SOURCE: A review of The Political Unconscious, in Criticism, Vol. XXIII, No. 4, Fall, 1981, pp. 362-64.

In the following review, Punter offers a favorable assessment of The Political Unconscious, but takes issue with several aspects of the work.

In The Political Unconscious, Fredric Jameson has produced another vital contribution to cultural study, packed with solid argument yet glittering with energy and urgency. There is a long theoretical chapter, followed by studies of Balzac, Gissing and Conrad; but the real structure of the book is more complex and more closely interlocking than this, and hinges on a polemic defence of the concept of interpretation. With post-structuralists playing quasi-Edenic games on all sides, these could be seen as hard times for Jamesonian “metacommentary,” which is here refined in various ways. It is seen as a method for focusing textual study in such a way as to provide a continuous pretext for...