Concepts of Closure by David F. Hult (review)

Book Reviews149 facet of the subject-character's own psyche). Sometimes (like Richardson's Clarissa) the subject-character cannot resolve the conflict satisfactorily; sometimes (like Austen's Elizabeth Bennet) the subject-character achieves sublimation, replacing the unacceptable forms of authority with a more attractive substitute — self-control. Gradually art reflects the uneasiness which results from the inability of the individual to accept control or to sublimate desire. In modern novels the characters have grown increasingly "negative" — less concerned with authority and more indulgent of desire. As a result the conflict is less intense and so is the reader's response. The focus has shifted from character to form. Higbie offers valuable insights. He demonstrates how characters other than the protagonist assume subject stature when they reveal their own struggles between desire and authority. He analyzes the impact of authorial distance, presenting Austen's viewpoint as a combination of the internalization of Richardson's letter-writer and the objectivity of Fielding's commentator. For the customary terms "round" and "flat," Higbie suggests new terms — "conscious " and "unresolved" — which indicate degees of living or static value systems. One of the most valuable portions of this study is the analysis of the vocabulary by which Dickens conveys the energy of his characters. Although this book contains a few passages which are confusing, some which seem redundant, and others which are perhaps overdeveloped, the scope of the attempt explains such weaknesses. For the reader — or for the writer — Higbie's synthesis provides an original, thoughtful, and interesting frame of reference from which to examine the novel. His views add to our understanding of the techniques ofthe writer and increase our appreciation of the novel as a revealing art form. MARGARET DEMOREST Casper College DAVID F. HULT, ed. Concepts of Closure. Yale French Studies 67. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984. 272 p. To honor the late Eugenio Donato, twelve distinguished scholars have contributed uniformly high quality articles that address a contemporary problem of scholarly inquiry in literature: the concept of closure. The papers deal with specific topics, ranging from medieval romances to contemporary poetry , and for the most part, shed significant new light on the subject. In a brief preface, the editor, David F. Huit, underlines the fundamental paradoxicality of the term "closure": "'Closure' comes to interrogate not simply predetermined units (those 'having' an end) but rather what it is that manages to determine or delimit a given artistic unit, what in fact defines and constitutes its very boundaries. Thus, to make a simple but useful equation: 'End' is to 'meaning' as 'closure' is to 'interpretation'" (iv). Eugenio Donato's ambitious, highly personal essay stands alone, opening this fascinating volume. In an attempt to clarify the issue of the relation of Derrida's writings to deconstructive literary criticism, Donato focuses on Derrida's peculiarly telling relationship to Heidegger, one he considers essential to the understanding of Derrida 's notion of deconstructive style of reading and of his concept of closure. 150Book Reviews In order to give a certain unity to such diversified studies, the editor has organized the essays around three rubrics. In the first one, "Closure at the Margins of Writing," Paul Zumthor's richly-documented article on the impossible closure of the oral text merits particular attention. In the course of his study, the medievalist carefully examines the reasons for the oral poetic work's resistance to appropriation, highlights various manifestations of the "mouvance" (34) of the text, and addresses the controversial questions of tradition and authenticity. The next essay by Renée Riese Hubert is more limited in scope. The author mainly concentrates on Mirö's, Ernst's, and Klee's tableaux-poèmes and shows that they confirm Umberto Eco's theories on the openendedness of the modern work of art. Thomas M. Greene's account of Machiavelli's Prince casts new light on the problematic messianic close of the book. In this case, Greene concludes, "closure is not a matter ofcompleting a design; it fulfills no ideal proportions ... it constitutes rather a recognition that the text belongs in the sphere of other texts, the sphere of human society — improvisatory, groundless, metamorphic, fictive — the sphere of tragic conation where it...