Literary Theory

Series 1: Handout #7

Structuralism: “its essence is the belief that things cannot be understood in isolation—they have to be seen in the context of the larger structures they are part of . . . for structuralists, determining the precise nature of the chicken is the most important activity, while for the liberal humanists the close analysis of the egg is paramount” (Barry 39-40). Structuralism is popular in English literary studies in 1970s-80s. The structures under consideration are typically “abstract such as the notion of the literary or the poetic, or the nature of narrative itself” rather than, say, the history of courtly love or the interpretation of single poem (the concerns of mere formalists). And so the pendulum swings from text to context.

See Barry’s “What Structuralist Critics Do” (49).

Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913): “The Father of Modern Linguistics.” If language makes reality (that is, how our minds construct the material world), then we better pay attention to it. But is there a real world out there, one that exists apart from signs? How much of the real world is constructed by the relations of signs (Barthes)?

“Course in General Linguistics” (1916):

Semiology/Semiotics: “a science that studies the life of signs within society.”

Sign, Signified, Signifier: signifier and signified are the “sign”; the concept (e.g., tree) is the “signified”; and sound-image (the word “tree”) is the “signifier.”

Three big ideas: 1. the meanings of words are arbitrary (possibly excepting onomatopoeia and interjections); therefore, language is a system of signs that stands apart from reality; 2. The meanings of words are relational; words exist in only in relation to other words (e.g., paired opposites, or dyads, such as “male” and “female”); and 3. Language constitutes reality, it doesn’t just record it (e.g., negative associations of “black” attributed to African-Americans).