Literature as Discourse: Textual Strategies in English and History

This work is a new textbook for students in literature and cultural studies. It situates the study of literary texts firmly within a broader framework of social and cultural analysis, thus breaking down the barriers which have separated literary studies from other disciplines in the humanities and social sciences. The author explains the key concepts of his approach - that of social semiotics - in a concise and lucid way and demonstrates in detail its relevance to the study of literary texts. He examines, among other things, the nature of literary institutions and the development of high culture, the production and reception of literary texts; the construction of authors and readers as masculine and feminine; the nature of literary representation and its relation to fantasy and reality; and the ways in which literary texts employ semiotic codes in order to communicate meaning in explicit and implicit ways. The work should be particularly useful for students of English and European literature, communication and cultural studies, and cultural history.

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