Cover; Half Title; Title; Copyright; Original Title; Original Copyright; Dedication; Contents; Preface; 1. The Analytical Dictionary: Language, Semiotics, and the Discourses of the Human Sciences; Introduction: The Duality of Language; Language; Semiotics; Discourse; Conclusion; 2. Structural Semantics and Structural Linguistics; The Functional Linguistics of the Prague School; Language without Meaning: The Linguistic Methodology of Bloomfield and Hjelmslev; The Linguistic Analysis of 'Structural Semantics': The Immanent Semantic Universe. 3. Structural Semantics and Du Sens II: Actants, Functions, and the Semio-narrative LevelLinguistics and Semiotics; Actants; Actants and the Semio-narrative Level; Functional Analysis: Propp and Greimas; The Generative Trajectory of Discourse; 4. Maupassant and Sémiotique et Sciences Sociales: Discourse and Narrativity; Greimas and Lévi-Strauss; Collective Corpus: Semiotics and the Social Sciences; Individual Texts: Semiotics of Literature; 5. Avatars of Semiotics: Greimas and Poststructuralism; Semiotics in Crisis; Poststructural Semiotics: The Deconstruction of Jacques Derrida. Enunciation and the Surface of 'Things': Knowledge and Power in Lacan and de ManReference and Enunciation: Greimas and Poststructuralism; Bibliography; Works by A .J. Greimas; Cited Works by Other Authors; Index

In this book, first published in 1987, Professor Schleifer sets Greimas' work in its intellectual context and sets forth the development of his distinctive style of interpretation. Moreover, the author goes on to consider Greimas' work against the latest examinations of discourse in philosophy, depth psychology, and literary criticism. He tests Greimas' semiotic square against derridean deconstruction, Lacanian psychoanalysis, and the literary analyses of Paul de Man. This book will constitute an important and lucid survey of an often inaccessible critic, and will be of interest to students of literature.