Michel Riffaterre (; 20 November 1924 in
Bourganeuf
Bourganeuf (; Limousin: ''Borgon Nuòu'') is a commune in the Creuse department in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region in central France.
Geography
An area of farming and forestry, comprising the village and several hamlets situated in the valley of ...
,
Creuse
Creuse (; oc, Cruesa or ) is a department in central France named after the river Creuse. After Lozère, it is the second least populated department in France. It is bordered by Indre and Cher to the north, Allier and Puy-de-Dôme to the ea ...
– 27 May 2006 in
New York
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* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
New York may also refer to:
Film and television
* '' ...
), known as Michael Riffaterre, was an influential French literary critic and theorist. He pursued a generally
structuralist approach. He is well known in particular for his book ''Semiotics of Poetry'', and his conceptions of
hypogram and
syllepsis
In rhetoric, zeugma (; from the Ancient Greek , , lit. "a yoking together"Liddell, H. G. & al. ''A Greek-English Lexicon''"" Perseus Project. Retrieved 24 January 2013.) and syllepsis (; from the Ancient Greek , , lit. "a taking together"''Random ...
. Kvas observes three phases in Riffaterre's work: stylistic, semiotic, and the intertextual phase. The most important is his intertextual phase in which he develops his understanding of
intertextuality
Intertextuality is the shaping of a text's meaning by another text, either through deliberate compositional strategies such as quotation, allusion, calque, plagiarism, translation, pastiche or parody, Gerard Genette (1997) ''Paratexts'p.18/ref>Hal ...
. For Riffaterre, "intertextuality is not a felicitous surplus, the privilege of a good memory or a classical education. The term indeed refers to an operation of the reader's mind, but it is an obligatory one, necessary to any textual decoding. Intertextuality necessarily complements our experience of textuality. It is the perception that our reading of the text cannot be complete or satisfactory without going through the intertext, that the text does not". According to the literary theorist Kornelije Kvas, "the key concept of Riffaterre's theory – intertextuality – is actually a method of text interpretation through which structures or poetic signs are recognized in the text that make the text literary. Intertextuality is a hermeneutic means of discovering the meaning of the poem, which strictly regulates the ways of the reader's perception of poetic signs. As in the case of the semiotic phase of his understanding of poetry, Riffaterre's intertextual phase is more like a theory of the interpretation of poetry than a theory of poetry itself".
Biography
He was born in
Bourganeuf
Bourganeuf (; Limousin: ''Borgon Nuòu'') is a commune in the Creuse department in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region in central France.
Geography
An area of farming and forestry, comprising the village and several hamlets situated in the valley of ...
, in the
Limousin
Limousin (; oc, Lemosin ) is a former administrative region of southwest-central France. On 1 January 2016, it became part of the new administrative region of Nouvelle-Aquitaine. It comprised three departments: Corrèze, Creuse, and Haute-Vienn ...
region of
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
. After receiving the
concours général prize in French literature he went on to study at the
University of Lyon
The University of Lyon (french: Université de Lyon), located in Lyon and Saint-Étienne, France, is a center for higher education and research comprising 11 members and 24 associated institutions. The three main universities in this center are: C ...
. After
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
he entered the
Sorbonne, where he earned his M.A. in
classics
Classics or classical studies is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, classics traditionally refers to the study of Classical Greek and Roman literature and their related original languages, Ancient Greek and Latin. Classics ...
in 1947, and then became a doctoral student at
Columbia University
Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
, earning his Ph.D. there in 1955, and remained for his entire academic career. He served as the chairman of the Department of French from 1974-1983. In 1982 he became a University Professor, the highest professorial rank at Columbia. He retired in 2004 and died in his home in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
in 2006.
Scientific career
Riffaterre was a
Guggenheim Fellow
Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...
twice, a fellow at
Oxford
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...
, a member of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, a ...
, an officer in the order of the
palmes académiques Palmes is a surname. Notable people with the surname include:
* Sir Brian Palmes, English landowner and politician
*Sir Guy Palmes, English politician
* Brian Palmes MP
*Lieutenant General Francis Palmes
Lieutenant-General Francis Palmes MP (d ...
, and held honorary degrees from the
Université Blaise-Pascal
Blaise Pascal University (french: Université Blaise-Pascal), also known as Université Blaise Pascal, Clermont-Ferrand II or just Clermont-Ferrand II, was a public university with its main campus on in Clermont-Ferrand, France, with satellite l ...
as well as the Sorbonne. In addition to teaching at Columbia he held visiting professorships at
Johns Hopkins
Johns Hopkins (May 19, 1795 – December 24, 1873) was an American merchant, investor, and philanthropist. Born on a plantation, he left his home to start a career at the age of 17, and settled in Baltimore, Maryland where he remained for most ...
, the
Collège de France
The Collège de France (), formerly known as the ''Collège Royal'' or as the ''Collège impérial'' founded in 1530 by François I, is a higher education and research establishment ('' grand établissement'') in France. It is located in Paris n ...
,
Yale
Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wor ...
,
Harvard
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
, the
City University of New York
The City University of New York ( CUNY; , ) is the public university system of New York City. It is the largest urban university system in the United States, comprising 25 campuses: eleven senior colleges, seven community colleges and seven pro ...
, and the
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest- ...
, and led seminars at the
School of Criticism and Theory
The School of Criticism and Theory, now at Cornell University, is a summer program (offered in six-week seminars) in social science and literature. It is one of the most influential such programs in the United States to propagate the new dominant s ...
. He is a past president of the
Semiotic Society of America (1986).
Influence
Riffaterre’s theoretical work has been adopted and adapted in other research fields outside literary theory. For example, Christensen (2016)
[Christensen, L.R. (2016). On Intertext in Chemotherapy: an Ethnography of Text in Medical Practice. Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW): The Journal of Collaborative Computing and Work Practices. Volume 25, Issue 1, pp 1-38] introduces some of Riffaterre’s concepts to the analysis of work practice at a hospital.
Works
*''Le Style des Pleiades de Gobineau: Essai d'application d'une methode stylistique'' (1957); doctoral dissertation
*''Essais de stylistique structurale'' (1971); translated by Daniel Delas
*''Semiotics of Poetry'' (1978)
*''La Production du texte'' (1979) 1983 English translation ''Text Production''
*''Fictional Truth'' (1990)
References
External links
Full bibliography of papers
{{DEFAULTSORT:Riffaterre, Michel
1924 births
2006 deaths
People from Creuse
French literary critics
French semioticians
University of Lyon alumni
University of Paris alumni
Johns Hopkins University faculty
Yale University faculty
Harvard University faculty
University of Pennsylvania faculty
Columbia University faculty
Columbia University alumni
French male non-fiction writers
20th-century French male writers
French expatriates in the United Kingdom
French expatriates in the United States
Presidents of the Semiotic Society of America