Desire in Language: A Semiotic Approach to Literature and Art

Kristeva, Julia

ISBN 10: 0231048076 / ISBN 13: 9780231048071

Published by Columbia University Press, 1980

About this Item

Softcover, 306 pages, very good condition; light rubbing to covers; no internal marks.

Seller Inventory # DeKrCo20

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Desire in Language: A Semiotic Approach to Literature and Art
• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Publication Date: 1980
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0231048076
• ISBN 13: 9780231048071
• Binding: Soft cover
• Seller catalogs:
  • Theory

About this title

Synopsis

Desire in Language traces the path of an investigation, extending over a period of ten years, into the semiotics of literature and the arts. But the essays of Julia Kristeva in this volume, though they often deal with literature and art, do not amount to either "literary criticism" or "art criticism." Their concern, writes Kristeva, "remains intratheoretical: they are based on art and literature in order to subvert the very theoretical, philosophical, or semiological apparatus."

Probing beyond the discoveries of Sigmund Freud, Jacques Lacan, Roman Jakobson and others, Julia Kristeva proposes and tests theories centered on the nature and development of the novel, and on what she has defined as a signifying practice in poetic language and pictural works. Desire in Language fully shows what Roman Jakobson has called Kristeva's "genuine gift of questioning generally adopted 'axioms,' and her contrary gift of releasing various 'damned questions' from their traditional question marks."

About the Author

Julia Kristeva is professor emerita of linguistics at the Université de Paris VII. A renowned psychoanalyst, philosopher, and linguist, she has written dozens of books spanning semiotics, political theory, literary criticism, gender and sex, and cultural critique, as well as several novels and autobiographical works, published in English translation by Columbia University Press. Kristeva was the inaugural recipient of the Holberg International Memorial Prize in 2004 “for innovative explorations of questions on the intersection of language, culture, and literature.”