Geoffrey Hartman is one of the most important critics practicing in America. Certainly he figures as one of the most interesting, experimental, demanding, and controversial. The range of Hartman's criticism is daunting--from Wordsworth to André Malraux, from Jacques Derrida to Alfred Hitchcock; his treatment is philosophical, speculative, and highly allusive; and his writing is evocative and playful, sometimes verging on the poetic. Thus much of Hartman's work seems alien to the Anglo-American critical tradition, a fact that accounts for at least part of its importance.

More powerfully perhaps than any other major critic in the twentieth century, Hartman has questioned usual assumptions about the line separating commentary and "primary" text. He figures prominently among those who have renewed criticism and theory, recalling them to surrendered responsibilities, and he has helped criticism achieve recognition as a major genre. Moreover, among recent critics Hartman stands virtually alone in stressing...