Outline from my power point:
Structuralism Theory
“Decoding Literature”
Structuralism:
An interdisciplinary approach to all branches of human knowledge that rejects ontological and epistemological sources of meaning in favor of an anti-metaphysical approach that posits that all humanistic pursuits are the products of deep structures that predate human consciousness.
Structuralism: Human culture is analyzed semiotically (I.E. as a system of signs)
Structuralist Critisism relates texts to a larger structure.
Examples: 1)genre
2) Intertextual connections
3) model of universal narrative structure
4) system of patterns or motifs
Structuralism relies on the theory that there is structure within every text. Every written work is governed by specific rules that are garnered from educational and social institutions. In order to understand a text, one musk “unmask” and analyze these rules.
Problems with this theory:
Structuralism is a highly reductive approach to Literary theory. When a work is considered formulaic and structured, despite an author’s intentions, it tends to loose its appearance of originality. With structuralism, originality lies in the creation of new signs and structure, not in plot and character.
Ferdinand de Saussure:
Language is a medium in which meaning is formed and communicated and it is also the medium through which we form knowledge about ourselves and the social world.
Saussure and Semiotics: The study of Signs.
Meaning is produced by way of the differences between signs.
Signifier is the medium of signs. Example: sound, image, or mark that forms a word on a page.
Signified = concepts/conveyed meaning. Meaning is fluid. (I.E. subject to history and culture) Meaning is not universal. Cultural codes create meaning through conventions. Example: Red is not just a color; it can also mean “stop.”
Roland Barthes:
Cultural mythology:
-- Denotation: descriptive and literal meaning.
Example: Pig = farm animal, Pork.
-- Connotation: meaning derived by connecting signifier to cultural concerns.
Example: Pig = Bad cop, Chauvinist male.
* One sign has multiple meanings. When connotations become naturalized and accepted (I.E. used to make sense of the world) they create myths.
Myths are cultural constructions that appear to be universal truths.
Signs and Signifiers create Denotative meaning. This is the “first” or literal form of language. This language in turn becomes Connotative and mythological in meaning, thus developing a “second” language.
Structuralism seeks to separate and analyze these two languages.
Northrop Frye:
Frye explores ways in which genres of Western Literature fall into his four Myths
1) 1) Theory of Mods, or historical criticism (tragic, comic, and thematic)
2) 2)Theory of symbols or ethical criticism (literal/descriptive, formal, mythical, and anagogic)
3) 3)Theory of myths, or archetypal criticism (comedy, romance, tragedy, irony/satire)
4) 4)Theory of genres or rhetorical criticism (epos, prose, drama, lyric)
Significance of Myths:
Individual works derive their cultural significance from their re-enactment of the deeply structured codes/mythical values which enact the fundamental human experience of seasonality and of the passage from birth to death.
Tzvetan Todorov:
Literary Science
Emphasis on narrative:
Structuralist narratology implies to some degree an inductive approach. Literary theory is best approached with precise, empirical knowledge. Such analysis will discover in each work what it has in common with others.
Example: genres and periods.
View Literary analysis as a Science
Focus on intrinsic properties of a work in order to create a more objective approach.
The proper focus of structural analysis is Plot. Plot is two moments of equilibrium, similar and different, separated by a period of imbalance, which is composed of a process of degeneration and a process of improvement.
Focus on syntax of narrative.
8 Main points in Schematic formulation (Analogy between a sentence and a narrative)
1) The minimal element of the plot can be considered as equivalent to a clause;
2) Each narrative “clause” contains an agent/subject and a predicate that may consist of a verb (an action which will modify the preceding situation) and/or an adjective/epithet which describes the forms;
3) Each action, and thus clause, has either a positive or negative status;
4) Each clause possesses a particular modality (E.G. the indicative or the imperative), which are distinguished by the fact that they refer to actions that have actually transpired (the indicative) or exist in potentiality;
5) Each clause contains a particular perspective (s), the different points of view of a character (s), and the narrator;
6) There are identifiable relations between clauses; temporal (relations of succession), causal (relations of entailment versus presupposition), and spatical (parallelism);
7) The syntagmatic progression of the clauses form a sequence (sometimes the entire narrative, sometimes part of the narrative);
8) Each genre, too, may be distinguished by the modality of the clauses which prevails in a given sequence.
In Summary
Structuralism Theory attempts to reduce the literary language of a work to a secondary meta language (linguistic) that provides a structured image of the work.
No comments:
Post a Comment