Structuralism & Feminist Literary Criticism

The formalism embedded into the application of structuralism to texts can be discerned in the fact that structural critique is directed finding patterns of ideas that may be contained in a work, as well as the means or conventions, whether literary, linguistic, or social, by which the ideas are encoded and function toward making meaning. The pattern, which can also be called a structure or frame, constitutes the form, and the conventions are what determine the content.

Structuralism as literary criticism in the main derived from structural linguistics, associated with the work of Noam Chomsky (Eagleton 105; Culler 860). Structural linguistics relies on the idea that human beings possess a kind of internal grammar or innate adherence to linguistic convention that drives language development. Similarly, structuralism as literary criticism involves sorting out or organizing, much in the manner of a syntax, the internal grammar of textual production. Eagleton uses the phrase "literary system," citing "the whole system of codes, genres and conventions by which we id

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texts and critiques alike. This differs from the supposed scientific objectivity of the structuralist "super-reader, but if Eagleton is right about the chimera of that Ideal Form of objective reader, then the content of the difference is in part that the feminist admits she or he(!) brings a specific point of view to the reading and evaluation project while the structuralist, who may do so, puts the structuralist analytical program in jeopardy by admitting the possibility of subjectivity. In that regard, it is difficult to see why LTvi-Strauss, associated with structuralism, has not been subjective in his explication of the Oedipus myth: How is it that anthropological and ethnographic categories, particularly what he sees as the tension between "the primitive mind and scientific thought," dominate LTvi-Strauss's interpretation of the myth, which he says comes down to "denial of the autochthonous origin of man" (841), were it not that LTvi-Strauss is a preeminent social anthropologist and would be expected to bring to a reading of the Oedipus myth the subjectivities (however compelling and strongly reasoned) of the discipline? Derrida's poststructuralist reading of LTvi-Strauss touches on this point when it cites evidence of "tota
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Chomsky Eagleton, Ideal Form, Virginia Woolf's, , Bedford Books, Contemporary Trends, 2d ed, texts contemporary trends, David Richter, Tradition Classic, Texts Contemporary, Classic Texts, contemporary trends 2d, ed david richter, contemporary trends, trends 2d, texts contemporary, ed ed, tradition classic, books 1997, 2d ed ed, david richter, ed david, ed ed david, critical tradition,
Approximate Word count = 1630
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)

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