Structuralism on Literature:

1. Structuralism on Literature: • Language/Literature as an enclosed system with two Axes Combination (narrative structure: roles + actions) Selection: Thematic structure: Motifs, mythemes, metaphors, etc.

2. Structuralist Approached to Narratives • V. Propp: • 7 "spheres of action“: villain, hero, false hero, donor[provider], helper, dispatcher, princess [and her father].) • and 31 functions. 2. Greimas: • three pairs of actants: Helper/Opponent, Sender/Reciever, Subject/Object • three basic patterns of action: contractive, disjunctive, and performative. 3. Levi Strauss -- overevaluation and devaluation of kinship

3. Narrative examples • I. Themes: “The Long Enchantment” –no help from the fairy godmother; motif of “enchantment” Contemporary Cinderella stories --last minute rescue of the prince II. Narrative Structure: “Young Goodman Brown" : Brown (Subject) + [going to the forest]+ Object? (Is black sabbath his object?) --> • Who is his opponent at the end, the whole town, or himself?

4. Narrative examples • “The Lesson”: • Money (e.g. 35 dollars) redefined • Roles: • Sylvia and Sugar The rest of the worldMs. Moore (Sender) Who is the receiver of her lesson?

5. “Spleen” by Charles Baudelaire& the patterns found by R. Jakobsonsource: Structuralist Poetics by Jonathan Culler Colors and marks: nouns - underlined; Central lines: Italicized metaphors, possessive pronoun(us, its/they), adj., participial adj. Verbs

6. I. When the low and heavyskyweighs like a lid On the spirit groaning from the tediousanxieties that prey on it, And when, embracing the whole rim of the horizon, It pours on us a blackday, more dismal than night;

7. II. When the earth is changed into a damp dungeon, Where Hope, like a bat, Goes battering its timid wings against the wall And dashing its head against mouldy ceilings;

8. III. When the rain stretching down itslongstreaks Imitates the bars of a vastprison, And a silenthorde of loathsomespiders Come to spintheir webs inside our brains

9. IV Suddenly the bells leaps out in a fury And fling a hideous howling at the sky, Like wandering and homelessspirits Who begin to wail relentlessly.

10. V And longtrains of hearses, without drums or music File slowly through my soul; Hope, Vanquished, weeps, and vile, despoticAnguish Plants her blackflag in mybowed skull.

11. “Spleen” • Periodic sentence • A lot of Adj.s which suggest the pervasiveness of “Spleen”: e.g. low and heavyskyweighs like a lid; tediousanxieties; • Verbs: lack of action except that of the bell

12. “Purloined Letter” • Queen King

14. Dupin Prefect