Introduction: A. J. Greimas

Abstract

Julien Greimas's theories mainly through the commentaries of critics,1 or the numerous more or less well-founded applications that often consist in simply projecting the elementary structure of signification (the semiotic square) on various cultural and social objects. However, in the last few years most of A. J. Greimas's major texts have appeared, or are about to appear, in English translation,2 finally giving critics direct access to his work and making it possible for them to evaluate for themselves the importance and heuristic value of the global theory in the analysis of literary texts. The first article written by A. J. Greimas, on Cervantes and Don Quixote, was published in 1943 in the Lithuanian journal Varpai, Almanach littiraire. His most recent important work, de l'imperfection, was published some forty-four years later and focuses on a series of literary texts composed by five authors from different countries and traditions: Michel Tournier, Italo Calvino, Rainer Maria Rilke, Jun'ichiro Tanizaki, and Julio Cortaizar.3 One might assume that Greimas has come full circle and returned to his first literary concerns. But on closer examination, it can be seen that, throughout his career, literature has been an ongoing preoccupation; he has written, and continues to write, on a wide variety of topics directly and indirectly related to this domain: the Russian folktale and the folktale in general (Le conte populaire russe, analyse fonctionnelle [1965]; with Joseph Court6s, Cendrillon va au bal ... Les r6les et les figures dans la litterature orale franpaise [1978]), structural linguistics and poetics (Les relations entre la linguistique structurale et la po6tique [1967]), ethnic literature (La litterature ethnique [1970]), mythology (Comparative Mythology [1963]; 116ments pour une th6orie de l'interpr6tation du r6cit mythique [1966]; Des dieux et des hommes [1986]), semiotics and poetics (Essais de sbmiotique poetique [1972]), the