254 NOTES AND QUERIES
number of stories appeared in magazines, and
although many of the volumes were reprints, far
more material never appeared in book form.
The most obvious example of distortion is of
'Frank Richards' (Charles Hamilton), the
creator of Greyfriars and St Jim's (and other
schools).
Seven hundred authors are included, with
summaries of typical works by each as a rule.
There are no summaries of the 117 titles by
'Frank Richards', no doubt because it can be
assumed that most readers will know the sort of
thing they are. But most of Aubrey Fowkes's
stories are summarized, perhaps because their
notoriety as homosexual stories can be assumed
to make them interesting. These are not really
school stories as generally understood, since
they are not written for boys. The biographical
details are drawn from such standard works of
reference as include the authors, and the details
of publication are reliable. There is a useful
index of actual schools represented in fiction,
an alphabetical list of titles (many of which
would make the smutty-minded laugh), and a
topical bibliography. This last would enable the
interested reader to pursue the subject further,
although it does not cite the earliest critique of
the stories by George Orwell or 'Frank
Richards's response in Horizon for March and
May 1940.
The work is of interest and use to those inter-
ested in the subject, and for older readers will
remind them of their early enthusiasm for a
genre that is no longer a major part of boys'
reading experience. Perhaps it is not too
frivolous to regret that Watson has not included
the dying kicks of the form: Geoffrey Willans
and Roland Searle's 1950s books, of which
Down with Skool begins:
This is me e.g. nigel molesworth the curse of
st custard's which is the skool i am at. It is
uterly wet and weedy as i shall (i hope) make
clear but of course that is the same with all
skools.
JOHN GILLARD WATSON
Oxford
June 1995
Wihl, G., The Contingency of Theory: Prag-
matism, Expressivism, and Deconstruction.
Pp. xiii + 215. New Haven and London: Yale
University Press, 1994. £20.00.
HOW is communication and understanding
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between distinct agents possible in a plural
society? What role does literature have in
constituting selves? How can we speak of
literary texts and human agents and avoid rela-
tivism and foundationalism? Gary Wihl argues
that the Hegelian concept of situatedness as
adopted by Charles Taylor offers 'an answer to
questions about relativism, holism, and sub-
jectivism' and provides 'an account of the right
degree of coherence between an individual
agent and a society of plural beliefs and values'
(66). Literary texts, Wihl claims, become
important philosophical sources for situating
agents and defining ethical positions. His over-
all aim in the book is to show that the concept
of textuality in contemporary literary theory
complements the philosophical concept of the
situated self. To this end, in Part One he
discusses contemporary philosophies of lan-
guage: the expressivism of Charles Taylor and
Stanley Cavell, the deconstruction of Paul de
Man, and the pragmatism of Richard Rorty
and Stanley Fish. In Part Two, Wihl examines
how various literary critics address the issue of
textuality.
Stimulating and rich in ideas, The Conting-
ency of Theory is not without problems or
slippage. The highest value of the book is
undoubtedly its bringing together of the ideas of
pragmatism, expressivism, and deconstruction.
Of the three concepts figuring in the subtitle,
expressivism is the least likely to strike a chord
of familiarity. An anxious reader may be
appeased by the fact that the term is not recog-
nized in the Library of Congress Publication
Data. Yet it is on Wihl's presentation of
expressivism, or more correctly of Taylor's
philosophy of language, that the future signi-
ficance of the book may depend. He sets out to
demonstrate that the little known Taylor is
equal in theoretical stature to Foucault, Haber-
mas, Rorty, Derrida, and Levi-Strauss. The
author claims that Taylor's views on decision,
expression, and situatedness are of central
relevance to contemporary literary theory,
especially in its discussions of textuality.
June 1995 NOTES AND QUERIES
Indeed, Taylor's concepts of paradigm state-
ments and personally resonant language prove
very productive in, for example, Wihl's brief
discussion of the charged question of canonic-
ity.
Wihl examines the points of complementarity
between Taylor's expressivism, Rorty's prag-
matism, and de Man's deconstruction in an
insightful and erudite way, but I find his asser-
tion of progress from pragmatism to expressiv-
ism to deconstruction problematic. Viewing
expressivism as a refinement upon pragmatism,
and deconstruction as a refinement upon
expressivism, Wihl claims that deconstruction
istiiefinestand subtlest mode of thinking about
language, situatedness, and human agency,
because it offers a high degree of situatedness
and the most precise analysis of the multiple
features of language.
I feel also a bit ambivalent about the plurality
of thinkers included in the book and the mode
of presentation of their ideas. Trying to follow
Wihl's painstaking pathfinding of connections
between the theories of Fish, Rorty, Williams,
Cavell, Empson, Taylor, de Man, Jameson, and
others, I was haunted by Ronald Sukenick's
observation in his novel Out: 'Connection
develops, meaning falls away.' I found Wihl's
way of reading the theories in question refresh-
ingly free from the symptoms of critical ill will -
not a small virtue in the age of merciless bashing
among critics. But too much generosity may be
a dangerous thing; Wihl's readings make the
theories of Fish or de Man unsettlingly tame,
innocuous, and inspid.
Highly enjoyable and illuminating are Wihl's
accounts of the dispute over the issue of para-
phrase between Cleanth Brooks, Yvor Winters,
Gerald Graff, and Stanley Cavell and his
presentation of Cavell's and Empson's reading
of Othello as examples of two contrasting
constructions of the play as text. Yet despite
such moments of excellence and repeated
promises, Wihl does not manage to offer an
approach to literature that would successfully
combine the best of the three theories of
language he presents.
In spite of these reservations, I have found
The Contingency of Theory challenging,
thought-provoking, and important; the book
bears the promise of a significant contribution
to theory. Those interested in the issues of
255
languages in philosophy and literary theory will
find Gary Wihl's study obligatory reading.
DANUTA FJELLESTAD
Uppsala University
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Crawford, R, Devolving English Literature.
Pp. x + 320. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992.
Hardbound £35.00, paperbound £10.95.
ONE of the most current modes of literary
critical investigation is that which concerns
imperial and colonial discourse, as recent
works by Edward Said, Javed Majeed, Eric
Cheyfitz, and many others have demonstrated.
Robert Crawford's Devolving English Litera-
ture is a rather maverick contribution to this
line of enquiry. In this study Crawford argues
for the need for devolutionary readings of
writers too easily absorbed (or repressed) into
the monolith of 'English Literature'. What
makes Crawford's study more unusual than
other recent writing in the field is his choice of
Scotland for the site of his discussion of
marginality and provincialism. In fact Crawford
argues that the issue of how the provincial might
preserve a sense of independence while
expressing itself in the language of another,
dominant culture 'is seen most subtly and con-
stantly, in the literature of Scotland' (4). This is a
very problematic claim and Crawford's book is
alive to the paradoxes and tensions contained in
Anglo-Saxon relations. In claiming the status of
colonized and oppressed for Scottish writers
from Smollett to Douglas Dunn, Crawford
blurs the distinction between the victimized and
the marginalized. In any case it is not always
clear in what sense writers such as Boswell,
Walter Scott, and Adam Smith were marginal.
In a real sense, perhaps, most creative writers
are marginal to their societies, or at least
perceive themselves to be so. When Crawford
widens his perspective to take in the provincial
as a whole in England and elsewhere it
becomes difficult to imagine a literary figure
who is not in some sense marginal. Who was
the most provincial, Sir Walter Scott, the
Cumbrian Wordsworth, or the suburban
'Cockney' Keats? So too is Crawford's postula-
tion of a two-hundred year tradition of Scottish
accommodation and resistance to English as a
language and discipline which transhistorically