X-trails: Notes on Another English School

This article responds to J. Hillis Miller and Ranjan Ghosh’s Thinking Literature across Continents by examining the recurrence of a certain figure of illumination in their readings of Matthew Arnold’s “The Scholar-Gipsy” and Wallace Stevens’s “The Motive for Metaphor.” In this reading, light, as central metaphor for poetic insight and learning, devolves into an x-factor, which is traced back through Joseph Glanvill to Edgar Allan Poe. As a figure for Miller’s and Ghosh’s own deconstructive reading practices, this x puts into question the core assumptions of literary pedagogy, and especially their book’s claim to be a dialogue across continents.