The Pursuit of Signs: Semiotics, Literature, Deconstruction - Softcover

Culler, Jonathan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0801487935 ISBN 13: 9780801487934

Publisher: Cornell University Press, 2002

Synopsis

The primary task of literary theory, Jonathan Culler asserts in the new edition of his classic in this field, is not to illuminate individual literary works but to explain the system of literary signification―the rules and conventions that determine a reader's understanding of a text and that make literary communication possible. In this wide-ranging book, he investigates the possibilities of a semiotics of literature. A new preface places The Pursuit of Signs in the context of major developments in the study of literature since publication of the original Cornell edition in 1981.

About this title

About the Author:

Jonathan Culler is Class of 1916 Professor of English at Cornell University. He is the author of many books, including On Deconstruction: Theory and Criticism after Structuralism, also from Cornell.

Review:

'Twenty years ago, if you wanted to know where literary theory was at, I'd say semiotics, and Culler's Pursuit of Signs was the best way to see the links. Today? Same answer. Overview, criticism, problems and solutions: Culler offers them all in each chapter, on key topics and questions of the humanities. The book has the same urgency and acuity that it had then. Except that, with the interdisciplinary turn taking hold, literary theory itself, through this book, becomes a much more widespread tool for cultural analysis.'

About this edition

• Publisher: Cornell University Press
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0801487935
• ISBN 13: 9780801487934
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 272