Reading the Illegible

Avant-Garde & Modernism Studies

by Craig Dworkin

A poet takes another's text, excises this, prints over that, cancels, erases, rearranges, defaces--and generally renders the original unreadable, at least in its original terms. What twentieth-century writers and artists have meant by such appropriations and violations, and how the "illegible" results are to be read, is the subject Craig Dworkin takes up in this ambitious work.

In his scrutiny of selected works, and with reference to a rich variety of textual materials--from popular and scientific texts to visual art, political and cultural theories, and experimental films--Dworkin proposes a new way of apprehending the radical formalism of so-called unreadable texts. Dworkin unveils what he describes as "the politics of the poem"--what is signified by its form, enacted by its structures, and implicit in the philosophy of language; how it positions its reader; and other questions relating to the poem as material object. In doing so, he exposes the mechanics and function of truly radical formalism as a practice that move beyond aesthetic considerations into the realms of politics and ideology. Reading the Illegible asks us to reconsider poetry as a physical act, and helps us to see how the range of a text's linguistic and political maneuvers depends to a great extent on the material conditions of reading and writing as well as the mechanics of reproduction.

264 pages, Paperback

First published July 23, 2003

Reviews

[Ella Frances · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading this collection on visual poetics feels like walking clumsily through a contemporary gallery, sometimes you wonder, what is the point of it? But I think they have found a point, it is giving and ample in its insights - the fact he was able to comment so much on -literally- unreadable text is quite admirable. (I am speaking specifically on the reference to and commentary on Charles Bernstein’s ‘Veil’, which I find to be actually ridiculous in itself, so I like that he was able to make something of it (as I never would even try)).

[Leif · Rating 4 out of 5]

If only I could write a dissertation as bracing and polemical as this. If only!

[William Thompson · Rating 5 out of 5]

A work of and by a genius

[Sohum · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was uneven. While it thrived through much of the first 4 chapters (and the introduction), by the fifth chapter the book was attempting to think through too many works, making its argument difficult to follow.