Home > Signs of the Times Summary & Study Guide

• Study Guide
• Group

Signs of the Times (Magill’s Literary Annual 1991-2005)

In the summer of 1987, a Belgian scholar and disciple of the late literary theorist Paul de Man made the startling discovery of a series of pro-Nazi essays in Le Soir (“The Evening”) published in the years 1940-1942 during the German occupation of Belgium. Author David Lehman, a poet and academic journalist who covered the story for Newsweek magazine, became convinced that the essays—written for the most widely read newspaper in Belgium (which became a voice of the Nazi regime during the occupation)—cast serious doubts on the motives of de Man’s own later...

[The entire page is 2078 words long]