The echoes of quarrels about deconstruction in literary criticism have now reached the pages of popular news weeklies, and many bemused readers must wonder what all the fuss is about. When Newsweek features arch-deconstructor Jacques Derrida in a film star's pose, with open-necked shirt and French raincoat, and when Geoffrey Hartman, our leading interpreter of Wordsworth, devotes a book, Saving the Text, ¹ to Derrida's book Glas, this cultural phenomenon requires explanation.