Given the extent to which metaphysics has been chased out of the lecture theatre, and indeed out of cultural theory itself in the past few decades, it may seem rather surprising for me to herald its return. And I do so not on the balance and tone of any purported majority of recent publications, but solely on the writings of one, albeit erudite, literary critic, co-opted by me to strengthen my unashamedly biased wish to see this subject informing scholarly discourse in the humanities once again.