Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 2004. Vol. 4. Eger Journal of English Studies. (Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 30)
ÉVA ANTAL The Rhetoric and Ethics of Reading
Eger Journal of English Studies IV (2004 ) 57-71 The Rhetoric and Ethics of Reading* Éva Antal The context of my research is given by my doctoral thesis on irony, where I studied several ironological (irony-theoretical) texts of primary importance. In the last part I analysed the irony-conceptions of the (modern) American New Criticism and the (postmodern) American deconstruction. Now I would particularly like to emphasise the fact that while I was studying those texts on irony, my attention gradually focused on deconstruction and the socalled rhetoric of reading. The conclusion of my thesis is concerned with the (possible) ethics of reading, whereas the term was —and now in my paper is —borrowed from a Yale professor and critic, Joseph Hillis Miller, and his book, The Ethics of Reading. The study of this paradoxical term and its meanings —which we may look at suspiciously —leads to different reading techniques of modernism and postmodernism. I have used the word 'techniques', but I had better say 'practices' of reading because both in the American modernist New Criticism and postmodern deconstruction, the practicality of theories is emphasised. I think that for us teachers, critics, writers and readers (sometimes) functioning as 'models' in our life it is really important to take these ideas into consideration. When we speak about deconstruction in the States, we feel compelled to indicate the French philosopher, Jacques Derrida's influence; immediately adding that Derrida does not name himself a deconstructionist and, actually, this something called deconstruction was born and brought up at the University of Yale in Paul de Man's, J. H. Miller's, Geoffrey H. Hartman's and Harold Bloom's, the four main deconstructors' work —of course, with Derrida's '(dis)seminating' step-fatherhood. In his Allegories of Reading de Man defines what the rhetorical means to him: * The first version of this text titled "The Ethics of Reading — a Postmodern Theory?" was delivered as a plenary report at the international conference "Transformations of Ethics in the Contemporary Discourse", at Vilnius Pedagogical University ori 12 t h May 2003. The final verifications were completed in autumn 2004 with the assistance of a Deák Ferenc Scholarship supplemented by a grant from the Hungarian Ministry of Education (OM).
