ABSTRACT
De Man was making it up, faking it, knowingly misleading – driven by Theory’s parti pris, by prejudice, to get a stock response. Nowhere in his essay does Benjamin say the task of the translator is impossible – only that it is very hard (at best it can only be like an interlinear version of the Bible, but it can be done in this fashion). And such mistaking on Theory-driven grounds is typical of Paul de Man.
