BOOKS
475
persistence of the New England strain. The oversta tement, however, is
based on a typical displacement, in whi ch the literary text is made to
serve as the hi storica l ground of its own being as a text. Such criticism
seems, like the Puritan model itself, to obvia te hi story by subsuming it
under design . The very breadth o f the a rgument a rgues fo r its na rrow–
ness.
The Puritan Origins of the American Se lf
seems
to
me to exhaust
one line o f inquiry, to take exceptionalism as fa r as it can go, even
beyond its usefulness. And yet, the undercurrent suggesting a wholl y
different proj ect, one o f hi storical p lacement and ideologica l criticism
o f artifacts o f the imagina tion , raises hopes tha t thi s extraordina ry and
original book might serve as a starting point for a new and even more
productive inqu iry into the processes of American culture.
ALAN TRACHTENBERG
STRUCTURALIST AMBASSADORS
STRUCTURALIST POETICS: STRUCTURALISM, LINGUISTICS,
AND THE STUDY OF LITERATURE.
By Jonathan Culler. Cornell
University Press. $14.50.
A STRUCTURAL STUDY OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY: PROUST, LEIRIS,
SARTRE, LEVI-STRAUSS .
By Jeffrey Mehlman. Cornell University
Press. $15.00.
STRUCTURALISM IN LITERATURE: AN INTRODUCTION.
By Robert
Scholes. Yale University Press. $12.00.
Structuralism rema ins a ra th er mys teriou s and occasionall y
dread brand of intell ectual magic to most Ameri can observers in spite
o f (o r perhaps because of ) the accumu la tion o f books and a rticl es in
Eng li sh whi ch introduce, expl ain , or exemplify structuralism. Wha t
we learn about structura lism seems to be call ed in stantl y in to suspicion
by the next helpfu l overview, so tha t educa tion and erosion become
inextricably linked with one ano ther. T hu s, it is somehow un surpri s–
ing tha t two o f these books p rocla im their " firstne s" in the book–
jacket blurbs (Cu ll er's book is described as " the first fu ll -leng th criti ca l
