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MODERN LITER RY THEORYN INTRODUCTION

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THE BEGINNINGS The Linguistic Turn

Ferdinand de Saussure

Lectures at University of Genevabetween 1906 and 1911

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THE BEGINNINGS Compiled and edited by Charles Bally

and Albert Sechehaye in 1916 as Cours

de linguistique generale

Translated into English in 1959

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THE BEGINNINGS Language as a system of signs

Signified/Signifier

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THE BEGINNINGS Signs are arbitrary

Value comes from difference

Diachronic and synchronic

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THE BEGINNINGS Syntagmatic and paradigmatic relations

Roman Jakobson and the value ofPhoneme

Metaphoric and Metonymic Poles

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RUSSIAN FORMALISM

Shklovskyliterariness

Notion of devices

Privileging of form

Ostraneniemaking strange Defamiliarisation

Foregrounding

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RUSSIAN FORMALISM

No meaning except form

Criticism as scientific method

Vladimir Propp and the Morphology ofthe Folk Tale

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NEW CRITICISMAnglo-American Formalism

John Crowe Ransom The NewCriticism 1941

Autonomy of work of art/literature

Questioned historical and biographicalmethod

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NEW CRITICISM Close Reading-structure and content

are intimately and indivisibly connected

Disregarded authors intentionWilliamWimsatt and Monroe Beardsley The

Intentional Fallacy (1946)

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NEW CRITICISM Rejected the readers personal and

emotional response to a textThe

Affective Fallacy (1946)

Started reading literature in terms of

AmbiguityEmpson ParadoxBrooks (Heresy of

Paraphrase)

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STRUCURALISM Levi-Strauss and StructuralAnthropology

Mythologicalsreadings mythssynchronically/vertically rather than

diachronically/horizontally

Mytheme

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Cadmos seeks

Europa

Cadmos kills

the dragon

The Spartoi killone another

Labdacuslame

Oedipus killshis father

Oedipus killsthe Sphynx

Laiosleftsided

Oedipus marriesJocasta

Oedipusswollen

footAntigoneburiesPolynices

Eteocles killsPolynices

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STRUCTURALISM Rejects all ontological and

epistemological sources of meaning

Anti-metaphysical approach

All humanistic pursuits are products ofdeep structures that predate human

consciousness

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STRUCTURALISM OntologyPlato and ideasideal form,

eternal and metaphysical source of

meaning StructuralismMarx and material

forcesmeaning bubbles up from

material base

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STRUCTURALISM

EpistemologyKantreplaced divinitywith subjectivityConsciousness as

pure presence Cartesian Cogito

Structuralism rejects subjective self/ego

as source of meaning

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STRUCTURALISM

Consciousness is the product of materialforces

Meaning is not a product of theconscious but the UnconsciousFreud

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STRUCTURALISM

For structuralism the source of meaningand truth is the deep structures

What is structure?

Five qualities to identify structures

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STRUCTURALISM

1 Structures are

unconsciousrather than conscious

materialrather than metaphysical

Deterministicrather than Humanistic

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STRUCTURALISM

2 Structures are not founded on things

but on a relationbetween things

3 Structurs are complete, logical andall-encompassing

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STRUCTURALISM

4 Structures are not static but dynamic

5 Structures are found in all areas ofthought

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STRUCTURALISM

Two ironies

Though it proposes to dispute desire asa source of meaning, it desires foruniversal and metaphysical order

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STRUCTURALISM

Though it rejects all ontological andepistemological centres, it places

structure in that centre. Thus it rejects the existing centres, but

not centre itself.