Literary

Approach:
Formalism and
Structuralism
CLARA MAE B. FERNANDEZ

WHAT IS
WHAT IS FORMALISM? STRUCTURALISM?

Regards literature as a unique Unlike Formalist critics,

form of human knowledge structuralist critics are primarily
that needs to be examined on interested in codes, signs, and rules,
its terms. that govern social and cultural
practices, including communication

WHAT IS THE AIM OF

WHAT IS THE AIM OF STRUCTURALISM
FORMALISM?
Claude Levi-Strauss says
aim to determine how such
that this approach studies
elements work together
the way binary oppositions
with the text’s concept to
show in literary works and
shape it’s effects.
how they play their parts in
the texts.

THE TWO FORMS OF WHAT IS BINARY

FORMALISM: OPPOSITION?

EXPLICATION a pair of related terms for

line by line and word concepts that are opposite in
per word. meaning.
ANALYSIS
relationship of parts.

HOW DO WE DETECT
HOW DO WE DETECT
STRUCTURALISM?
FORMALISM?
a critic can show how the By spotting patterns, underlying
various parts of a work are structures, and connections in texts
welded together to make an or cultural events, we can identify
organic whole. structuralism.

WHY DO WE USE WHY DO WE USE

FORMALISM? STRUCTURALISM?

to create a scientific way of to do the task of identifying

reading and interpreting and analyzing
literature based on linguistic
components and literary
techniques.

10 - ST.MARK SY 2023-2024 MS. MARIA JOSA DE NIEVA