Author Description

This four-volume set offers the most extensive, systematic and in-depth survey of the foundations and development of semiotics as a field. It covers foundational texts in semiotics, from the constitution of the field in the early 20th century, through its blossoming with the advent of structuralism in the 1960s and '70s and the formative dialogue between structuralism and Marxism. It goes on to present a representative selection of central essays in literary semiotics, narratology and poetics, the semiotics of anthropology, myth, art, architecture, music, theatre, film, fashion and other aspects of contemporary culture.