LITERARY CRITICISM
Formalism
vs
Structuralism
Christianne Roie A. Carabeo, MACDDS
EXPLORING LITERATURE
LITERARY CRITICISM
Structuralism and formalism are two literary
theories or literary criticisms that focus on the
structure of a particular text. Structuralism is
based on the assumption that every text has a
universal, underlying structure. Formalism
analyzes the structure of a text without
focusing on the external factors such as
authorship, social and cultural influence.
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However, structuralism connects the
work of a particular author with works
of similar structures whereas formalism
only analyses one particular work at a
time. This is the key difference between
structuralism and formalism.
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LLITERARY CRITICISM
What is formalism?
Formalism is a form of literary theory and
literary criticism that mainly deals with the
structure of a particular text. This theory
analyses and interprets a text by focusing
on its inherent features.
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LITERARY CRITICISM
What is formalism?
It rejects the external influence such as
authorship, culture, and social influence,
and focuses on the mode, form, genre, and
discourse of the work. Therefore, it can be
argued that this criticism method reduces a
literary work’s historical, cultural and
biographical context.
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LLITERARY CRITICISM
What is formalism?
Formalist pay special attention to “the
formal features of the text - the style,
structure, imagery, tone, and genre”
(Kennedy, 1468)
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What is formalism?
The formalists argued that the study of
literature should be exclusively about form,
technique, and literary devices within a
work of literature. Its preference for form,
linguistic elements, and literary devices
gives this school of literary theory its name.
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Guide Questions
How is the work structured or organized?
How does it begin? Where does it go next?
How does it end? What is the work's plot?
How is its plot related to its structure?
What is the relationship of each part of the
work to the work as a whole? How are the
parts related to one another?
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Guide Questions
Who is narrating or telling what happens in
the work? How is the narrator, speaker, or
character revealed to readers? How do we
come to know and understand this figure?
Who are the major and minor characters,
what do they represent, and how do they
relate to one another?
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Guide Questions
What are the time and place of the work - its setting?
How is the setting related to what we know of the
characters and their actions? To what extent is the
setting symbolic?
What kind of language does the author use to describe,
narrate, explain, or otherwise create the world of the
literary work? More specifically, what images, similes,
metaphors, symbols appear in the work? What is their
function? What meanings do they convey?
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What is structuralism?
Structuralism is an approach or
methodology that analyses elements of
human culture in terms of their relation to a
larger, overreaching structure or system.
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LLITERARY CRITICISM
What is structuralism?
The literary theory of structuralism is based
on the assumption that all literary works
have underlying universal structures and
that general conclusions about the relevant
work and the systems from which it
emerges can be formed by connecting
these underlying patterns.
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What is structuralism?
It is this universal structure in every text that
enables the experienced reader to interpret a
text easier, than a non-experienced reader.
Therefore, structuralism analyses the linguistic
units in a text, universal underlying structures
of text, and examines how the writer conveys
meaning through a structure.
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LLITERARY CRITICISM
What is structuralism?
Structuralists relate literary texts to a larger
structure. This larger structure can refer to
a
A series of intertextual connections
A particular genre
Recurrent patterns or motifs
A model of universal narrative structure
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LITERARY CRITICISM
What is structuralism?
When a literary text is studied using
Structuralism, the text is connected to a wider
‘structure’. This might include the kind of
literature the text is part of (its genre), or the
universal ways stories are told around the
world.
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LLITERARY CRITICISM
Guide Questions
Are there any patterns in text A which are similar to
patterns in text B? Structuralism is interested in
similarities between texts.
Are there any opposites in the text which are set against
each other? In Structuralism, opposites are called ‘binary
oppositions’, such as good/evil, light/dark, tall/short etc.
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Guide Questions
How is each part of the binary valued? Does
the binary imply a hierarchy (e.g., is light
better than dark, is an old age more valuable
than a young age, etc.)?
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What is the difference between Structuralism and Formalism?
Structuralism analyses Formalism analyses the genre,
universal, underlying structures mode, form and discourse while
in a text. rejecting bibliographical, cultural,
historical and social contexts.
Structuralism analyses a text’s Formalism only analyzes one
connection to other literary particular literary work at a time; it
works since it examines is not compared or contrasted with
common underlying structures. another work.
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Thank you
and
God bless!
EXPLORING LITERATURE
