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    academic article on structuralist and post-structuralist literary theory

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    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF or read online from Scribd
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    6 views17 pages

    Jefferson - Structuralism and Poststructuralism

    Uploaded by

    Giu Ag
    academic article on structuralist and post-structuralist literary theory

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF or read online from Scribd
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    of 17
    Modern Literary Theory ficcnn Second Edition B.T. Batsford Ltd London Contents Introduction Ann Jefferson and David Robey 7 5} 1 Russian Formalism Ann Jefferson 24 == 2 Modern lingu bey 46 6 Modern psychoanalytic criticiam F Wright 145. 7 Marxist literary theories David Forgacs 166 8 Feminist literary eriticiam Toril Moi 204 References 292 Index of concepts and theorists 234 4 Structuralism and Post- Structuralism Ann Jefferson t primarily pol be adopted the social sciences. But what most revolutionary feature is the uage a major language itself is used as a ory may seem to be fami Mructuralist theory is developed to a point where unconsidered by confronted. The exclusion of the author from critical analysis, the attention to form, the claims for sc been voiced before, bu acquire a diffe theoretical context, and so they fost important of all, however, is the structuralist theory the language icism ends up posing as many problems as the language of terature. As far as literary theo: than anyt ‘The linguistic model French structuralisin, applied as it has been to a wide range of oR STRUCTURALISM AND POST-STRUCTURALISM intellectual di science of ines, is are: ‘Saussure’s dream of a general = semiology. igh he saw language as the ve gest | the ground nine times before an emperor. STRUCTURALISM AND POST-STRUCTURALISM, iso, whether thisis, The structuralist br governing all aspects of social Not all the people who have been called structuralists have been happy to accept the label, but this suggests not so much th: thinking. The sort of general provides the best by Barthes perhaps ays, is ‘a certain mode of mode originates in the 412). So, any systematic ly speaking, be regarded discussion to stru: in doing so, unfortunat study of literature and, k of understating the effects of ‘The hegemony of the linguistic model (the premise of all structu thought) act I significance in the sphere of c In one sense, literature is like any other form of social or cultural activity, so that it may be analyzed in semiological terms; this would @ involve discovering what the nature of its component signs are, and hhow the system governing their use and combinations operates. To this extent literature is not so different from fashion or from whose analysis is part of Lévi-Strauss’s str literature is always about guage, so that, in Todorov, ‘the ws nothing more than read non-referential) makes us aware of the language. Thus, the linguistic model is triply pertinent to literature: (0 ts material (verbal), to its formal organization (semiological) and o its themes (linguistic). ‘As we saw in Chapter 2, nguage excludes the referential dimension with his concep! ign as the combination of signifier (writen or spoken) and signified (concept). He em that words da not depend on reality for their meaning. Similarly, since o4 i t ierary studies: re had long enough been regarcled as a message without a code for it to become necessary to regard it fo terature is never subordinated to any si 1¢ relationship between literature and language structuralist view is not primarily a negé Formalist theory; in accordance with the basic principles of alist theory, the relationship between the two structures. of questions of 20 ivage of literature is no cr regarded as Sbborelinated to the message suppsedly carried by (ext, and this emptiness of lustrates far more powerfully than could anything else the primacy of language itself. Most human discourses behave as if language were transparent to a meaning or a reality hey if we carry the lessons of Saussure right through fusion, we see that this cannot be so. ‘The lage precedes any message or reality, and indeed these are products constructed by the language System and not vice 95 ‘URALISM AND POST-STRUCTURALISM is but one of the possi 1 longer concerned with actual 6-7). Wo sugges these properties of ific to literature itself, and se are speci artly because struct wider semiological ven g takes it right terature’s Being’ and its simply language itself. The shift of focus from the in brought wi simply an exe is view informs every page of Literary Criticism, where the critic is ‘ism and reading, Critique et vérlé aa defence of the structuralist position after the attack on Barthes's study of Racine (Sur Racine) by Rayu academic) in a pamphlet entitled Nouvelle critique ow nowoelle impostere ig the presuppe of the sort of c 's approach, Barthes in Barthes's view, from rea isa process of ider ion with a work and a fi jothing more than a word for word repet the other hand, places STRUCTURALISM AND POST-STRUCTURALISM, passively deciphering the meaning; for in the turalist view there isn meaning’ in literary works. This insistence on the plurality of meanings in a text is the logical © consequence fence of any authorial intention in literature. In absence is far more radical chan itis in the case course, make room for ambiguity in their theory, but their the organic coherence of the literary text prevented ambiguity from being genui led. Being defined in terms of tension or | paradox, ial diversity was rest unitary wholeness. In other words, the New Critical concept of coherence took over the task of unifying meaning which could no longer be attributed 0 the author. In structuralist theory there is nothing to take over this task, so that ambigui ing of an unrecont iplicity +h sces meaning as the product of the rul signifying systems, there to private meanings or intentions on the part of indi whatis meant by the ‘decentering of the su (The consequences of this decentering of and interestingly developed in the po and Derrida.) So without any authorial guaranter job is no longer to retrieve the meaning knowledge that the meanings of the text are pl ealizes just one of ( the text sweep the quest to have done). A: ing, there would be Bs (1 which nicely reverses an old c "not because it imposes because it is concerned only with ¢ different ways in which meaning is produced in literature and wot with its content. It is this emphasis on the signifier at the expense of the signified which makes poetics the ty course most favoured and fostered by theory are probably the best instances of the nat ost fully conscious of this plur: 8 STRUCTURALISM AND POST-STRUCTURALISM ways in which the linguistic model is used to develop a narrative model, and the third 's Narrative Discourse (which the strucnualist preoccupation with abstract models rather than individual texts. Todorov’s Grammaire du Décamérn particular text in the title, eeals pr with “the structure of narrative in general and not with ook’ (1969: 10). Its aim ig to establish, ‘the science of narrative’ which Todorov baptizes ‘narratology’. The Decameron stories are used merely as test material despite the reference to a and were chosen because they scemed intuitively to be constructed primarily in narrative terms, as opposed to psychological, philosophie- alor descriptive ones. The assumption is that each tale makes mavifest greater or smaller part strat structure’ andthe task {Todorov ets himself tthe d Tis sarting point is that thi s model wll provi dl procedure by yond the nual assumptions of struc nguage i he "mas testuse of the nature share a common steucture which would need an enormous amount of evidence to substantiate it, but it does illustrate very clearly a particular view about the tain type of structuralism deals with: namely , and that the task of structuralist sciences is to uncover This attitude is rather different from which do not claim any ic reality for their struct ‘matters is not whether the hunran psyche is in itself terms (as Noam Chomsky has sugges Jends itself to a structuralist taphorical ones. is of the Decameron tales is based on uegories. He begins by di 4p into semantic, syacic and verbal aspects. The se what we would otherwise cal its content, and the verbal aspect ix term for the language in which the stories are told. ‘T is the relation between the eve rov's study. AS in a lingui finding out what the basic units of comb the phonemes, morphemes, etc: which const narrative aspect is the basic units of 99 STRUCTURALISM AND POST-STRUCTURALISM. language). In the case of narrati the clause which is in tu bject and a predicate Todorov then goes the primary categories of his and they are proper noun, adject secondary le which guides his whole bis conclusion, accepts that his own grammatical categories may be ible, but insists that his study confirms the belief that there ey adopt in }oun with a verb, he says, ‘is to take 1969: 84). ing the linguistic analogy too far, turalist tenet jorhing n practice, most work in structural: to this di of linguistic nce, just as every constative ¢ of a short narrative’ (1977: 84), hose pris 1B Pages) is not based ted principally i not of any prior lingui His function and inde is determined by whether the units th the workings of ‘oduced: the func vonymnic relations, the indices ns. And even here in his recourse to Jakobs¢ STRUCTURALISM AND POST-STRUCTURALISM apersonal aspects of the title Problems in utterance. because appear. They differ from the p identified without consideration important one to analyze of language je language in expressing them, these. a certain self-consciousness or. His particular application rather bizarre and unproductive. ich informs Benveniste's category of ola ive model practice has However, the broad principle the per by Barthes em with a degree 0 is providing structur STRUCTURALISM ANI governing every aspect of @embedded in the narrat ly excluded and re! in a narrative is from or Greimas's Sémantigue structurale, Barthes’ structural narrative, therefo: iscussed separat narrative is a produc and that the science of STRUCTURALISM AND POST-STRUCTURALISM very general one. The roduction makes a perfunctory bow to linguistics when Genette puts ward the bypothesis that narrative may be regarded as ‘the Geyelopment - monstrous, given to a verbal form, {grammatical sense of the term: the expa br the Recherche is only, in a certain wa oes on to suggest that this categories in the analysis of narrative 1¢ adapts the few terms he does borrow of narrative to comply strictly Ithough he borrows the authorizes the use of ling pjunetive For his use of the term is to have any value at sched’ and given a metaphorical function, The adaptation of like elipsis is not so much designed to construct rigid paral language or with rhetoric, but rather is itself a rhetorical di Treeing narrative {ron terpretation, Genette systematically coins new terms for aspecis of narrative which have already been named but which imply a psychological or realist clement: flashback becomes analepss, point of view becomes focalization, th ling and showing is translated back i example, in discussing ‘duration’ he of the narrating and the story, and in onder to draw up his table he needs to begin w 2 hypothetical reference zero" not exist. But even tess part of the ‘ he business of poetics to construct. 108 simple specim ical analyses. Ge far reaching that bis book can be regarded as la rechere ion to narrative theory, a challenge co the But the most impo the way in which te from the umber of ways A la recherche breaks ative proposed by the abst For example, ns to describe overlooked aspect of nar: ice between the number hey had hapy contradiction of the model by 's inadequacy but the reverse. category frequency in be seen as a hhe model serves to los degrees Todorov" the least r range gy in the most flexible way. More grammar may be transformed or ‘m and implies fn general. Literarure is being rea Todorov begins by ti Figure in the Carpet structural failed to. 5 tales, "The 105 thor, ‘itoffers the isehiod this hier ghosts and death ar fssence, and Anumber of pre a process ange of direction opens what Aid arks the end of Sovcturalism. that is original; the secondary bec hhe primacy of the system over what ad ae the aiithor as réal person, and wlependenily of the author’. particular cr sonality. “Westions the structuralist p yov makes the work Of art in James's stories thesupreme and | Witroonsm of a general poetics, of us ferent gaze of 107 STRUCTURALISM AND POST-STRUCTURALISM guage and an of which are even more st Barthes's typology is bas reader| the seripnble (the scriptible because va we recognize 1e one that as readers we pas text the reader's act nor purely writerly, es by which ind STRUCTURALISM AND POST-STRUCTURALISM “Grrough the text based on nigjor contribution to the m: 9g, become. multivalent determines action and. bt My are comprehensive enough, but the idea of codes Mizar texts. These coven are shared TY about these ¢ nce they Reality therefore is not de STRUCTURALISM AND POST-STRI “perspective of quotations and ‘its only logic is chat.of the |) which are then, given an aready-done ot ‘These codes are quite diferent |) through the from the Balzac’s'st structure, @ structural homology of a code. ‘The. codes. pa ring process of the text and cannoi be ra simply a collection of already itself a redefined as a-kind.of quotati ver places ‘reality’ as the ori make it impos he reader’ to. fia any. ctigin. whether. it be. in the. orm of an authorial frames alrea is because, althou (one of the characters is a castrato singer ‘of castration is seen as a pret. the part of the text in female form, linked to problems of representation, And Bai ively taproduce a polysemic text): and_second..in its. thoroughly trouble méme] of representation’ (p. 216), and pret representation is replaced, rath sary owed i from ordering truth to be a enigma and deferring sleight of hand w crary text. Far aspects of , Barthes shows the aul By fant the author, who con ¢ hermeneutic code pul ;Fmation syno. omething fixed and solid beyond to which the text can be reduced: Human subjects are also ucts of those codes. Characters, fo STRUCTURALISM AND POST-STRU TURALISM classical f the various, concepts the reader o is nent, those of ‘logocer jes, and indeed content of any kind medium in_which ihicy ate. formulated: coiveys the Secondary statu ns, always de separate from are the idea, the content and the subservi forma, the vehicle. Language Timon ifese s was unable to avoid mom consists in_a_priileging. of speech. over. writing. speech tends to be base: Derrida and post-structuralism Like the later work of Barthes, the inuation and a ¢ lism: We are, says Der 1 being transp | inside structuralism in so far as structuralism idventure that writing never can be, because writin, in the way of putting questions to any object then, must necessarily be made fy speech precedence over writing system. Indeed, Derrida’s quarrel with classic sort of hierarchical model, which structuralism does not concern its ing position repreventation speech aid writing equal sta of differences, ay conventional speech/writi archi-forture makes spoken, as being de rrida's critique is necessary to know something of the position from which he makes it 1g STRUCTURALISM AND POST-STRUCTURALISM STRUCTURALISM AND POST-STRUC ‘The concept that Derrida uses in opposition to logocentrism of any difference, What Derrida points o kind is diffgance, The word is of Derrida’s own coinage and is into the defini deliberately ambiguous (and therefore not translatable), from the French différer which means both 'to defer, postpone, delay and ‘to differ, be different from’ t the wo are as sheet of paper, but the very smselves im “ing represented by 3 tradi with other elements to-wnich and refers forward. At the same. time, its existence as-ad-elemet depends ofits being distinct from other elements. The tev dijfrance could be seen as a conflation of Jakobson’s distinction between the paradigmatic and the» Derrida's argument these are importance and power Différance is the force beb ge; it produces the effects of difference which make up language. Itis not a thing that deiefiininés language from without, a status and function from Tis not an tubetiuce for nbctween signifier and \ Olutiges a teleological or mn hetween the elements of the str ring [differant] origin of differences’ (197: 141). The itself also nicely illustrates Derrida's point that writing does not copy specch, for it is only in the written form that one can see the siructure i ifference between the word “différance’ and the usw the organi would then be exempt from the pl ‘difference’. The differences the structural correspond to any emphasis ses Derrida shows that nothing escapes diffé care * no inviolate entities approaches to literature w Although Derrida adopts the Sauss tial mature age, he is nevertheless extremely wary of the concept of the sign which in Saussure is an integral part of the

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