Well, Dr. Spiegel, your syllabus has strangely placed Structuralism at the end of my summer days. I find this to be a strange choice, and unfortunate for students new to literary theory - I highly prefer Dr. Klages' clever decision to juxtapose its ideas early on against those of humanism. It seems to me that these are two fundamental responses and separate paradigm shifts, seeking to frame how we understand selfhood and the roots of creative production. If you don't get that, it could feel like theories appear out of nowhere.
However, because I am already acquainted, I get it. Phew! But man, note to self if ever I teach a course on this...
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So. Structuralism is, like New Criticism, considers itself the "science" of literature, derived from the Aristotelian view that what we see is composed of basic, essential building blocks. Structuralism is popular in many fields beyond literature, of course, but applied structural literary analysis was highly influenced by the work of linguists - those who happened to study words and language, the "building blocks" of lit.
Because this can be reductive / overly universalizing (ascribing a global, timeless truth to structures and elements), structrualism stops short of discussing actual literary content. Klages bluntly writes that "this may not seem like a very productive or useful way to analyze literature; once you've identified the units and explained the rules, you're done... For those of us who are used to reading literature in order to interpret complex webs of meaing, this kind of... analysis is... dehumanizing" (33).
Indeed. Yet this universal aspect of Structuralism, just like Humanism, assumes that the human mind is a great organizer, if not THE organizer and logic-giver of the universe. Which is interesting - they don't completely oppose each other! Wow!!!
Saussure is responsible for all our lingo-talk about signifieds, significations, parole, langue, syntagmatic and associative relationships, and value. There's plenty of explanation for that which I need not outline, but I'll point out that I love Daniel Chandler's fantastic site - I'd shake his hand, were I in Wales.
All I myself will say is that Saussure's work is devastatingly awesome because he articulated the "jiggliness" of language, and the arbitrary, social construction required in order to produce meaning. Which lead to value judgements. Which then renders language not just a literal tool, but a system rather like a code in which you must belong to the club in order to fully appreciate. As a bit of a polyglot, I get this.
Claude Levi-Strauss, an anthropologist, appplied Structuralism directly to literature by exmamining myths and analyzing their basic units, or skeletons. This is how I myself was taught to read the myths of the British Isles; child + evil stepmother + woods + whatever other elements = a global collection of Hansel and Gretel stories, all variations on the same theme. Klages points out that while Levi-Strauss really, really wanted to be seen as a scientist of the myths he studied, he in fact transposed quite a lot of his own interpretation into their "essential" meaning. What's enduring, I guess, is his visually grotesque notion that literature can be analyzed according to axes, differentiating between story and theme as you interpret a story's skeleton-esque mythemes. While that's far too "Dead Poet's Society" for me, I suppose his larger point is the recognition of the complex meaning - that literature really can't be read only in a "linear fashion," but is perhaps more akin to a piece of music...
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