Structural Analysis of a literary Text

Liaqat Ali MohsinYassar SubhaniFaisal MehmoodShahid Rashid

Qasim AliMuhammad Naveed Akhtar

Lahore Leads University Lahore

StructuralismStructuralism

EuropeanEuropean1920’s1920’s

North American North American 1930’s – 1960’s1930’s – 1960’s

Dead languages

1. Use of Historicism

2. Reconstruction of dead languages

3. Similarities between languages thought to be related historically to those dead languages.

In19th century historical, diachronic, perspective was in practice.

Let’s have a glance over what was before Structuralism!

Main tenets1) Language has a structure

2) Language is a system of signs

3) Language operates at two levels: langue and parole

4) Studied diachronically (specific time)

5) Holistic Approach, study as a whole

6) Underlying System is studied

7) Focus on unobservable data

8) Structures are limited in the society

9) Signs are nothing, rather stands for something(Signification)

10)Signs are arbitrary

11)Signs are different from others

European Structuralism

Ferdinand de Saussure

1857 - 1913

American Structuralism

1) Linguistics is a descriptive science.

2) The primary form of language is the spoken one.

3) Every language is a system on its own right.

4) Language is a system in which smaller units arrange systematically to form larger ones.

5) Meaning should not be part of linguistic analysis.

6) The procedures to determine the units in language should be objective and rigorous.

7) Language is observable speech, not knowledge.

Main tenets

Structural Analysis of a Poem

Structural Analysis of a Poem

Structural Analysis of a Poem

Rose Worm

Invisible

That flies

Howling storm

The bed The night

Crimson Dark

Joy Love

life destroy

Finding out

Structural Analysis of a Poem

Rose Worm

Visible Invisible

Static That flies

Calm Howling storm

The bed The night

Crimson Dark

Joy Love

Life destroy

Fade out Finding out

Signs are referring some thing

Signs are understood in difference

We have applied systematic approach

Ideas are studied as a whole, holistic approach

Structural Analysis of a Poem

Rose Worm

Visible Invisible

Static That flies

Calm Howling storm

The bed The night

Crimson Dark

Joy Love

Life destroy

Fade out Finding out

Diachronic meanings with binaries

Abstract and concrete images

Abstract relationship, unobservable data, so you have various interpretation

Signification of these images, ideas and objects

Structural Analysis of a Poem1. Symbols used (arbitrary)

1. Rose 2. Worm 3. Night4. Howling Storm5. Bed6. Dark Love7. Crimson joy

2. Metaphor and other figures of speech

1. Personification2. Metaphor3. Apostrophe4. Enjambment

3. Repetition of certain structures

1. Sick, worm, storm, dark, secret, destroy

4. Meter1. Two quatrains2. ABCB rhyme

Structural Analysis of a Poem

Structural Analysis of a Poem

Post Structural Analysis of a Poem

Post Structural Analysis of a Poem

1. Setting of the poem2. Religious allusion

of Bible3. Tone of the poem4. Historical

development of poetry.

5. Religious life of the poet, influences, mystic, philosophy

6. Pre-Romanticism7. Love of nature8. Speaker and

intention of the poet.

9. Genre of the poem10. Songs of

innocence

1. Allusion to Devil and spoiling human ecstasy

2. Lyrical poem and its background

3. Poet being a painter

4. Sexual interpretation, rose as feminine and worm as masculine

5. Use of present tense

6. Use of punctuations

7. Narrative Poem8. Life history and

style of the poet9. Spring season

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