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Literary Criticism Semiotics & Theory

A Dictionary of Literary Devices

Gradus, A-Z

by (author) Bernard Dupriez

translated by Albert Halsall

Publisher
University of Toronto Press, Scholarly Publishing Division
Initial publish date
Oct 1991
Category
Semiotics & Theory, Books & Reading, Dictionaries
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9780802068033
    Publish Date
    Oct 1991
    List Price
    $36.95
  • Hardback

    ISBN
    9780802027566
    Publish Date
    Oct 1991
    List Price
    $81.00
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9781442670303
    Publish Date
    Oct 1991
    List Price
    $105.00

Classroom Resources

Where to buy it

Description

'Common-sense,' the Romantic critics told us, was all that was needed to understand and interpret literary texts. Today, we know this is not generally true. Modern criticism has joined with pre-Romantic criticism to expose common-sense as appropriate (because simple-minded), inadequate to comprehend and interpret verbal structures which are frequently 'non-[common]sensical,' anti-commonsensical, or even nonsensical.

The difference between readers today and their earlier counterparts is that we have lost the full vocabulary of criticism and the consciousness of the literary and rhetorical devices with which texts are created. Yet these devices are still available to us, still practised even if unwittingly and on an impoverished scale.

"Gradus," originally published in French in 1984, was designed to make good that loss, to reanimate those skills. Comprising some 4000 terms, defined and illustrated, it calls upon the resources of linguistics, poetics, semiotics, socio-criticism, rhetoric, pragmatics, combining them in ways which enable readers quickly to comprehend the codes and conventions which together make up 'literarity.' Skilfully translated into English, and adapted for an English-language audience with illustrations taken from an astonishing range of contemporary texts, literary and popular, drawn from literature, radio, television, and the theatre, "Gradus" will be a constant source of information and delight.

About the authors

Bernard Dupriez is professor titulaire, Département d'Etudes françaises, Université de Montréal

Bernard Dupriez's profile page

Albert W. Halsall was Professor of French and Comparative Literature at Carleton University.

Albert Halsall's profile page