Literature, Criticism, and the Theory of Signs

Literature, Criticism, and the Theory of Signs

Author: Victorino Tejera

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing

Published: 1995

Total Pages: 184

ISBN-13: 9781556193415

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Following Peirce in his non-reductive understanding of the theory of signs as a branch of aesthetics, this book reconceptualizes the processes of literary creation, appreciation and reading in semiotic terms. Here is a carefully developed theory of what sort of criteria serve to distinguish apposite from inapposite readings of literary works-of-art. Given Peirce's triadic account of signification, it enlarges Aristotle's view of mimesis as expressive making into an understanding of literary works as deliberatively designed sign-systems belonging to Peirce's eighth class of signs. In parallel with Bakhtin's account of the dialogical nature of literary work (and its success in exposing misreadings of Dostoyevsky), this work categorizes in precise theoretical terms what is wrong with the non-dialogical readings which treat Plato's dialogues as doctrinal tractates. As a study in literary theory finally, and on the basis of apt distinctions between exhibitive, active, and assertive judgments, this book re-demarcates and distinguishes the discipline of literary criticism from that of literary theory, and both of these from the work of literary creation itself.


The Pursuit of Signs

The Pursuit of Signs

Author: Jonathan Culler

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2005-11-29

Total Pages: 213

ISBN-13: 1134522584

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To gain a deeper understanding of the literary movement that has dominated recent Anglo-American literary criticism, The Pursuit of Signs is a must. In a world increasingly mediated, it offers insights into our ways of consuming texts that are both brilliant and bold. Dancing through semiotics, reader-response criticism, the value of the apostrophe and much more, Jonathan Culler opens up for every reader the closed world of literary criticism. Its impact on first publication, in 1981, was immense; now, as Mieke Bal notes, 'the book has the same urgency and acuity that it had then', though today it has even wider implications: 'with the interdisciplinary turn taking hold, literary theory itself, through this book, becomes a much more widespread tool for cultural analysis'.


Dictionary Of World Literature - Criticism, Forms, Technique

Dictionary Of World Literature - Criticism, Forms, Technique

Author: Joseph T Shipley

Publisher: Read Books Ltd

Published: 2013-04-04

Total Pages: 969

ISBN-13: 1447495683

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The dictionary of world literature: criticism-forms-technique presents a consideration of critics and criticism, of literary schools, movements, forms, and techniques-including drama and the theatre-in eastern and western lands from the earliest times; of literary and critical terms and ideas; with other material that may provide background of understanding to all who, as creator, critic, or receptor, approach a literary or theatrical work.


Signs of Dissent

Signs of Dissent

Author: Dawn Fulton

Publisher: University of Virginia Press

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 204

ISBN-13: 9780813927152

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Maryse Condé is a Guadeloupean writer and critic whose work has challenged the categories of race, language, gender, and geography that inform contemporary literary and critical debates. In Signs of Dissent, the first full-length study in English on Condé, Dawn Fulton situates this award-winning author's work in the context of current theories of cultural identity in order to foreground Condé's unique contributions to these discussions. Staging a dialogue between Condé's novels and the field of postcolonial studies, Fulton argues that Condé enacts a strategy of "critical incorporations" in her fiction, imitating and transforming many of the prevailing narratives of postcolonial theory so as to explore their theoretical and conceptual limits. By rejecting the facile classification of her work as "Caribbean," "African," or "feminist," Condé has gained a reputation as an iconoclast. But Fulton proposes that behind this public image of provocation lies an incisive reflection on the burdens of representation imposed on the non-Western writer, and that Condé's novels expose the ways in which postcolonial criticism can be complicit in constructing such burdens even as it questions them. Signs of Dissent offers one of the most comprehensive assessments of Condé's literary production to date, illuminating its exceptional role in shaping a dialogue between francophone studies and the English-dominated field of postcolonialism.


A Theory of Semiotics

A Theory of Semiotics

Author: Umberto Eco

Publisher: Indiana University Press

Published: 1979

Total Pages: 372

ISBN-13: 9780253202178

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" . . . the greatest contribution to [semiotics] since the pioneering work of C. S. Peirce and Charles Morris." —Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism " . . . draws on philosophy, linguistics, sociology, anthropology and aesthetics and refers to a wide range of scholarship . . . raises many fascinating questions." —Language in Society " . . . a major contribution to the field of semiotic studies." —Robert Scholes, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism " . . . the most significant text on the subject published in the English language that I know of." —Arthur Asa Berger, Journal of Communication Eco's treatment demonstrates his mastery of the field of semiotics. It focuses on the twin problems of the doctrine of signs—communication and signification—and offers a highly original theory of sign production, including a carefully wrought typology of signs and modes of production.


Speech and Phenomena

Speech and Phenomena

Author: Jacques Derrida

Publisher: Northwestern University Press

Published: 1973

Total Pages: 214

ISBN-13: 9780810105904

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Speech and phenomena.--Form and meaning.--Differance.


Signs and Images

Signs and Images

Author: Roland Barthes

Publisher: French List

Published: 2023-08-05

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781803092744

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A major collection of essays and interviews from an iconic 20th-century philosopher in five volumes, now all available together in paperback. Roland Barthes was a restless, protean thinker. A constant innovator--often as a daring smuggler of ideas from one discipline to another--he first gained an audience with his pithy essays on mass culture and then went on to produce some of the most suggestive and stimulating cultural criticism of the late twentieth century, including Empire of Signs, The Pleasure of the Text, and Camera Lucida. In 1976, this one-time structuralist outsider was elected to a chair at France's preeminent Collège de France, where he chose to style himself as a professor of literary semiology until his death in 1980. The greater part of Barthes's published writings has been available to a French audience since 2002, but now, translator Chris Turner presents a collection of essays, interviews, prefaces, book reviews, and other journalistic material for the first time in English and divided into five themed volumes. Volume four, Signs and Images, gathers pieces related to his central concerns--semiotics, visual culture, art, cinema, and photography--and features essays on Marthe Arnould, Lucien Clergue, Daniel Boudinet, Richard Avedon, Bernard Faucon, and many more.


Literary Theory and Criticism

Literary Theory and Criticism

Author: Edgar Allan Poe

Publisher: Courier Corporation

Published: 1999-01-01

Total Pages: 228

ISBN-13: 9780486401553

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Essential anthology of Poe's critical works reviews works by Dickens, Hawthorne, many others. Includes Theory of Poetry ("The Philosophy of Composition," "The Rationale of Verse," "The Poetic Principle"). Introduction.


Cultural Criticism

Cultural Criticism

Author: Arthur Asa Berger

Publisher: SAGE Publications

Published: 1995

Total Pages: 212

ISBN-13: 9780803957343

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Arthur Asa Berger's unique ability to translate difficult theories into accessible language makes this book an ideal introduction to cultural criticism. Berger covers the key theorists, concepts, and subject areas, from literary, sociological and psychoanalytical theories to semiotics and Marxism. Cultural Criticism breathes new life into the discipline by making these theories relevant to students' lives. The author illustrates his explanations with excerpts from classic works giving readers a sense of the important thinkers' styles and helping place them in their context. Berger also provides a comprehensive bibliography on cultural criticism for those who wish to explore the topics at greater length. Cultural Criticism is the perfect undergraduate supplemental text for such courses as media studies, literary criticism, and popular culture.


Signs of the Americas

Signs of the Americas

Author: Edgar Garcia

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2020-01-23

Total Pages: 306

ISBN-13: 022665916X

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Indigenous sign-systems, such as pictographs, petroglyphs, hieroglyphs, and khipu, are usually understood as relics from an inaccessible past. That is far from the truth, however, as Edgar Garcia makes clear in Signs of the Americas. Rather than being dead languages, these sign-systems have always been living, evolving signifiers, responsive to their circumstances and able to continuously redefine themselves and the nature of the world. Garcia tells the story of the present life of these sign-systems, examining the contemporary impact they have had on poetry, prose, visual art, legal philosophy, political activism, and environmental thinking. In doing so, he brings together a wide range of indigenous and non-indigenous authors and artists of the Americas, from Aztec priests and Amazonian shamans to Simon Ortiz, Gerald Vizenor, Jaime de Angulo, Charles Olson, Cy Twombly, Gloria Anzaldúa, William Burroughs, Louise Erdrich, Cecilia Vicuña, and many others. From these sources, Garcia depicts the culture of a modern, interconnected hemisphere, revealing that while these “signs of the Americas” have suffered expropriation, misuse, and mistranslation, they have also created their own systems of knowing and being. These indigenous systems help us to rethink categories of race, gender, nationalism, and history. Producing a new way of thinking about our interconnected hemisphere, this ambitious, energizing book redefines what constitutes a “world” in world literature.