Nine strikingly original
and controversial essays by
Richard Poirier
The
Performing
Self
COMPOSITIONS AND DECOMPOSITIONS
IN THE LANGUAGES
OF
CONTEMPORARY LIFE
A
RADICAL CRITIQUE
of contemporary forms - in literature
and the teaching of literature,
in
contempormy culture
and prevalent ways of analyzing it - the essays
in
Richard
Poirier's new hook share a common concern: "to reclaim the
energy of human perfOlmance from the humanistic and lib–
eral traditions that have all but smothered it."
To expose the constraints of familiar, therefore largely un–
questioned, expressive modes, Mr. Poirier calls attention to
disturbing elements which,
if
allowed proper recognition,
might alter the achieved designs of literature and society.
Included, with considerable revision, are such influential
pieces as "The War Against the Young,"
"Leam~ng
from the
Beatles," and "The Literature of ·Waste." And there are ex–
tended discussions of a number of writers who have broken
through given and repressive artistic structures, and redis–
tributed and redefined their components.
"I've read THE PERFORMING SELF with pleasure and think
Poirier is on the way to becoming America's first authori–
tative critic in many a year ••• Such a figure hasn't been
present in American letters for all too long a time. And
what's more, we need it."- NORMAN MAILER
Cloth, $6.50. A Galaxy Book, GB 353, paper, $1.95
WOXFORD
WI!
UNIVERSITY _ PRESS
200 Madison Avenue, New York, N. Y. 10016
