Structuralist

The word “structure” as used by non-structuralist critics differs from its use by structuralist literary critics. In the traditional sense, “structure” refers to the organization of a literary work—to its plot, its stanzas or other parts, its use of repetition and contrast, its patterns of imagery and sound, rhythm and rhyme, for example. For structuralist critics, however, “structure” has another meaning, one that derives from linguistics and anthropology. Structuralists speak of how language is an arbitrary system of “signs,” part of a semiotic system of codes. It is these signs and codes that constitute the heart of the structuralist approach to literary analysis.