What is Structuralism?
Structuralism is primarily concerned with the study of structures. Here we study how things get their meaning. It is also a philosophical approach. The whole world has a set up. Similarly the solar system has a structure with the sun at the centre. Even an atom has its own structure which resembles our solar system. Coming to the political set up, a democratic structure is the basis of our govt. [Indian govt.]. Communism has its own set up or structure. Coming to an individual’s life a person has different names according to the nature of the structure. A boy in a class room is a student. At home he is a son. In the cricket ground he is a player, and when he gets a job, he gets another name.
Another point Saussure discovered is that the meaning of a sign is arbitrary. The same flower, say rose, has different names in different languages, but its qualities remain the same. Saussure points out that a word assumes different meanings according to the particular structure in which it is a part. When Yeats sings “Whenever green is found,” it means the Irish flag which is green in colour. So the word ‘’green” represents patriotism. In the phrase ‘green revolution’ the word green stands for agriculture.
Structuralist Criticism= Almost all literary theorists since Aristotle have emphasized the importance of structure, conceived in diverse ways, in analyzing a work of literature. "Structuralist criticism," however, now designates the practice of critics who analyze literature on the explicit model of structuralist linguistics. The class includes a number of Russian formalists, especially Roman Jakobson, but consists most prominently of a group of writers, with their headquarters in Paris, who applied to literature the concepts and analytic
distinctions developed by Ferdinand de Saussure in his Course in General Linguistics (1915). This mode of criticism is part of a larger movement, French structuralism, inaugurated in the 1950s by the cultural anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss, who analyzed, on Saussure's linguistic model, such cultural phenomena as mythology, kinship relations, and modes of preparing
food.
In its early form, as manifested by Lévi-Strauss and other writers in the 1950s and 1960s, structuralism cuts across the traditional disciplinary areas of the humanities and social sciences by undertaking to provide an objective account of all social and cultural practices, in a range that includes mythical narratives, literary texts, advertisements, fashions in clothes, and patterns of social decorum. It views these practices as combinations of signs that have a
set significance for the members of a particular culture, and undertakes to make explicit the rules and procedures by which the practices have achieved their cultural significance, and to specify what that significance is, by reference
to an underlying system (analogous to Saussure's langue, the implicit system of a particular language) of the relationships among signifying elements and their rules of combination. The elementary cultural phenomena, like the
linguistic elements in Saussure's exposition, are not objective facts identifiable by their inherent properties, but purely "relational" entities; that is, their identity as signs are given to them by their relations of differences from, and binary oppositions to, other elements within the cultural system. This system of internal relationships, and of "codes" that determine significant combinations, have been mastered by each person competent within a given culture, although he or she remains largely unaware of its nature and operations. The primary interest of the structuralist, like that of Saussure, is not in the cultural parole but in the langue; that is, not in any particular cultural phenomenon or event except as it provides access to the structure, features, and rules of the general system that engenders its significance.
SIGNIFICANCE OF WORDS ' FIRE ' & ' ICE '
Both the poems have diffrent meaning and represents the symbol and sign. One Poeam shows us the diffrent one shows the possibillities between fire and ice. Poem represents the desire and hate.
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Structuralism is primarily concerned with the study of structures. Here we study how things get their meaning. It is also a philosophical approach. The whole world has a set up. Similarly the solar system has a structure with the sun at the centre. Even an atom has its own structure which resembles our solar system. Coming to the political set up, a democratic structure is the basis of our govt. [Indian govt.]. Communism has its own set up or structure. Coming to an individual’s life a person has different names according to the nature of the structure. A boy in a class room is a student. At home he is a son. In the cricket ground he is a player, and when he gets a job, he gets another name.
Another point Saussure discovered is that the meaning of a sign is arbitrary. The same flower, say rose, has different names in different languages, but its qualities remain the same. Saussure points out that a word assumes different meanings according to the particular structure in which it is a part. When Yeats sings “Whenever green is found,” it means the Irish flag which is green in colour. So the word ‘’green” represents patriotism. In the phrase ‘green revolution’ the word green stands for agriculture.
Structuralist Criticism= Almost all literary theorists since Aristotle have emphasized the importance of structure, conceived in diverse ways, in analyzing a work of literature. "Structuralist criticism," however, now designates the practice of critics who analyze literature on the explicit model of structuralist linguistics. The class includes a number of Russian formalists, especially Roman Jakobson, but consists most prominently of a group of writers, with their headquarters in Paris, who applied to literature the concepts and analytic
distinctions developed by Ferdinand de Saussure in his Course in General Linguistics (1915). This mode of criticism is part of a larger movement, French structuralism, inaugurated in the 1950s by the cultural anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss, who analyzed, on Saussure's linguistic model, such cultural phenomena as mythology, kinship relations, and modes of preparing
food.
In its early form, as manifested by Lévi-Strauss and other writers in the 1950s and 1960s, structuralism cuts across the traditional disciplinary areas of the humanities and social sciences by undertaking to provide an objective account of all social and cultural practices, in a range that includes mythical narratives, literary texts, advertisements, fashions in clothes, and patterns of social decorum. It views these practices as combinations of signs that have a
set significance for the members of a particular culture, and undertakes to make explicit the rules and procedures by which the practices have achieved their cultural significance, and to specify what that significance is, by reference
to an underlying system (analogous to Saussure's langue, the implicit system of a particular language) of the relationships among signifying elements and their rules of combination. The elementary cultural phenomena, like the
linguistic elements in Saussure's exposition, are not objective facts identifiable by their inherent properties, but purely "relational" entities; that is, their identity as signs are given to them by their relations of differences from, and binary oppositions to, other elements within the cultural system. This system of internal relationships, and of "codes" that determine significant combinations, have been mastered by each person competent within a given culture, although he or she remains largely unaware of its nature and operations. The primary interest of the structuralist, like that of Saussure, is not in the cultural parole but in the langue; that is, not in any particular cultural phenomenon or event except as it provides access to the structure, features, and rules of the general system that engenders its significance.
SIGNIFICANCE OF WORDS ' FIRE ' & ' ICE '
Both the poems have diffrent meaning and represents the symbol and sign. One Poeam shows us the diffrent one shows the possibillities between fire and ice. Poem represents the desire and hate.
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