"Being Reviewed" -- Response to Jonathan Culler, David Richter, and Dianne Sadoff

During the first few months before and after its publication in the summer of 2001, the Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism received coverage in the daily and weekly press, including the Chronicle of Higher Education, New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Times Literary Supplement (TLS), and Irish Times. It was advertised, too skimpily in my view as general editor, in PMLA and Critical Inquiry, while, on a happier note, several thousand brochures were mailed by the publisher.¹ Eighteen months out, the point at which I am writing, scholarly reviews are starting to appear, as I expect they will for several years.² Based on my experience and observation, most of this is normal—except for the prepublication newspaper coverage in the Chronicle and New York Times. Of my four earlier scholarly books, two turned out to have some crossover appeal, breaking the sales mark of 10,000 copies and receiving a fair number of reviews in dailies, weeklies, and professional journals. While I assumed that the Norton Anthology would be reviewed by scholars, I did not foresee the early reception in the general press. In retrospect, I might have expected some such response, for Norton anthologies are widely perceived as cultural icons.

The journal symploke is among the first scholarly outlets to undertake review of the Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. I am grateful to the journal and to its three reviewers, Jonathan Culler, David Richter, and Dianne Sadoff. I appreciate the opportunity to respond.

Jonathan Culler has published numerous books in the field of theory and criticism, including the award-winning Structuralist Poetics (1975), the very widely cited On Deconstruction (1982), and the pedagogically oriented Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction (1997). He is arguably the premier scholar and critic of structuralism/semiotics and poststructuralism in the U. S. academy. And he has a well-deserved reputation for being judicious and also for being a lucid stylist so I especially appreciate his comments.

I share Culler’s concern about the bulkiness of the anthology. His suggestion that “splits” be offered such as “Criticism and Theory to 1900” and “Twentieth-Century Theory and Criticism,” which would reduce the price as well as the weight, is a good idea. It is one that I myself recommended, only to discover permissions fees make it prohibitive.

Like Culler, I too admire the work of Barbara Johnson, which is why I recruited her to the editorial team of the Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. Of course, the other editors also appreciate her position in the field as a leading deconstructor, innovative and resourceful close reader, superb translator, and memorable stylist. Sorting through many excellent works, we decided to include her essay “Melville’s Fist.” We wish we could have added more, but relatively few figures have two or more texts. I should point out that Johnson’s thoroughly brilliant translation of Derrida’s Dissemination is included in the lengthy selection from “Plato’s Pharmacy.”

David Richter has contributed substantially to the teaching of theory and criticism with his anthology The Critical Tradition (1989; 2^nd ed. 1998) and his excellent, short contemporary reader Falling into Theory (1994; 2^nd ed. 2000). Alongside this he has done significant scholarly work on narrative, most notably in his Fables End (1974) and The Progress of Romance (1996).

I confess, after raising a hackle, I was amused by Richter’s response, wittily mixing narrative analysis of the Chronicle and New York Times stories with speculations about W.W. Norton’s past, present, and future prospects. He rightly complains about the absence in these journalistic pieces of “sober evaluative reviews” in favor of hype. But, of course, his own review does not offer sober evaluation either. As I see it, the ironic treatment of the anthology by the Times, and the Chronicle’s irritating focus on who got cut last from the anthology’s table of contents do not, pace Richter, amount to positive reviews. Clearly, Richter regards reviews as publicity, ignoring their...