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Review Of  Myth, Truth And Literature: Towards A True Post-Modernism  By C. Falck

Swarthmore College Works Philosophy Faculty Works Philosophy 4-1-1990 Review Of "Myth, Truth And Literature: Towards A True Post-Modernism" By C. Falck Richard Thomas Eldridge Swarthmore College, reldrid1@swarthmore.edu This work is brought to you for free and open access by . It has been accepted for inclusion in Philosophy Faculty Works by an authorized administrator of Works. For more information, please contact myworks@swarthmore.edu. Follow this and additional works at: https://works.swarthmore.edu/fac-philosophy  Part of the Philosophy Commons Let us know how access to these works benefits you  Recommended Citation Richard Thomas Eldridge. (1990). "Review Of "Myth, Truth And Literature: Towards A True Post-Modernism" By C. Falck". Philosophy And Literature. Volume 14, Issue 1. 227-228. DOI: 10.1353/phl.1990.0081 https://works.swarthmore.edu/fac-philosophy/288 ?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????Philosophy and Literature, Volume 14, Number 1, April 1990, pp. 227-228(Review)???????????????????????????????????????????DOI: 10.1353/phl.1990.0081For additional information about this article                                                      Access provided by Swarthmore College (19 Aug 2015 14:52 GMT)http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/phl/summary/v014/14.1.eldridge.htmlReviews227To teachers ofShakespeare, this book will stimulate new ideas for introducingthe plays, and it will facilitate an understanding ofNewHistoricism. It is scholarlyand demanding; but the author's frequent restatement of his thesis at crucialpoints in the text is a useful aid to the reader.WillametteUniversityRichard D. LordMyth, Truth and Literature: Towards a True Post-Modern-ism, by Colin Falck; xv & 173 pp. Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1989, $34.50.Recent literary theory has been dominated by an opposition between bothintentionalism and New Criticism, on the one hand, where the effort is to getat some really existing stable thing—an intended meaning or an aesthetic ob-ject—and poststructuralism and New Historicism on the other, where criticismcalls our attention only to the sectarian and ungeneralizable character of allworks as constructs. Both styles of literary study have clear liabilities. Inten-tionalism tends to cast literary work as gratuitously personal or autobiographical,while New Criticism tends to cast it as gratuitously aesthetic, detaching theaesthetic from the moral, the political, the scientific, and the social. Poststruc-turalism and New Historicism tend to deny the existence of either human ornatural reality and as a result to leave us adrift in moral and political nihilism.In order to overcome the failings of each of these schools, what is needed is arethinking of the nature of the human subject and its place in the world.It is this necessary rethinking that Colin Falck offers us in Myth, Truth andLiterature. Drawing self-consciously on the Romantic literary tradition, and onrelated ideas in twentieth-century philosophers such asWittgenstein, Heidegger,and Collingwood, Falck proposes that both discursive language and individualhuman consciousness are emergent from natural, preconscious expressions thatarise prior to the separation of subject and object. Our preconscious life ispractical, in that our expressions arise in die course of our involvement withthe world, widiout being instrumental, for there are not yet distinctive subjectswith specific purposes in mind. Truth is primordially a matter of glimpsingnew possibilities for furthering our involvement with the world in the directionof freedom. Pursuing truth requires a stance of concern for the glimpsing ofnew and freer possibilities of involvement. Though art and literature are them-selves pardy conventionalized and constituted within already existent particu-larized social structures, they are nonetheless, as efforts in expressiveness, theprincipal and most satisfactory vehicles for glimpsing new possibilities of in-228Philosophy and Literaturevolvement. "The poem or fiction . . . gives us the truth of, or the truth behind,the world which we ordinarily inhabit. It takes us to where the real life of thatworld lies; or as D. H. Lawrence said of the novel, 'it can inform and lead intonew places the flow of our sympathetic consciousness, and it can lead oursympathy away in recoil from things gone dead' " (pp. 113—14). Hence poetsare, in the phrase ofShelley's that is the leitmotifof Falck's book, "the unacknowl-edged legislators of the world" (p. 78).Taken as theory, the development of these Romantic conceptualizations ofsubject and object is sound and convincing. Falck moves easily through bothGerman and English sources, both philosophical and literary, in developing histiiemes, all the while developing careful criticisms of recent French and Amer-ican literary theory that has been influenced by Saussure. In virtue of its com-pelling arguments, Myth, Truth and Literature is a book that might well do somegood in changing the current drift of literary theory and in reinvigoratingliterary work. It deserves a wide audience.But, despite die compelling character of its arguments, Myth, Truth and Lit-erature also might well fail to have its intended effect, and this should lead usto rethink its achievement. The cultural world is both Balkanized and over-whelmingly influenced by the surrounding commodity culture. In this setting,could any intellectual argument—no matter how sound—by itself open up newpossibilities of more coherent theory and practice? It seems unlikely. And ifthat is so, then perhaps it is not so open to poets to remake our world andrestructure our involvements as Falck suggests. What is needed in order todevelop the argument ofMyth, Truth and Literature further is not more theory—the theory Falck presents is sound—but more direct poetic work that bringscurrendy marginal practical involvements closer to the center of culture. Tosay this is to endorse Falck's general argument but also to wish that it had beenmore concretely developed in relation to specific present poetic particulars(Raymond Carver? Peter Handke? William Gaddis?). It is to be hoped that thisconcrete development is something that Falck himself, and now others, willhave it in mind to complete.SWARTHMORECOLLEGERICHARD ElDRIDGEPhilosophers ofConsciousness, by Eugene Webb; ix & 342pp. Seatde: University of Washington Press, 1988, $30.00.This is one of those rare books that employs the tools of scholarship, not asa self-contained exercise, but as a means of uncovering the truth about manand his place in reality. No doubt it is unfashionable and vulnerable to the

Swarthmore College 
Works 
Philosophy Faculty Works Philosophy 
4-1-1990 
Review Of "Myth, Truth And Literature: Towards A True Post-
Modernism" By C. Falck 
Richard Thomas Eldridge 
Swarthmore College, reldrid1@swarthmore.edu 
Follow this and additional works at: https://works.swarthmore.edu/fac-philosophy 
 Part of the Philosophy Commons 
Let us know how access to these works benefits you 
 
Recommended Citation 
Richard Thomas Eldridge. (1990). "Review Of "Myth, Truth And Literature: Towards A True Post-
Modernism" By C. Falck". Philosophy And Literature. Volume 14, Issue 1. 227-228. DOI: 10.1353/
phl.1990.0081 
https://works.swarthmore.edu/fac-philosophy/288 
This work is brought to you for free by Swarthmore College Libraries' Works. It has been accepted for inclusion in 
Philosophy Faculty Works by an authorized administrator of Works. For more information, please contact 
myworks@swarthmore.edu. 
Philosophy and Literature, Volume 14, Number 1, April 1990, pp. 227-228
(Review)
DOI: 10.1353/phl.1990.0081
For additional information about this article
                                                      Access provided by Swarthmore College (19 Aug 2015 14:52 GMT)
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/phl/summary/v014/14.1.eldridge.html
Reviews227
To teachers ofShakespeare, this book will stimulate new ideas for introducing
the plays, and it will facilitate an understanding ofNewHistoricism. It is scholarly
and demanding; but the author's frequent restatement of his thesis at crucial
points in the text is a useful aid to the reader.
WillametteUniversityRichard D. Lord
Myth, Truth and Literature: Towards a True Post-Modern-
ism, by Colin Falck; xv & 173 pp. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1989, $34.50.
Recent literary theory has been dominated by an opposition between both
intentionalism and New Criticism, on the one hand, where the effort is to get
at some really existing stable thing—an intended meaning or an aesthetic ob-
ject—and poststructuralism and New Historicism on the other, where criticism
calls our attention only to the sectarian and ungeneralizable character of all
works as constructs. Both styles of literary study have clear liabilities. Inten-
tionalism tends to cast literary work as gratuitously personal or autobiographical,
while New Criticism tends to cast it as gratuitously aesthetic, detaching the
aesthetic from the moral, the political, the scientific, and the social. Poststruc-
turalism and New Historicism tend to deny the existence of either human or
natural reality and as a result to leave us adrift in moral and political nihilism.
In order to overcome the failings of each of these schools, what is needed is a
rethinking of the nature of the human subject and its place in the world.
It is this necessary rethinking that Colin Falck offers us in Myth, Truth and
Literature. Drawing self-consciously on the Romantic literary tradition, and on
related ideas in twentieth-century philosophers such asWittgenstein, Heidegger,
and Collingwood, Falck proposes that both discursive language and individual
human consciousness are emergent from natural, preconscious expressions that
arise prior to the separation of subject and object. Our preconscious life is
practical, in that our expressions arise in die course of our involvement with
the world, widiout being instrumental, for there are not yet distinctive subjects
with specific purposes in mind. Truth is primordially a matter of glimpsing
new possibilities for furthering our involvement with the world in the direction
of freedom. Pursuing truth requires a stance of concern for the glimpsing of
new and freer possibilities of involvement. Though art and literature are them-
selves pardy conventionalized and constituted within already existent particu-
larized social structures, they are nonetheless, as efforts in expressiveness, the
principal and most satisfactory vehicles for glimpsing new possibilities of in-
228Philosophy and Literature
volvement. "The poem or fiction . . . gives us the truth of, or the truth behind,
the world which we ordinarily inhabit. It takes us to where the real life of that
world lies; or as D. H. Lawrence said of the novel, 'it can inform and lead into
new places the flow of our sympathetic consciousness, and it can lead our
sympathy away in recoil from things gone dead' " (pp. 113—14). Hence poets
are, in the phrase ofShelley's that is the leitmotifof Falck's book, "the unacknowl-
edged legislators of the world" (p. 78).
Taken as theory, the development of these Romantic conceptualizations of
subject and object is sound and convincing. Falck moves easily through both
German and English sources, both philosophical and literary, in developing his
tiiemes, all the while developing careful criticisms of recent French and Amer-
ican literary theory that has been influenced by Saussure. In virtue of its com-
pelling arguments, Myth, Truth and Literature is a book that might well do some
good in changing the current drift of literary theory and in reinvigorating
literary work. It deserves a wide audience.
But, despite die compelling character of its arguments, Myth, Truth and Lit-
erature also might well fail to have its intended effect, and this should lead us
to rethink its achievement. The cultural world is both Balkanized and over-
whelmingly influenced by the surrounding commodity culture. In this setting,
could any intellectual argument—no matter how sound—by itself open up new
possibilities of more coherent theory and practice? It seems unlikely. And if
that is so, then perhaps it is not so open to poets to remake our world and
restructure our involvements as Falck suggests. What is needed in order to
develop the argument ofMyth, Truth and Literature further is not more theory—
the theory Falck presents is sound—but more direct poetic work that brings
currendy marginal practical involvements closer to the center of culture. To
say this is to endorse Falck's general argument but also to wish that it had been
more concretely developed in relation to specific present poetic particulars
(Raymond Carver? Peter Handke? William Gaddis?). It is to be hoped that this
concrete development is something that Falck himself, and now others, will
have it in mind to complete.
SWARTHMORECOLLEGERICHARD ElDRIDGE
Philosophers ofConsciousness, by Eugene Webb; ix & 342
pp. Seatde: University of Washington Press, 1988, $30.00.
This is one of those rare books that employs the tools of scholarship, not as
a self-contained exercise, but as a means of uncovering the truth about man
and his place in reality. No doubt it is unfashionable and vulnerable to the


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