Julia Kristeva and Literary Theory

by Megan Becker-Leckrone

Engaged debate among feminist, political, and psychoanalytic thinkers has secured Julia Kristeva's status as one of the most formidable figures in twentieth-century critical theory. Nevertheless, her precise relevance to the study of literature - the extent to which her theory is specifically a literary theory - can be hard for new readers to fathom.

This approachable volume explores Kristeva's definition of literature, her methods for analyzing it, and the theoretical ground on which those endeavors are based. Megan Becker-Leckrone argues that Kristeva's signature concepts, such as abjection and intertextuality, lose much of their force when readers extract them from the specific, complex theoretical context in which Kristeva produces them. Early chapters situate her theory in a broader conversation with Roland Barthes, Sigmund Freud, Jacques Lacan and others around the issues of reading, textuality, and subjectivity. Subsequent chapters look at Kristeva's actual engagements with literary texts, specifically her challenging, highly performative reading of French novelist Louis-Ferdinand Céline in Powers of An Essay on Abjection and her career-long preoccupation with James Joyce. A final chapter of the book looks at the way contemporary literary critics have marshaled her ideas in re-reading the poetry of William Wordsworth, while a helpful glossary identifies Kristeva's most pertinently "literary" theoretical concepts, by way of synopses of the texts in which she presents them.

232 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

Reviews

[Theryn Fleming]

Megan Becker-Leckrone says that the purpose of Julia Kristeva and Literary Theory "is to introduce students of literature to … the most pertinently 'literary theoretical' aspects of Julia Kristeva's work" (p. xi). She looks at these aspects in two ways. In Part I, she discusses the theoretical foundations of Kristeva's work on (inter)textuality and subject formation. In Part II, she applies Kristeva's theory to the texts of Louis-Ferdinand Céline, James Joyce, and William Wordsworth. Her aim with Céline is to demonstrate that Kristeva's ideas enter into a conversation with the works they are used to critique (rather than merely being applied to them). With Joyce, who she calls "the most Kristevan writer Kristeva has never extensively written about" (p.90), she is interested in how Joyce acts as an intertextual signifier for Kristeva. The thesis of the book—that theory and reading are interconnected—coalesces in the Wordsworth chapter. The discussion does require readers have a familiarity with the writings of the authors discussed (to fully grasp the concepts). The book also includes a useful glossary of Kristevan terms and an annotated bibliography of works both by and about Kristeva.

[Tiffany · Rating 4 out of 5]

Anything that makes Kristeva more understandable makes me happy.

And the author is my Theory Professor! Yay! :)