Michael Payne is John P. Crozer Professor and Heaad of English at Bucknell University, Pennsylvania. He is the author of Irony in Shakespeare's Roman Plays and the editor of several volumes of criticism and theory, including the forthcoming Blackwell Dictionary of Cultural and Critical Theory.

"[Shows] perception and originality." Julia Kristeva "By intensive reading clarified by historical and intertexual contexts of each of the authors, he achieves a series of brilliant explications".... I have never read a more lucid explanation of these ideas". James R. Bennett, University of Arkansas

• List of Plates. Preface.Acknowledgements.List of Abbreviations.1. Theoretical Beginnings: Introductions to Lacan, Derrida and Kristeva.2. Ecrits: A Selection.3. Of Grammatology.4. Revolution in Poetic Language.5. Reading Paintings.Appendix I: Lacan's Use of Freud's German Terms.Appendix II: Derrida's Abbreviated Citations.Appendix III: Some Kristevan Terms.Index.