Figural space : semiotics and the aesthetic imaginary

William Donald Melaney, The American University in Cairo (AUC)

Description

This book is concerned with the continuing viability of both Freud and Hegel to the reading of modern literature. It begins with Julia Kristeva’s attempts to relate Hegelian thought to a psychoanalytically informed conception of semiotics that was first explored in her influential study, The Revolution in Poetic Language, and then modified in later publications. Kristeva’s agreements and disagreement with Hegel are important to the book’s argument, which ultimately defends Hegel against familiar, poststructuralist detractions. The book’s conceptual argument requires a historical exposition, with chapters devoted to literary figures ranging from Edmund Spenser, Wordsworth and Shelley as well as Proust, Jean Rhys and Kazuo Ishiguro.