The Poverty of Structuralism

A study of structuralist theory from Saussure to the British cultural theorists of the 1970s and 80s. The book argues that the structuralist model of language was inadequate to account for the actual structures and functioning of language, let alone those of literature and society.

Leonard Jackson

1. Stucturalism and the real Saussure 2. The creative phase of structuralist theory 3. The French phase - structuralism collapses 4. The trajectory of Roland Barthes 5. Textual metaphysics and the anti-foundation myths of Derrida 6. How far do we construct the world in language 7. Linguistic, idealism and the critics of the 1970s 8. Towards a realist theory of literature