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.

This book introduces a new way of studying literature by attempting to create a systematic account of the structure of literary works, rather than studying the meaning of the work. It offers an overview and appraisal of contributions to literary theory of French structuralism and post- structuralism. Culler's new preface answers some of the criticisms leveled at his approach and details how it is still as relevant today as when it was first published.

A classic survey of structuralist literary criticism combined with a survey about how English and American criticism might benefit from its lessons.

Investigating the conceptualisation of structure and form within literature, the Russian Formalists affected both the creation of art during the 1920s and 1930s and the development of literary theory as a scientific discipline. Crucial to the understanding of this theoretical movement, this collection of essays by and about the Russian Formalists features work by: - Boris M. Eichenbaum ("The Theory of the Formal Method") - Viktor Shklvosky ("The Mystery Novel: Dickens's Little Dorrit") - Roman Jakobson ("On Realism in Art") - Mikhail Bakhtin ("Discourse Typology in Prose") - Osip M. Brik ("Contributions to the Study of Verse Language") A new introduction by Gerald L. Bruns provides a context for understanding why these works remain as important and influential now as when they were first written.

In this pioneering work, first published in 1981, Sunday O. Anozie examines the relevance of structuralism and semiology to literary criticism in general and to African poetics in particular. Behind the growing body of African literature lies an immense reservoir of oral tradition for which the proper tools of analysis and interpretation have yet to be found. This book represents the first comprehensive full-scale exposition, analysis and critique of structuralism by a non-Western and non-European scholar. From an African viewpoint, it examines the roles to be played by structuralism and post-structuralism in the development of the general principles governing poetics and literary creativity in Africa. This title will be of interest to students of literature and literary theory.

A classic survey of structuralist literary criticism combined with a survey about how English and American criticism might benefit from its lessons.

Speculative Formalism engages decisively in recent debates in the literary humanities around form and formalism, making the case for a new, nonmimetic and antihistoricist theory of literary reference. Where formalism has often been accused of sealing texts within themselves, Eyers demonstrates instead how a renewed, speculative formalism can illuminate the particular ways in which literature actively opens onto history, politics, and nature, in a connective movement that puts formal impasses to creative use. Through a combination of philosophical reflection and close rhetorical readings, Eyers explores the possibilities and limits of deconstructive approaches to the literary, the impact of the “digital humanities” on theory, and the prospects for a formalist approach to “world literature.” The book includes sustained close readings of Baudelaire, Mallarmé, Yeats, and Wallace Stevens, as well as Alain Badiou, Paul de Man, and Fredric Jameson.