Jonathan D. Culler

Although Culler's 'very short' (in fact, perfectly sufficient) introduction to literary theory is certainly about literary theory, it also covers much greater ground - 'Theory' itself and its derivatives, cultural studies, feminist theory, gender studies and anti-colonialist theory.

This is because the Academy was drawn deeply into this territory in the latter quarter of the last century. The contemporary study of literature cannot be seriously understood without understanding the incursions show more into it of these external elements.

As someone who is deeply resistant to the cultural imperialism of Theory and its transformation of thought into ideology, I found Culler's guide to be fair-minded and reasonable, outlining the state of literary theory at the end of the last century without taking any particular partisan position.

As a result I can (whatever one's views on what has happened to Western culture) recommend the book as a decent guide to the facts of what has happened. Indeed, it is quite an achievement to cover so much ground so clearly with only very few obscurities in a discipline filled with the latter.

To his credit, he does see the wood for the trees. Although it is more than it promises in its title, he does not neglect the discussion of literature qua literature and he is careful to present more traditional views of writing and text alongside the more fashionable ones.

As a result, for once in my reviews, I do not feel I have to 'critique a critique' but can simply let the text lie as a useful guide - whatever private despair I may feel at the ideologisation of culture by an excess of over-wrought junior academics and their politicised confreres. show less

This is a very successful attempt to comprehensively convey the thinking of a chameleon such as the French (post) structuralist Roland Barthes (1915-1980). Jonathan Culler nicely separates the different aspects of Barthes' personality and work and also sketches the evolution he went through. He is not afraid to point to the contradictions in that work and he clearly expresses his preference for the systematic scientist that Barthes was at the start of his career, the semiotic, in comparison show more with the multiformity of his later oeuvre. For indeed, that someone who once pronounced "the death of the author" returned to a penetrating study of authors such as Flaubert and Proust at the end of his career can provoke astonishment. But Culler makes clear that although Barthes may be placed in the list of structuralists such as Levi-Strauss, Foucault and Lacan, he always remained his wayward self. The only thing I missed in this booklet was the link that can clearly be found between French semiotics and what is called "the linguistic turn" in Anglo-Saxon circles (Hayden White and others). show less

Honestly? I liked this.

Look, I'm not an intelligent man by any stretch of the imagination. I'd actually classify myself as a midwit, even if people will pat my back and tell me I'm being hard on myself and that I'm actually more intelligent than I give myself credit for. Thank you, everyone in my life who thinks the best of me, but that is sadly the truth.

Literary Theory is one of those areas where I've needed to improve myself for a long time. Or, at least I've felt I needed to. I'm a show more writer by trade, but I only have a basic understanding of what Lit Theory even IS. I can tell you that a story is good, I can explain why I think it's good, but I can't give you anything in-depth about the underlying reasons for what makes a story good, what makes it compelling, and whether or not it's considered "literature".

So I've decided to start my education, and this book came highly recommended as a good starting point becuase, while it doesn't go into depth on Literary Theory, it does at least cover the basics to get you started on what it is, even if it doesn't offer you any insight into the different frameworks. As of now, that's all I need, even if I understood a lot of it already. I just needed a jumping-off point to get started before I dive into a larger introductory textbook and that is why I rated this 5-stars. If I were looking for something more concrete that went fully in-depth on Literary Theory, then I would have rated it lower, but at that point, why not just get one of the textbooks that most MA courses suggest? show less

Culler's introduction to Barthes is better than Barthes' actual ideas; the older Roland got the more nonsensical and silly his ideas got... and then he got hit by a laundry truck, one of the silliest deaths in intellectual history. Culler's analysis is sympathetic but also critical. It might be a good idea for most intellectuals to read this, because his criticism of Barthes' late infatuation with 'the body' is relevant to so many of them/us: why bother going through ideology critique, why show more bother revealing the way that we all treat out beliefs about the world as natural facts about the world, if you're just going to base your thought on a quasi-natural concept like the body? Nice for you that you can hold onto that liberal-conservative world-view and justify it by such a 'radical' epistemology; not so nice for those who don't benefit from that liberal-conservative world-view.

This isn't a substitute for reading Barthes, but it did a good job of encouraging me to read Mythologies and S/Z. Not much more you could ask for from a meta-literary-critic. show less