JARKKO TOIKKANEN The Break of Paul de Man ACADEMIC DISSERTATION To be presented, with the permission of the Faculty of Humanities of the University of Tampere, for public discussion in the Auditorium Pinni B 1096, Kanslerinrinne 1, Tampere, on September 20th, 2008, at 12 o’clock. UNIVERSITY OF TAMPERE JARKKO TOIKKANEN The Break of Paul de Man Acta Universitatis Tamperensis 1337 Tampere University Press Tampere 2008 ACADEMIC DISSERTATION University of Tampere School of Modern Languages and Translation Studies Finland Distribution Bookshop TAJU Tel. +358 3 3551 6055 P.O. Box 617 Fax +358 3 3551 7685 33014 University of Tampere
[email protected] Finland www.uta.fi/taju http://granum.uta.fi Cover design by Juha Siro Layout Sirpa Randell Acta Universitatis Tamperensis 1337 Acta Electronica Universitatis Tamperensis 752 ISBN 978-951-44-7415-6 (nid.) ISBN 978-951-44-7416-3 (pdf) ISSN 1455-1616 ISSN 1456-954X http://acta.uta.fi Tampereen Yliopistopaino Oy – Juvenes Print Tampere 2008 For a while there is a slight pang. Then it turns away and I go on walking, untroubled in my dreams now. – P. N. Kouta 1997, 2007 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS In the four and a half years it has taken me to complete this project, I have enjoyed many privileges, some of which I want to acknowledge here. As nothing is conceived in a void – not even the break of Paul de Man – it is of utmost importance to try to recognise the factors that influence one’s decisions and the elements that endow their making. For without them, either in the academia or elsewhere, even the most valiant attempt to get one’s thoughts out into the open will fail.