The Origin of Language: A New Edition

“Mysteries should not be multiplied beyond necessity.”

The Origin of Language remains as completely original and unprecedented (and intellectually demanding and satisfying) today as when it was originally published, so much so as to constitute a kind of intellectual scandal.

Eric Gans is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of French and Francophone Studies at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), where he taught 19th-century French literature for 45 years. He is the author of two critical studies on Flaubert, including Madame Bovary: The End of Romance (G.K. Hall, 1989), and (in French) of book-length essays on Alfred de Musset and Prosper Mérimée. His theoretical works include Signs of Paradox: Irony, Resentment, and Other Mimetic Structures (Stanford University Press, 1997) and A New Way of Thinking: Generative Anthropology in Religion, Philosophy, Art (The Davies Group, 2011). He lives in Santa Monica, California.