A Theory of Literary Production

Develops Althusser's account of the relationship between literature and ideology in an analysis aimed at students. Macherey applies his theory to selected works of four major 20th-century writers. 0710000871,9780710000873 Cover 1 Contents 6 Translator's preface 8 Acknowledgment 11 Part One: Some Elementary Concepts 12 1 Criticism and judgment 14 2 Domain and object 16 3 Questions and answers 19 4 Rule and law 23 5 Positive and negative judgment 26 6 Front and back 31 The genesis of a poem 32 Thaumantis regia 38 7 Improvisation, structure and necessity 50 8 Autonomy and independence 62 9 Image and concept : beautiful language and true language 65 10 Illusion and fiction 72 11 Creation and production 77 12 Pact and contract 80 13 Explanation and interpretation 86 14 Implicit and explicit 93 15 The spoken and the unspoken 96 16 The two questions 101 17 Interior and exterior 107 18 Depth and complexity 109 Part Two: Some Critics 114 19 Lenin, critic of Tolstoy 116 The image in the mirror 130 20 Literary analysis : the tomb of structures 147 Part Three: Some Works 157 21 Jules Verne : the faulty narrative 170 22 Borges and the fictive narrative 260 23 Balzac's Les Paysans : a disparate text 269 Appendix: Lenin's Articles on Tolstoy 310 Index 336 Leo Tolstoy and His Epoch 309 -1 L. N. Tolstoy and the Modern Labour -1 Movement 313 -1 Tolstoy and the Proletarian Struggle 316 -1 Heroes of Reservation' 318 -1 Index 325 -1 Who is more important: the reader, or the writer? Originally published in French in 1966, Pierre Macherey's first and most famous work, "A Theory of Literary Production" dared to challenge perceived wisdom, and quickly established him as a pivotal figure in literary theory. In this provocative work, Macherey puts the focus as much on the reader as the writer, stating that the very act of reading is a form of production in its own right, generating interpretation and meanings which are beyond the control of the author. Part of the birth of a whole new branch of post-structuralist theory, Macherey's work also influenced a new generation of critics among them Jacques Derrida, his contemporary, and Terry Eagleton. His ideas have also led some observers to claim that he announced the death of the author fully two years before Roland Barthes' famous essay.