Deleuze and Guattari - Critics of the Twentieth Century

The philosopher Giles Deleuze and the psychoanalyst and political activist Felix Guattari have been recognised as among the most important intellectual figures of their generation. This is the first book-length study of their works in English, one that provides an overview of their thought and of its bearing on the central issues of contemporary literary criticism and theory. From Deleuze's 'philosophy of difference' to Deleuze and Guattari's 'philosophy of schizoanalytic desire', this study traces the ideas of the two writers across a wide range of disciplines - from psychoanalysis and Marxist politics to semiotics, aesthetics and linguistics. Professor Bogue provides lucid readings, accessible to specialist and non-specialist alike, of several major works: Deleuze's Nietzsche and Philosophy (1962), Difference and Reception (1968), and Deleuze and Guattari's Anti-Oedipus (1972) and A Thousand Plateaus (1980). Besides elucidating the basic structure of Deleuze and Guattari's often difficult thought, with its complex and often puzzling array of terms, this study also shows how theory influences critical practice in their analyses of the fiction of Proust, Sacher-Masoch and Kafka.