A semiotic analysis of Guillaume Apollinaire's mythology in Alcools

Guillaume Apollinaire's Alcools appears to be a haphazard accumulation of allusions, myths and neologisms. Biographically and historically oriented attempts to elucidate a structure in this work have usually been frustrated. The semiotic approach to myth and poetry developed in this book shows that the key lies in the poetic function of mythology.

In a close analysis of several poems, poetic figures are shown to be grafted upon the primary metaphors in the poems' titles, which in turn derive from conventional linguistic expressions. Proposed here is a new approach to the interpretation of modern poetry, according to which mythification and remythification generate patterns of multiple meanings which separate literature from common message-based discourse.