[ "Structuralist Poetics" was one of the first introductions to the French structuralist movement in English. ]Culler’s contribution to the Very Short Introductions series, "Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction’’, has received praise for its innovative technique of organization. Rather than dedicate chapters to schools and their methods, he divides into eight chapters the issues and problems that literary theory approaches.
In a book recently published in 2007, "The Literary in Theory", Culler responds to the greater notion of Theory and the history of literature’s role in the larger realm of literary and cultural theory. He defines Theory as an interdisciplinary body of work including structuralist linguistics, anthropology, Marxism, semiotics, psychoanalysis, and literary criticism.
Contributions to critical theory
Culler proposes that he can provide a more thorough account of the use of linguistics in structuralism than his predecessors. The linguistic model can help “formulate the rules of particular systems of convention rather than simply affirm their existence". He posits that language and human culture operate in similar ways. In "Structuralist Poetics", however, Culler warns against the error of applying the technique of linguistics directly to literature. Rather, the "'grammar' of literature" is converted into literary structures and meaning within a competent reader. He defines structuralism as a theory which rests on the realization that if human actions or productions have meaning there must be an underlying system which makes this meaning possible. An utterance has meaning only in the context of a preexistent system of rules and conventions.
;Reader-response criticismCuller proposes that we use literary theory not necessarily to try to understand a text but rather to investigate the activity of interpretation. We should give more weight to the active participation of the reader. In several of his works, he speaks of a reader who is particularly "competent". In order to understand how we make sense of a text, Culler intends to identify common elements that all readers immediately treat differently in different texts. He suggests there are two classes of readers, “the readers as field of experience for the critic (himself a reader)” and the future readers who will benefit from the work the critic and previous readers have done. Critics of Culler’s theories cite his lack of distinction between literature and the institution of writing in general.
Bibliography
;Selected Publications
* "Flaubert: The Uses of Uncertainty." London: Elek Books; Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1974. Revised edition: Cornell University Press, 1985.
* "Structuralist Poetics: Structuralism, Linguistics, and the Study of Literature." London: Routledge and Kegan Paul; Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1975. Revised edition: Routledge Classics, 2002. Spanish, Japanese, Portuguese, Chinese, and Croatian translations.
* "Saussure" (American Title: "Ferdinand de Saussure"). London: Fontana; Brighton: Harvester, 1976. New York: Penguin, 1977. Second revised edition, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986; London: Fontana, 1987. Japanese, Serbian, Slovenian, Portuguese, Turkish, and Finnish translations.
* "The Pursuit of Signs: Semiotics, Literature, Deconstruction." London: Routledge and Kegan Paul; Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 198l. Revised edition, "Routledge Classics," Routledge, 2001, Cornell University Press, 2002. Japanese translation.
* "On Deconstruction: Theory and Criticism after Structuralism." Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1982; London: Routledge, 1983. Japanese, Spanish, Italian, German, Portuguese, Serbian, Chinese, Polish, Korean, Hungarian, and Czech translations.
* "Barthes" (American Title: "Roland Barthes"). London: Fontana; New York: Oxford University Press, 1983. Japanese, Portuguese, and Chinese translations. Revised and expanded edition, Roland Barthes: A Very Short Introduction, OUP, Oxford, 2001.
* ed. "The Call of the Phoneme: Puns and the Foundations of Letters." Oxford: Blackwells, and Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1987.
* "Framing the Sign: Criticism and Its Institutions." Oxford: Blackwells, and Norman, U of Oklahoma Press, 1988. Japanese translation.
* "Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction." Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997; reedition 1999. Polish, Chinese, Korean, Portuguese, Italian, German, Spanish, Croatian, Japanese, Romanian, and Latvian translations.
* Ed., with Kevin Lamb, "Just Being Difficult? Academic Writing in the Public Arena." Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003.
* Ed. "Deconstruction: Critical Concepts", 4 vols. London: Routledge, 2003.
* Ed. with Pheng Cheah, "Grounds of Comparison: Around the Work of Benedict Anderson." Routledge, 2003.
* "Barthes: A Very Short Introduction"
* "Apostrophe"
ee also
*List of deconstructionists
Notes
ources
*http://www.mla.org/resources/awards/awards_winners/pastwinners_annual/pastwinners_lowell
*Beers, Terry. "Reading Reading Constraints: Conventions, Schemata, and Literary Interpretation" "Diacritics: A Review of Contemporary Criticism" 18 (1988): 82-93.
*Culler, J. "The Literary in Theory" Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2007.
*Culler, J. "Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction" New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.
*Culler, J. "Structuralist Poetics: Structuralism, Linguistics, and the Study of Literature" London: Routledge and Kegan Paul; Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1975. Revised edition: Routledge Classics, 2002
*Gorman, D. "Theory of What?" Rev. of "Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction", Jonathan Culler. "Philosophy and Literature" 23.1 (1999): 206-216
*Schauber, E. & Spolsky, E. "Stalking a Generative Poetics" "New Literary History: A Journal of Theory and Interpretation" 12.3 (1981): 397-413.
*Schleifer, R. & Rupp, G. "Structuralism" "The Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism" 2nd ed. (2005).
