MLR 05: STRUCTURALISM

major idea behind structuralism: language is a coherent system and theory should be as coherent
as language (The Course of General Linguistics, 1916)

I. Two phases of development:

1. the period from 1916 (the publication of F. de Saussure’s Course de Linguistique General) up till
the Second World War (the influence of structuralist linguistics)
2. the post-WW2 period – the anthropological influences (Claude Levi-Strauss)

II. Major disciplines:

1. Linguistics:
a) the Geneva School (Ferdinand de Saussure, Charles Bally)
b) the Prague School (Roman Jakobson, Nikolaj Trubetzkoy)
c) the Copenhagen School (Louis Hjemslev)
d) the American School (Franz Boas, Edward Sapir, Benjamin Lee Whorf, Leonard Bloomsfield)
2. Structuralist anthropology – ethnology:
Claude Levi-Strauss and his theories
3. Literary Studies:
a) the Prague Structuralist School (Roman Jakobson, Jan Mukarovsky, Felix Vodicka, Bohuslav
Havranek, Vilem Mathesius)
b) linguistic poetics (late Jakobson’s theories)
c) generative poetics (the French school of narratology)
d) reception and reader-response theories (the Polish school of literary communication)
e) structuralist poetics of the 60s and 80s (Tvetan Todorov, Gerard Genette, Roland Barthes)
f) intertextual poetics of the 80s (Gerard Genette, Michael Riffaterre)

III. Literature – two areas of influence:

1) linguistic poetics (Ferdinand de Saussure, Nikolaj Trubeckoy, the Prague School)
2) grammar of literature (Claude Levi-Strauss, Wladimir Propp, Noam Chomsky)

IV. Concept of sign (Ferdinand de Saussure):

language – system of language
parole – individual utterance
signifier – the form which the sign takes: sound image
signified – the concept the sign represents
synchronic – horizontal, atemporal, ahistorical study
diachronic – vertical, historical study
V. Major center – the Prague Circle of Linguistics:
Jan Mukarovsky, Felix Vodicka, Wilem Mathesius, Bohuslav Havranek, Nikolaj Trubetzkoy
major concerns: sign, structure, and function
major question: what is poetry? search for a universal, systematic, and atemporal answer
the Poetic Function – three principles:
1) autonomous but uses mechanisms of language
2) serves communication and opposes it
3) draws attention to the medium itself (to form)

VI. Structuralism and literary theory:

“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.”
source: P. Barry, “Structuralism”, Beginning theory: An introduction to literary and cultural theory

Propp: Morphology of a Folktale

example of the method: Russian Formalism and the grammar
Analysis of a simple, single-move tale of class H-I, of
of the folktale the type: kidnapping of a person.
● 131. A tsar, three daughters (α). The daughters go
source: Vladimir Propp (1895-1970), Morphology walking (β³), overstay in the garden (δ¹). A dragon
kidnaps them (A¹). A call for aid (B¹). Quest of three
of the Folktale (1928) heroes (C↑). Three battles with the dragon (H¹–I¹),
rescue of the maidens (K4). Return (↓), reward (w°).
• creates a grammar of the narrative (fabula and sjuzet) (Propp 128)
THE COMPLETE NOTATION OF THE TALE:
• actors ● αβ³δ¹A¹B¹C↑H¹–I¹K4↓w°

• 31 functions
V. Propp: 8 Character Types
(Actors in the Fabula)
VII. French Structuralism ● The her o- someone who seeks
something
The villain- who opposes or blocks
Gerard Genette, Roland Barthes, Tzvetan Todorov ●
the hero's quest
● The donor - who provides an object
1. Roland Barthes: which has some magical property
● The helper - aids the hero
The pr incess- Acts as a reward for
a) “An Introduction to Structuralist Analysis ●
the hero
● H er father - rewards the hero for his
of Narrative” (the narrative as a system of functions and ●
actions
The dispatcher - who sends the hero
on his way by providing a message
indices) ● The False her o- Who disrupts the
hero's hope by pressing false claims.
• functions or functional units (simple narrative units –
segments of the story containing seeds of actions):
1) cardinal functions – nuclei – “risky moments of the narrative, decide about the development
of the narrative, cannot be omitted”
2) catalyzers – cluster around nuclei without changing Structuralist Analysis of a Narrative
the sequence of events: delaying the narrative, expanding,
He held out his hand. She shook his hand and
released it. (NUCLEI)
accelerating, summarizing – can be removed Catalyser: The character’s thoughts in between
that disrupt the sequence of actions.
E.g. She thought of his delicate hands and his
• indices (integrational units indicating psychological fragile, shivering body.
Indices: Description of the character’s mood or
feeling. (PROPER)
features, atmosphere, mood): E.g. His body was tense and he seemed distracted
and anxious.
(INFORMANT) The evening sun was reflected in
1) indices proper – refer to the character’s feelings and the skyscraper towering behind her.

atmosphere
2) informants – markers of location, time, space
b) Mythologies – a series of bi-monthly essays for the magazine Lest Lettres Nouvelles, collected
in 1953
the fifty-three short studies of French popular culture and mass media, written 1954-56
method:
• interpreting visual media and practical phenomena WINE AND MILK
in terms of linguistics
• appropriation of linguistics as the basis Red wine Fermented bevarage

of sociopolitical analyses of the world: myth Fermented drink Summer coolness, fresh
(colour red – ness, bourgeois life style
vitality, energy; ,warmth, sophstication
is a language, a form of signification leisure

• engagement with mass culture: every cultural

product has meaning, and this meaning French National mythology of wine drinking whi
ch hides unhealthy effects, enhances class
is conditioned by ideology, i.e. myth, divisions (beer for proletariat, wine more classy)

and therefore any cultural product can be the subject

of mythological analysis and review
• myths presented as the dominant ideologies of our time
• myth: conceals the construction of signs, it is not arbitrary, it distorts images or signs
to carry meaning
• myth: a second class of signification; what was the sign in the first order of language (for example,
Roland
the signifier “cigarette” and the signified Barthes
of an Myth
object made of paper and tobacco) turns into a signifier
in the second order (signifying lung cancer): first order of meaning vs. second order of meaning
• exposing myth as a hidden message – hiding its duplicity (ideological)

2. Tzvetan Todorov: Introduction to Poetics (1981)

he distinguishes between poetics (science) and interpretation (criticism)
literary work as an instance of abstract and general structure

example of a structuralist study: The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to The Literary Genre (1973)
three aspects of a literary work:
1) the verbal – resides in the concrete sentences which constitute the text
2) the syntactic relation – composition, relations which are logical, temporal, and spatial
3) semantic aspect – themes

three conditions of the Fantastic:

1) hesitation of the reader between a natural and supernatural explanation of the events
2) hesitation is represented
3) rejection of the allegorical or poetic meaning
genres in relation to the Fantastic:
1) pure uncanny (horror story) – fear but no hesitation
2) pure marvelous (fairy tale) – no vacillation between mutually exclusive ontic systems
3) a) the “hyperbolic marvelous” – narrative extravagance, the voyages of Sindbad, serpents
capable of swallowing elephants
b) the “exotic marvelous” – Sindbad, when he says that Roc had legs like oak trees: this is not
a zoological absurdity
c) the “instrumental marvelous” – the instruments are fabulous objects such as the lamp
or the ring of Aladdin
d) the “scientific marvelous” (science fiction) – “these narratives, starting from irrational
premises, link the ‘facts’ they contain in a perfectly logical manner”

the Fantastic:
1) Fantastic-Marvelous – acceptance of the supernatural at the end
2) Fantastic-Uncanny – no acceptance of the supernatural at the end

discourse of the Fantastic:

1) utterance
2) act of utterance
3) syntactical level