Roman Jakobson: Life, Language And Art

E-Book Overview

In <EM>Roman Jakobson Richard Bradford reasserts the value of Jakobson's work, arguing that he has a great deal to offer contemporary critical theory and providing a critical appraisal the sweep of Jakobson's career. Bradford re-establishes Jakobson's work as vital to our understanding of the relationship between language and poetry. By exploring Jakobson's thesis that poetry is the primary object language, <EM>Roman Jakobson: Life, Language, Art offers a new reading of his work which includes the most radical elements of modernism. This book will be invaluable to students of Jakobson and to anyone interested in the development of critical theory, linguistics and stylistics.

E-Book Content

Roman Jakobson Roman Jakobson’s work on poetry and poetics has always been overshadowed by his brilliant contributions to modern linguistics. His famous paper on ‘Linguistics and Poetics’, while acknowledged as central to the development of both linguistics and critical theory, has in the three decades since its publication been swept aside by the tide of poststructuralism. Richard Bradford reasserts the value of Jakobson’s work, arguing that he has a great deal to offer to contemporary critical theory and providing a critical appraisal of the sweep of Jakobson’s career. Roman Jakobson: Life, Language, Art is an analytic guide to Jakobson’s work: it includes practical demonstrations of Jakobsonian method; it considers his work within the broader context of structuralism and poststructuralism; and it argues for the relevance of Jakobson’s methods in contemporary critical theory. In addition, the author discusses the problematical relationship between Jakobsonian poetics, literary history and modernism. Richard Bradford re-establishes Jakobson’s work as vital to our understanding of the relationship between language and poetry. By exploring Jakobson’s thesis that poetry is th