SEMESTER-2 10.04.2020 STUDY MATERIAL FOR POST GRADUATE SEMESTER 2 – CC-VIII LECTURE-5-Modern and Contemporary Theory 2020 CC- VIII STUDY MATERIAL FOR POST GRADUATE SEMESTER 2 – CC-VIII Modern and Contemporary Theory UNIT 1-FROM LIBERAL HUMANISM TO THEORY A. FORMALISM B. STRUCTURALISM C. NARRATOLOGY UNIT 2-PSYCHO ANALYSIS,FEMINISM,ECO CRITICISM UNIT-3- MARXISM; THE NEW HISTORISM; POST COLONIALISM; CULTURAL MATERIALSM UNIT-4-POST STRUCTURALISM UNIT-5-POST MODERNISM This is a brief Introduction of what you all have to study for the preparation of CC-VIII paper. STRUCTURALISM What is known as Structuralism and structuralist literary theory is an intellectual movement that embraces a number of different approaches that have some basic ideas in common. The fundamental insights of structuralism are rived from or influenced by several streams of thought. The Linguistic Circles of Prague (among whose leaders were N.S.Trubetzkoy and Roman Jakobson) and copenhagen (where the outstanding figure was Louis Hjelmslev, originator of a Linguistic theory known as glossematics), Ferdinend D, saussure’s seminal ideas on structural linguistics, the french cultural anthropologist Claude Levi – Strauss study of system that under lie different culture, the American School which derived originally from the ideas of Leonard Bloom Field and later from Noam Chomsky, the firthin and neo firthin schools in England, other concepts of sign and system, the assumption that poetics is the “science of literature”- all such ideas contributed to the growth and development of structuralism This can be broadly shown as in the diagram below LECTURE- Although structuralism started as a mode of approach in linguistic and anthropological study, it has influenced all other areas such as sociology, psychoanalysis, philosophy, history, economic theory, political theory, semiotics, myth studies, literary criticism etc. In Continuation of 1ST Lecture CC-VIII, Modern and Contemporary theory. STRUCTURALISM Text – oriented theories can be classified into four categories based on what is broadly labelled as “STRUCTURALISM”. That is centred around a set of concepts and beliefs like order, pattern, design, form, objectivity, symbolism etc. The following theories and approaches are basically – text-centred and structuralist. 1. Formalism 2. Practial Criticism. 3. Structuralism 4. Post Structuralism Structuralism, a parallel development during the same period 1930 – 1970’s considered a text only in terms of language and its system of conventions. Ferdinand ded Saussure, the Swiss linguist, is the founder of structural linguistic and his ideas influenced structuralism. In structuralism the focus is the phono/lexico/grammatical constituents of a literary work and the differences between the linguistics signs that create meaning. In other words, it is the systematic sets of signifiers and conventions in the language that help literary texts to the “signify” or “to mean”. Literary meaning, according to the stucturalist approach, is constructed only by paying attention to the principles of relations and differences. An extreme form of language/code centred , test - oriented criticism, more in the nature of an application of linguistic principles, was also advocated by some linguistically oriented critics in the name of stylistics or linguistic criticism concentrating on the linguistic features of a literary text and taking linguistic beyond sentenced grammar “to text grammar”. This is the basic of structuralism Saussure (1857-1913) began by defyning the scope and limits of his study.”He preposed a number of distinctions like . La langue and la paraole Synchronic and diachronic analysi Paradigmatic and syntagmatic relationships Signifier and signified Lalangue is the system, the institution called language which is a set of impersonal rules and conventions “Lang is trans individual and abstract. Parole is the actual manifestation of language in speaking, which is taken as primary “Parole is individual/concrete. If the study deals with the description of a language at a given point of time it is called synchronic, and if it deals with changes that occur in the course of time, it is called diachronic. Those Saussure did not reject the value of the di-chronic studies, he asserted that the diachronic perspective deals with the phenomenon that are un-related to the systems although they do condition them. Syntagmatic, is the linear arrangement of units as in a chain; units may be sounds, letters, words, sentences etc. Paradigmatic is the vertical arrangement of units as in a ladder; the units may be sounds, letters, words, sentences, etc. Some scholar feel that all behaviour patterns show these two types of relationships. It is also maintained that all linguistic relationship are binary, for example , p/b are the level of sound, statement/question at the level of syntext, human/non-human at the level of meaning, etc. Language, Saussure said, is a system of signs and the linguistic sign is a two-sided psychological entity, composed of a concept and a sound image. I propose to retain the word sign to designate the whole and to replace concept and sound image respectively by signified and signifier. The relationship between the signifier and the signified was arbitrary with respect to nature/object but not with respect to culture. For ex, the word tree in English refer to an object which is identified and excepted by English speaking people it is arbitrary since there is no inherent connection between sounds and there reference. Concept/Object = Signified SIGN I propose LECTURE-1 Expression = SignifierLECTURE -1 Language, according to Saussure, is a system of inter related units and the value of the units is determined by their places in the system at a given time and a given state. The stress laid on the synchronic study and the analysis of language as systematic structure in terms of binary contrast of signifiers laid the foundations of modern structural linguistics. One can find similar sets of assumptions in the structuralist poetics of roman Jakobson, in the cultural and anthropology of Claude Levi-Strauss in the psycho analytic theories of Sigmund freud, in the sociology of Durkheim, in the bloom fieldian and Chomskyan linguistics, in the new criticism and practical cticism, Firthian and Neo Firthian functunal linguistics all of which are essentially structural. I am Aktar Islam, Research Scholar, L.N.M.U under the supervision of Prof. Punita Jha. I am going to deliver a lecture on Formalism basically on Russian Formalism. I have given you some basic points that will be very easy to understand. 1. Formalism In 20th century, there arose two formalistic movements namely, a. American New Criticism b. Russian Formalism Both the movements share a lot of characteristics and are almost similar in nature. Both of these movements talked about Formal aspects of literature and hence, both are kept under the same tag FORMALISM. Russian Formalism A type of literary theory and analysis that emerged in Moscow and St. Petersberg in the second decade of 20th century is called Formalism. Actually its practitioners focused on the FORM (rather than CONTENT) of any literary work. Like Structuralism, the Formalists believed in certain key assumptions – a. Literature, especially poetry, was a special function of language. b. It was possible to discover the underlying formulae or structures of literary texts by a study of its devices ( a term they were fond of using to describe literary techniques such as symbolism) c. Literary analysis could be as accurate and precise as science. There were two schools of Russian Formalism namely, a. The Moscow Linguistic Circle (1915), led by Roman Jakobson, Osip Brik and Boris Tomashevsky. b. The second group, the Society for the Study of Poetic Language (Opoyaz), was founded in 1916, and its leading practitioners included Victor Shklovsky, Boris Eichenbaum, and Yuri Tynyanov. Other important critics associated with these movements included Leo Jakubinsky and the folklorist, Vladimir Propp. N.B: When these critical modes were suppressed by the Soviets in the early 1930s, the centre of the formal study of literature moved to Czechoslovakia, where it was continued especially by members of the Prague Linguistic Circle, which included Roman Jakobson (emigrated from Russia), Jan Mukarovsky, and Rene Wellek. Key Terms and concepts of Russian Formalism a. Literariness It was first introduced by Roman Jakobson in 1921. According to him, ‘the object of literary science is not literature but literariness, i.e. what makes a given work a literary work’. b. Defamiliarization This concept was introduced by Victor Shklovsky. The main word was ‘ostranenie’ (making strange). To ‘defamiliarize’ is to make fresh, new strange, different what is familiar and known. Through defamiliarization, the writer modifies the reader’s habitual perceptions by drawing attention to the artifice of the text. c. Foregrounding It was a concept by Jan Mukarovsky. To ‘foreground’ is to bring something into prominence, to make it dominant in perception. It will be right to say something about theories of narrative – ‘story’ and ‘plot’ that were very prominent in Russian Formalism. The formalists indicated that ‘plot’ (sjuzet) is strictly literary, while ‘story’ (fabula) is merely raw material awaiting the organizing hand of the writer. Post – Structuralism: Deconstruction In order to understand Post Structurism, we have to have a clear concept of Post modernism and Modernism. So I have started my lecture with the introduction of post modernism and post structurism which is basically the condition of mind and a way of life, be it textual which is concerned with text and since both are theories, a clear conception of modernism and Structurism is given below Post- Modernism If modernism and postmodernism are ways of looking at things a condition of the mind and a way of life, structuralism and post structuralism are generally used with reference to literary and language studies I.e. textual or mostly to academic areas.as in structure anthropology, structural linguistics, structuralist poetics, Structuralist narratology and post structuralist criticism.