Myth, Truth and Literature

Colin Falck’s book has had a widespread influence since it first appeared in 1989. Hailed as a work that alters the way we think about literary theory and its institutionalisation in America and Britain, it is a philosophically informed account of the ‘paradigm-shift’ required to replaced structuralism and post-structuralism as modes of perceiving literature and related culture. Falck now supplements this second paperback edition with an appendix and other new material.

• ‘A salutary and courageous book.’ Agenda • ‘It deserves a wide audience.’ Philosophy and Literature • ‘A map of the future.’ Camille Paglia

Preface; Introduction: Two Faces of Romanticism; 1. Saussurian theory and the abolition of reality; 2. ‘Original language’; 3. Poetry; 4. Presence; 5. Spilt religion; 6. Towards a true post-modernism; Appendix: Romanticism and poetics; Index.

‘Colin Falck’s Myth, Truth and Literature prefigures the entire methodology of my Sexual Personae (1990). It reveals the future of literary criticism and shows the path out of now totally bankrupt French literary theory. Literary studies are in a period of chaos: the age of theory is over, but it’s not clear what is taking shape. Falck’s book is a map for the future.’

– Camille Paglia