belief within the specific realm of literary studies.

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Reviews

Metzidakis has written an erudite, ambitious, and intentionally provocative work addressing the ways in which we respond to a plurality of readings of both literary and critical texts, and offering what he terms a three-fold polemic against literary criticism . – Rosemary Lloyd, in: The French Review

The strength of the book lies in Metzidakis approach(es). He combines, juxtaposes and synthesizes the history of ideas, theory of literature, and the practical criticism of texts. He does all three, and all three well. I see at work a fine, subtle, comprehensive mind, a philosophical mind. Metzidakis treats authors and books in a number of languages (French, German, English, also Italian; he knows literature and criticism from 1750 to the present. This is one of a relatively small number of books on critical and theoretical questions that takes ideas seriously yet is also couched in clear, comprehensible English. – William Calin, in: South Atlantic Review

Metzidakis reveals many of the ambiguities, half-truths and uneasy compromises that lie at the heart of critical endeavor today. These pages are both enjoyable to read, and, at the same time, disturbing in their implications He is always careful to point out that he is not making moral judgments on the phenomena that he examines. He merely points out their inherent dangers, and particularly those attached to the contemporary love of the new and original. – David J. Bond, in: French Forum“