The Prison-house of Language: A Critical Account of Structuralism and Russian Formalism

Fredric Jameson

Princeton University Press, 1974 - Language Arts & Disciplines - 230 pages

Fredric Jameson's survey of Structuralism and Russian Formalism is, at the same time, a critique of their basic methodology. He lays bare the presuppositions of the two movements, clarifying the relationship between the synchronic methods of Saussurean linguistics and the realities of time and history.

Contents

• I: 1
• II: 41
• III: 99
• IV: 217
• V: 225

About the author

Fredric R. Jameson, Marxist theorist and professor of comparative literature at Duke University, was born in Cleveland in 1934. He earned a Ph.D. from Harvard University and taught at Harvard, the University of California at San Diego, and Yale University before moving to Duke in 1985. He most famous work is Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, which won the Modern Language Association's Lowell Award. Jameson was among the first to associate a specific set of political and economic circumstances with the term postmodernism. His other books include Sartre: The Origin of a Style, The Seeds of Time, and The Cultural Turn.

Bibliographic information

• Title: The Prison-house of Language: A Critical Account of Structuralism and Russian Formalism; Volume 2 of Princeton Essays in Literature, ISSN 0079-5186; Volume 332 of Princeton Paperbacks; Princeton essays in European and comparative literature; The Prison-house of Language: A Critical Account of Structuralism and Russian Formalism, Fredric Jameson
• Author: Fredric Jameson
• Contributor: Fredric Jameson
• Edition: illustrated, reprint
• Publisher: Princeton University Press, 1974
• ISBN: 0691013160, 9780691013169
• Length: 230 pages
• Subjects: Language Arts & Disciplines / Grammar & Punctuation; Language Arts & Disciplines / Linguistics / Syntax; Literary Criticism / European / General; Literary Criticism / General; Literary Criticism / Modern / General; Literary Criticism / Russian & Soviet; Literary Criticism / Semiotics & Theory; Philosophy / Movements / Structuralism