Structuralist Perspectives in Criticism of Fiction: Essays on "Manon Lescaut" and "La Vie de Marianne"

by Patrick Brady

This volume, essentially methodological in orientation, presents a spectrum of French, Russian, and American modes of structuralism. Each approach is extrapolated from a structuralist mode of language theory (Derrida), period style theory (Jakobson, Foucault), information theory (Lotman), linguistics and narratology (Christensen, Ohmann; Barthes, Chatman; Heller and Macris), social anthropology (Lévi-Strauss), psychoanalysis (Lacan), sociology (Goldmann), or archetypology (Durand). Each is situated in relation to earlier work in each of these fields and then demonstrated and tested by means of concrete application to the analysis of two paradigmatic but profoundly different narrative texts of the rococo Prévost's Manon Lescaut (1731) and Marivaux's La Vie de Marianne (1731-41). While the main concern is thus a critical examination of the most controversial modern critical perspectives, the study also proposes the first elements of a comprehensive new theory of the rococo.

236 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1978

About the author

Patrick Brady has been an avid cyclist for more than 20 years. He has toured the U.S. and Europe and raced from Vermont to California. He was the publisher of highly regarded Asphalt Magazine and served as an editor for Bicycle Guide and The Ride. His first book, Bicycling Los Angeles County was published by Menasha Ridge Press in 2007. His ground-breaking work at Belgium Knee Warmers led to the launch of his blog Red Kite Prayer and his role as a contributing editor for peloton magazine."