Structuralism 3

1. Structuralism 3 1. Narratology: Q & A 2. “The Purloined Letter” 3. Structuralist Poetics: Roman Jakobson 1) metaphor and metonymy 2) “Spleen” 4. Structuralism in context 5. assignment

2. Q & A What are the two axes along which language is produced? How do we put narrative units on them? Do you agree that we think in terms of binaries? What has Greimas added to Propp’s paradigm of analysis?

3. Two axes of Language • Language/Literature as an enclosed system with two Axes Combination (plot and narration: roles + actions; metonymy) Selection Thematic structure: Motifs, mythemes, time, metaphors, etc.

4. A. J. Greimas: a brief (re)view “Cube Men Cube” as an example (Signs of “the human”) • Binary: 1) nature domestic; 2) nature shirt-like sea; 3) nature urban scene darkness disjunctive disjunctive disjunctive disjunctive

5. A. J. Greimas: a brief (re)view Contractive: from marriage to fight 2. S(ender) = Male Cube/camera R (eciever) Female Cube/with photos S(ubject) = Male Cube O(bject) birds/Female 3. S(ender) = Male Cube/cigarette R (eciever) Female Cube/producing small cubes S(ubject) = Male O(bject) Female 5. S(ender) = Female Cube/water from a hose R (eciever) Male Cube/on fire  both senders of weapons to attack

6. Usages of Propp and Greimas: Suggestions Use the categories flexibly and define the roles clearly. The charts are just supplementary; they have to be clearly explained. Finding out a pattern is not enough; interpreting it is more important.

7. A. J. Greimas: a brief (re)view (2) Semiotic rectangle: Try to find the deep semantic structure of narratives. (Converting the surface level to its deep structure.)  Not really universal, since the terms can be variously defined. • Not only one opposite term; not static  binaries can be set into a dialectic motion.

8. "the semiotic rectangle” elementary structure of signification a binary opposition & their negation A - A (負A) (e.g. marriage/normal) (e.g. incest/abnormal) -A1 A1(非Ａ) (e.g. male adultery/non -abnormal) (female adultery /non-normal ) contradiction Simple negation

9. "the semiotic rectangle” & the neutral term Setting the semiotic rectangle in motion: A - A (e.g. marriage/normal) (e.g. incest/abnormal) -A1 A1 (e.g. male adultery/non -abnormal) (female adultery /non-normal ) Complicated by 兄妹 Platonic love Neutralized by divorce

10. Greimas Example: “The Lesson” The only right one, hates her college degree. Rich lower class Self-Presumption Steal; cheat and pretend

11. Greimas Example: “The Lesson”

12. “The Purloined Letter” 1. Structure: Where is the beginning, middle, and end of the story? 2. Story & Mythemes: What happens in the story? Any Central motifs? When does it happen and how long does the story last? 3. Double and Binaries: Are there repetitions (doubles) and binaries in the story? 4. Discourse: Who tells stories in the story? Who are the listeners?

13. Time & Story in “The Purloined Letter” • Set in 18 __; a letter “purloined from the royal apartments,” replaced with another one, This endangers “a personage of most exalted station” for 18 months. P. 694 2. The prefect searches for it for three months; for another month after Dupin’s suggestion of “re-search.” 3. During this last month, Dupin goes to Minister D’s twice and finds the letter. 4. Mythic time: The allusion to Atreus and Thyestes

14. Atreus and Thyestes, and the theme of secrecy & revenge -- Atreus, brother of Thyestes; later a king of Mycenae and father of Agamemnon and Menelaus -- Thyestes was in love Atreus’ wife behind A’s back, who betrayed Atreus by giving T the golden lamb and helped T become the king. -- Atreus invited Thyestes to a supposed reconciliation supper; cutting up and boiling the sons of Thyestes, he served them to their father, who unwittingly ate his own children. Thyestes, learning the nature of his meal, cursed the house of Atreus. Thyestes then went into exile. (source)

15. Mytheme: secrecy & revenge 1. Secrecy – simultaneous disclosure. 2. The Queen’s Concealment of the letter from the King; Minister D’s concealment from the Queen, 3. Minister D’s and the Queen’s Gaining power through possessing the letter; 4. The King’s and Minister D’s unknowing loss of power; the Queen knows but can do nothing. 5. The Queen’s and Dupin’s revenge against Minister D. 6. Minister D and Dupin as Brothers? Clues: p. 696; 702

16. “The Purloined Letter” Usu. knowledge means power, but in this case . . . Queen King

17. Minister D’s stealing the letter reduces the Queen into complete powerlessness.

18. Dupin, the detective, reduces the prefect into powerlessness. Dupin Prefect

19. Finally, it’s the Queen that gains power over Minister D.

20. “The Purloined Letter”: Double and Binaries Other doubles: two visits; two poets; Dupin has two theories to explain his way of searching. Binaries: 1. Nothing is more inimical to wisdom than too much subtlety; Whose subtlety? 2. The case: “simple and odd”; “mysterious but plain”; Prefect, “too deep or too shallow”  3. Mathematician vs. poet • Dupin as a poet or a critic, using allusions and theories to explain his practice. Is the prefect like a critic? Is Dupin a good critic? Is he duplicitous?

21. The prefect as a critic or an analyst “To make this brief, I think the method that the Perfect uses to search for the letter is like what New Critics use to analyze a text. The Perfect looks for all the little details of the house, just like New Critics looks for all the small details in every single word of a text. The Perfect does not rely on other sources, so as New Critics. On the other hand, Dupin represents Structuralists. He looks at the bigger picture. He considers other aspects such as how the minister thinks as a poet as well as a mathematician. Dupin finds the letter by tracing back the thinking pattern/structure of the minister.” (Christine Chen)

22. Dupin as a poet or a critic using allusions (e.g. 698) and theories to explain his practice. Theories: 1) “an identification of the reasoner's intellect with that of his opponent.“ (699); the prefect errs in doing that but Dupin does it right. 2) Dislikes pure (mathematic) forms but still discusses physics; “the physical oversight is precisely analogous with the moral inapprehension by which the intellect suffers to pass unnoticed those considerations which are too obtrusively and too palpably self-evident. ” (703) -> Does Dupin really have moral scruples?

23. “The Purloined Letter”: Double and Binaries (3) Dupin’s duplicity: -- sophistry; e.g. the found letter so different from the original one, and the way it’s keep so different from M. D’s habit 703-704; -- his purpose of revenge hidden in the final letter; -- his sight and “blindness” -- His motivation: 1) “a partisan of the lady”; 2) revenge; 3) money. 4) not “right” to leave the envelope blank.

24. Plot and Discourse in “The Purloined Letter” Plot= order of events, discourse: how the story is told. • Action told or described but not directly presented. 2. The story is composed of two long narrations, one by the prefect, and the other by Dupin, with the I-narrator as the active listener of both.  power relations between the speaker, the listener and the stories told.

25. Dupin’s narration  I-narrator Story-telling to gain power Prefect’s narration  I-narrator and Dupin  tell without understanding Prefect’s action the queen’s Dupin’s 2 searches Prefect’s 2 searches

26. Structuralist Poetics: Jakobson as an example JAKOBSON, Roman, (1896-1982), Russian-American linguist; founder of Prague school of structural linguistics and of phonology. He uses the two axes to analyze 1) reasons for aphasia, 2) poetic language.

27. Jakobson • Language as an enclosed system with two Axes Combination Principle of contiguity Selection Principle of similarity

28. Jakobson: two kinds of aphasia • Language as an enclosed system with two Axes Combination Contiguity disorder: “I umbrella happy.” Selection Aphasia: similarity disorder – “She is a shoe.”

29. Jakobson: Metaphor and metonymy • two styles, which shows preference of working along one axis over the other Combination Contiguity disorder: “I umbrella happy.” Metonymy; e.g. smoke for people Selection similarity disorder – “She is a shoe.” Metaphor: e.g. My love, red rose

30. “Neutral Tones” “Since then, keen lessons that love deceives, /And wrings with wrong, have shaped to me /Your face, and the God-curst sun, and a tree, /And a pond edged with grayish leaves.” “The Bourne” “Underneath the growing grass, Underneath the living flowers, Deeper than the sound of showers …” Which ones of them are metaphors, and metonymies?

31. National flag, National anthem, national flower, statues of National father, etc. National history Which ones of them are metaphors, and metonymies for a nation?

32. Jakobson’s way of structuralist analysis “The poetic function projects the principle of equivalence from the asix of selection into the axis of combination’ (J 1967: 303) “elements of poetry that are similar in some way, whether in sound or sense or some other aspect, are combined in sequence. (Green 5)  In other words, we should look for “similarities” or symmetry on syntactic level.

33. Examples of “similarities” “More reasons to shop at Morrison’s (chain-store slogan)  sounds (alliteration) “The forcethat through the greenfuse drivesthe flowerDrives my green age; thatblaststhe roots of treesIs my destroyer.” (Dylan Thomas)  repetition of verbs, conjunctions, nouns, my, sounds such as, “drives, destroy”

34. “Spleen” by Charles Baudelaire& the patterns found by R. Jakobsonsource: Structuralist Poetics by Jonathan Culler Elements that can be examined: -- Arrangement of odd and evenstanzas; -- Arrangement of verbs andnouns; (underlined) -- Arrangement ofCentral lines: Italicized -- Arrangement of metaphors, -- Arrangement of possessive pronoun and pronouns (us, its/they), adj., participial adj. Verbs

35. 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;

36. 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;

37. 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

38. 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.

39. 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.

40. I, III, V When the low and heavy sky weighs like a lid On the spirit groaning from the tedious anxieties that prey on it, And when, embracing the whole rim of the horizon, It pours on us a black day, more dismal than night; When the rain stretching down its long streaks Imitates the bars of a vast prison, And a silent horde of loathsome spiders Come to spin their webs inside our brains And long trains of hearses, without drums or music File slowly through my soul; Hope, Vanquished, weeps, and vile, despotic Anguish Plants her black flag in mybowed skull.

41. II, IV 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; Suddenly the bells leaps out in a fury And fling a hideous howling at the sky, Like wandering and homeless spirits Who begin to wail relentlessly.

42. “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

43. From New Criticism to Structuralism  New Criticism: set up studies of English Literature as a discipline.  In the 50’s, there are more attempts at making English studies scientific and objective. e.g. archetypal (原型) approaches; Northrop Frye Russian Formalism 1920’s; taken up by Jakobson in Prague.

44. From New Criticism to Structuralism  Compared with New Criticism, structuralist approaches to literature are -- reductive; （化約式的﹚； -- more objective & scientific, does not rely on common sense. -- anti-Humanist -- Form to Structure, (later multiple language structures and the racial relations they imply).

45. Readings for next week: Textbook: 1) chap 4-1: Roland Barthes 2) "The Map"; "Sestina“; 3) video lecture 3 4) responses to unit 1 & 2 by next Thurs. 5) starts to prepare for your first paper.