Rhetoric of Error from Locke to Kleist

Zachary Sng is Assistant Professor of German Studies at Brown University.

"With clarity, precision, and deftness, Zachary Sng analyzes in The Rhetoric of Error from Locke to Kleist the topic of error as it is thematized and figured in an array of philosophical and literary texts from Britain to Germany in the eighteenth century . . . The topic is a demanding and potentially unwieldy one that Sng handles with athleticism and elegance."—Emily Sun, Studies in Romanticism "The Rhetoric of Error from Locke to Kleist is highly ambitious and shows a remarkable erudition in a broad spectrum of fields: philosophy, literature, and above all literary theory. This is theoretical thinking and literary criticism at its best."—Carol Jacobs, Yale University "This elegant, lucid book addresses itself to one of the most imposingly significant topics imaginable. Sng manages the remarkable feat of writing with knife-like precision about error—the very figure of figurative drift. His study not only contributes richly to our understanding of classic eighteenth-century literary and philosophical texts, but offers the rare spectacle of a work fearlessly committed to the task of thinking about reading."—Marc Redfield, Claremont Graduate University