Amanda Puspitasari

082154222
Theory of Literature Assignment

STUCTURALISM

Structuralism is a theory of humankind in which all elements of human culture,

including literature, are thought to be parts of a system of signs. Critic Robert Scholes has
described structuralism as a reaction to "modernist’ alienation and despair."
Methodologically, it analyses large scale systems by examining the relations and
functions of the smallest constituent elements of such systems, which range from human
languages and cultural practices to folktales and literary texts. In literary theory,
structuralist criticism relates literary texts to a larger structure, which may be a particular
genre, a range of intertextual connections, a model of a universal narrative structure, or a
system of recurrent patterns or motifs. Structuralism is applied most effectively in the
field of "narratology." This discipline studies all narratives, whether or not they use
language; myths and legends, novels and news accounts, histories, relief sculptures and
stained-glass windows, pantomimes and psychological case studies. Using structuralist
methods and principles, narratologists analyze the systematic features and functions of
narratives, attempting to isolate a finite set of rules to account for the infinite set of real
and possible narratives.
Structuralism argues that there must be a structure in every text, which explains why
it is easier for experienced readers than for non experienced readers to interpret a text.
Because of that, everything that is written seems to be governed by specific rules. Beside
of that, Structuralistic literary criticism argues that the "literary banter of a text" can lie
only in new structure, rather than in the specifics of character development and voice in
which that structure is expressed.
For the example of such a reading, West Side Story did not write anything really new,
because their work has the same structure as Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. In both
texts, a girl and a boy fall in love despite the fact that they belong to two groups that hate
each other and conflict is resolved by their death. Structuralist readings focus on how the
structures of the single text resolve inherent narrative tensions. If a structuralist reading
focuses on multiple texts, there must be some way in which those texts unify themselves
into a coherent system.
- The impact of structuralism on literature and literary study is the concern of this
extraordinarily lucid book. Mr. Scholes explores the linguistic background of
structuralism, its historical connections to romanticism and Russian formalism, and the
theory and practice of the leading contemporary structuralist literary critics.
- Starting in the 1960s, the French critic Roland BARTHES and several other French
narratologists popularized the field, which has since become an important method of
analysis in the United States as well.
- The work of De Saussure in Linguistics and Levi-Strauss in anthropology led to the idea
of the existence of ‘deep structures’ in their respective fields of study. Levi-Strauss'
studies of traditional cultures drew attention to the built form of these cultures and drew
attention to their additive nature. A limited range of related components arranged in a
limited range of variations according to a particular set of rules.