Error and the Academic Self

How and why did the academic style of writing, with its emphasis on criticism and correctness, develop? Seth Lerer suggests that the answer lies in medieval and Renaissance philology and, more specifically, in mistakes. For Lerer, erring is not simply being wrong, but being errant, and this book illuminates the wanderings of exiles, émigrés, dissenters, and the socially estranged as they helped form the modern university disciplines of philology and rhetoric, literary criticism, and literary theory. Examining a diverse group that includes Thomas More, Stephen Greenblatt, George Hickes, Seamus Heaney, George Eliot, and Paul de Man, Error and the Academic Self argues that this critical abstraction from society and retreat into ivory towers allowed estranged individuals to gain both a sense of private worth and the public legitimacy of a professional identity.

Examining figures from Thomas More to Stephen Greenblatt, from George Hickes to Seamus Heaney, from George Eliot to Paul de Man, this book illuminates the wanderings of exiles, emigres, dissenters, and the socially estranged as they helped form the modern university disciplines of philology and rhetoric, literary criticism and literary theory.

Writing in a lively, engaging, and sometimes humorous manner, Lerer (Stanford Univ.) fills this book with intricate reasoning about the profession of scholarship and thus provides a unique approach to the study of textual criticism over the ages... a dizzying but enjoyable romp over a road not taken before.--Choice
A lively historical survey of how people discovered and developed new forms of expression bundled into the English language.--James A. Cox "The Midwest Book Review "