The Prodigal Sign: A Parable of Criticism

The Prodigal Sign characterizes literary criticism as a set of prodigal practices that exceed the constraints of primary texts, history, and theory. This is not just because, as Derrida says, "no practice is ever totally faithful to its principle," but also because critics are habitual runaways - forever seeking to escape the jurisdiction of their forebears and of the academy. Always on the lookout for something new and distinctive to say about the same old texts or for texts that have escaped the professional attention of their peers, like the prodigal son, they live on their inheritance while trying to escape from their own disciplinary history. This work makes a case for celebrating the prodigal condition and for another escape - breaking out of traditional constraints towards a hybrid form that combines the critical with the creative. Interweaving dramatic monologues - spoken by invisible, neglected, or unimposing personae - with readings of works by authors as diverse as Giorgio Agamben, Edmund Gosse, Helen Keller, Robert Louis Stevenson, William Shakespeare, and David Storey, The Prodigal Sign explores themes of escape, return, inheritance, influence, and identity. Stylistically, the book shifts between essays, monologues, aphorisms, and parables, in a range of styles that evokes the flickering self caught in, or produced by, the interlocking webs of contemporary cultural discourses.