New Literary History

Abstract:

Can one "know everything"? In the past, there were people who came close to doing so, but it seems impossible to have contemporaries who know everything. Certainly, some texts aspire to "say everything"; and the French expression tout dire has a venerable history. Yet saying everything is not the same as polymathy. Can texts, however, be polymaths? A case for an affirmative answer to the question is made by way of passive constitution.