Ebook: The Henri Meschonnic Reader: A Poetics of Society

Henri Meschonnic: linguist, poet, translator, philosopher

• Groups texts into 6 thematic parts; each part is foregrounded by an introduction to situate and contextualize it for the reader
• Includes an introduction to Henry Meschonnic by John Joseph
• Includes an introduction to Meschonnic’s theory, concepts and poetics of society by Marko Pajevic
• Includes a glossary of terms, index of names and index of terminology to aid navigation and understanding

Henri Meschonnic was a linguist, poet, translator of the Bible and one of the most original French thinkers of his generation. He strove throughout his career to reform the understanding of language and all that depends on it. His work has had a shaping influence on a generation of scholars and here, for the first time, a selection of these are made available in English for a new generation of linguists and philosophers of language.

This Reader, featuring fourteen texts covering the core concepts and topics of Meschonnic’s theory, will enrich, enhance and challenge your understanding of language. It explores his key ideas on poetics, the poem, rhythm, discourse and his critique of the sign. Meschonnic’s vast oeuvre was continuously preoccupied with the question of a poetics of society; he constantly connected the theory of language to its practice in various fields and interrogated what that means for society. In exploring this fundamental question, this book is central to the study and philosophy of language, with rich repercussions in fields such as translation studies, poetics and literary studies, and in redefining notions such as rhythm, modernity, the poem and the subject.