ABSTRACT
No one before or since has written quite like Erving Goffman. The literary sensibilities of his work-evident in his witticisms, his odd conceptual coinages, his arresting juxtapositions of contrary ideas, his mannered “tongue-in-cheek primness of style” (Burns 1992:5)—serve as a magnet for both praise and criticism. For some commentators, Goffman-by deploying an unmistakable ‘playful style’ (Hazelrigg 1992:245)—was a ‘stylist’ projecting a distinctive sensibility and characteristic ‘voice’ proposing fresh sociological understandings (Atkinson 1989:59) in a discipline notorious for the absence of style and the suppression of voice. Goffman’s texts were, quite simply, remarkable (Smith 2006). They underscored his standing as a unique writer within sociology and a review in Time (April 10, 1972) of Goffman’s Relations in Public even described his work as “the waste of a good novelist”. Such a reputation was already established through his early publications. Thus, it was not surprising that his books and papers would come to the attention of those working in literary and cultural studies. Figures in these fi elds-such as Alan Bennett (1981), Richard Hoggart (1979) and Christopher Ricks (1981)—sensed a kinship between their concerns with the human condition and elements of Goffman’s own. It was not simply the sociology that drew them in. They responded to a writer who could articulate his discoveries in a persuasive way. To them it was obvious that the style of Goffman’s texts could not be easily disentangled from their sociological substance and importance.
