Wittgenstein, Kraus, and Valéry

"This book attempts to establish a paradigm for the way language works - that is, means and creates - in contemporary Western poetry. The "model" is developed from a rereading of Ludwig Wittgenstein's theory of language, a rereading that is complemented with Karl Kraus's conception of language creation and Paul Valery's theories of poetry and language.

The implications of the paradigm are then explored from several perspectives: the process of writing and reading; the mechanisms of language combination; the "ideational" content of its "crystallizations" (meanings); and their materiality as linguistic objects. As a result, the paradigm allows us to understand the philosophical import of poetry as a form-of-life inextricably attached to the signifying mechanisms of language."--BOOK JACKET.