...what precedes it — what was primary to it — in the form of a destruction. As Paul de Man writes, "modernity exists in the form of a desire to wipe...a true present, a point of origin that marks a new departure."39 If the impetus of modernity is a criticism of the past, then much of our cultural criticism...

...confront continuously in his post-revolutionary critical prose. For Nietzsche, Paul de Man remarks, "modernity exists in the form of a desire to wipe...present, a point of origin that marks a new departure." In On The Advantage and Disadvantage of History for Life, Nietzsche challenges the "critical" historian,...

...what precedes it — what was primary to it — in the form of a destruction. As Paul de Man writes, "modernity exists in the form of a desire to wipe...present, a point of origin that marks a new departure" (148). If the impetus of modernity is a criticism of the past, then much of our cultural criticism...

...into an action lightened of all previous experience, captures the authentic spirit of modernity. . . . Modernity exists in the form of a desire to wipe out...a true present, a point of origin that marks a new departure.23 Guillaume Apollinaire's "Toujours" (1915) is a witty meditation on this relationship between...

...a desire to wipe oul whatever carne carlier. in the hope of reaching al last a point thai could he called a true present, a point of origin that marks...new departure. This combined interplay of deliberate forgeltmg with an action thal is also a new origin reaches the full power of the idea of modemity....

...Bindungslosgkeit zu kompensieren. „Modemity", wie Paul de Man mit Blick auf Nietzsche schreibt, „ex ist s in the form of a desire to wipe out whatever came...a true present, a point of origin that marks a new departure."26 Diese Suche nach dem wahren Ursprung ist auch der eigentlich dialektische Umschlag im...

...illustrates a relationship to the past that is characteristic of modernity. Paul de Man describes it as "a desire to wipe out whatever came earlier, in the hope of reaching at least a point that could be called a true present, a point of origin that marks a new departure." 40...

...always already made: "Modemity," as de Man writes in his essay "Literary History and Literary Modemity," "exists in the form of a desire to wipe out whatever...forgetting with an action that is also a new origin," de Man assumes, creates a "curiously contradictory" relation between modemity and history (Bhndness...

...throws himself into an action lightened of all previous experience.' Such action, whatever the name, 'exists in the form of a desire to wipe out whatever...present, a point of origin that marks a new departure' (1983: 147, 148). What we have here is the rejection of group reality by some action that permits forgetting...

...only of that which is now to come into being and no other rights whatever."23 Or, as de Man explains: "Modernity exists in the form of a desire to wipe...a true present, a point of origin that marks a new departure."24 In Descartes's practice and de Man's rhetoric, one can detect more than a hint of parricidal...