A work of technical skill as well as outstanding literary merit, Structuralist Poetics was awarded the 1975 James Russell Lowell Prize of the Modern Language Association. It was during the writing of this book that Culler developed his now famous and remarkably complex theory of poetics and narrative, and while never a populariser he nonetheless makes it crystal clear within these pages.
''The brilliance, precision and clarity with which Dr Culler conducts his argument make this a book which all those concerned with the analysis of literature should read.' - A.S. Byatt
'The brilliance, precision and clarity with which Dr Culler conducts his argument make this a book which all those concerned with the analysis of literature should read.' - A.S. Byatt, Times Education Supplement
Jonathan Culler (1944- ). Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Cornell University, pioneered the application of semiotics to the study of literature in the English-speaking world.
PART I Structuralism and Linguistic Models 1 The Linguistic Foundation 2 The Development of a Method: Two Examples 3 Jakobson's Poetic Analyses 4 Greimas and Structural Semantics 5 Linguistic Metaphors in Criticism PART II Poetics 6 Literary Competence 7 Convention and Naturalization 8 Poetics of the Lyric 9 Poetics of the Novel PART III Perspectives 10 'Beyond' Structuralism: Tel Quel 11 Conclusion: Structuralism and the Qualities of Literature