Culler Jonathan. Structuralist Poetics: Structuralism, Linguistics and the Study of Literature

Routledge, 2004. — xviii, 348 pages. — ISBN: 0-203-44976-2.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.Structuralism and Linguistic Models
The Linguistic Foundation
Langue, Parole
Relations
Signs
Discovery Procedures
'Generative' or 'Transformational'
Consequences and Implications
The Development of a Method: Two Examples
The Language of Fashion
Mythological Logic
Jakobson's Poetic Analyses
Greimas and Structural Semantics
Linguistic Metaphors in Criticism
The Work as System
The Work as Semiotic Project
Poetics
Literary Competence
Convention and Naturalization
Ecriture, Lecture
The 'Real'
Cultural Vraisemblance
Models of a Genre
The Conventionally Natural
Parody and Irony
Poetics of the Lyric
Distance and Deixis
Organic Wholes
Theme and Epiphany
Resistance and Recuperation
Poetics of the Novel
Lisibility, lllisibility
Narrative Contracts
Codes
Plot
Theme and Symbol
Character
Perspectives
’Beyond’ Structuralism: Tel Quel
Conclusion: Structuralism and the Qualities of Literature