Deconstructing Rhetoric

In This Post

Jakobson, Roman. “Two Aspects of Language and Two Types of Aphasic Disturbance.” Fundamentals of Language. Roman Jakobson and Morris Halle. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 1956.

Frye, Northrop. Anatomy of Criticism. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1957.

Kristeva, Julia. Revolution in Poeticl Language and Desire in Language. New York: Columbia UP, 1974.

Overview

Structuralism is a method of looking at the prescription and description of the text’s structure. Semiotics examines the shared meanings of the signs utilized by a particular culture within the literature. Structuralism and Semiotics use binary oppositions to examine the discourse in a work of literature. Structuralists use a method represented by that designed by Claude Levi-Strauss (structure of the myth) and analyze myths and texts to find basic structures. Looking at the binary opposition within a text, they seek an intermediary term that reconciles the oppositions. The concept of the binary opposition is of importance to structuralists who argue that much of our imaginative world is structured through binary oppositions. Therefore, Structuralism studies the construction of identification through the signs in the binary opposition. The study of signs in the text (via Semiotics) leads Structuralism to examine all of culture through the signs utilized in everyday life. This cultural perspective allows Structuralists to move their study beyond canonical literature and into the everyday literature and text of the period.

Two Conventions of Structuralism in Literature

1. Organizing consciousness of the persona presenting the text (narrator)
2. Organizing genre of the text itself (important because each genre has specific content and excludes certain content)

Two Conventions of Reading

1. Our culturally perceived reality and the way this reality is represented in the text.
   • Frye
     • we expect literature to reveal a specific reality that we can recognize as reality. The further a text strays from our concept of reality the more we consider the work a myth and not a realistic fiction.
2. Our cultural perception of literature
   • Significance that allows us to raise the  meaning of a text to a higher level of significance (raising a text from myth to realistic fiction based on reality constructed in the text OR raising the occurring elements in a text to represent cultural symbols)
   • Significance of figures (the assumption that symbols will relate to each other on a more complex level of meaning)
   • Significance of theme and unity (all elements of a text work harmoniously to contribute to the overall theme and meaning of the text and its message)

Genre

• Genre is highly important to the understanding of a text. Specific rules of genre govern many aspects of Structuralism:
  • Approach the author takes to the subject
  • Approach the critic takes to the subject
    • Frye argues that archetypal criticism is best undertaken only in “highly conventionalized” “popular” literature and that “superficial literature” (pop-lit) is of great value to archetypal criticism
  • Seriousness of the subject
  • Significance of language
    • Kristeva
      • Traditional language use depends on the positing of structures (thetic). Artistic practice, trangresses the boundaries of ordinary structures which fractures the traditional modes of significance to retrieve semiotic energy from the fracture. (Semiotics is the drive within the language or the “birthplace” of the language). Harnessing this semiotic energy allows the artist to create new cultural meanings–new cultural signs–since meaning in culture is based on signs, Kristeva is arguing that the artist is creating a new sign. It is the semiotic energy that brings about a new text (this energy is referred to as the genotext). The energy of the genotext leads to the phenotext (the actual linguistic structure that results). With this pattern, Kristeva argues, the text is shaped by both the linguistic and social structures of the symbolic, cultural order.
  • Significance of symbolism/figures
    • Frye looks specifically at the symbolism of elements and seasons and the cyclic pattern of each. However, there is no cyclic pattern for air and he notes that, unlike the rest of the elements and seasons, air (portrayed as “spirit” in literature) has one specific symbol–if the spirit is moving there is a theme of unpredictability or a sudden crisis.
    • See the section on Jakobson’s metaphor and metonymy for an explanation of this rule
  • How themes are read
• Frye argues that the classification of a genre is based on the hero’s power in relation to that of the everyday reader’s power. He posits five classifications:
  1. Myth
     • Hero is superior to other men and the environment of other men.
     • Hero is a divine being
  2. Romance
     • Hero is superior in degree to other men and his environment.
     • Hero is human but the laws of everyday nature are altered for him
  3. High Mimetic
     • Hero is superior in degree to other men but not to his natural environment
     • Hero is mortal, but a leader
  4. Low Mimetic
     • Hero is neither superior to his environment or other men (one of us)
  5. Irony
     • Hero is inferior in power or intelligence to reader (or equal to the reader)
• Frye demonstrates that these five classes have a specific linear feature: Pre-Christianity saw the development of the myth; the Middle Ages brings the Romance; the Renaissance ushered in the High Mimetic; The introduction of the middle class saw the rise of the Low Mimetic which evolved into the ironic
  • note the Marxist concept of the Middle Class ushering in a form of literature where the hero is “one of us”
    • Frye furthers this point with his analysis of the evolution of Romantic literature:
      • the ruling social or intellectual class tends to project its ideals in some form of romance:
        • Middle Ages = chivalric romance
        • Renaissance = aristocratic romance
        • Renaissance = bourgeois romance
          
• While irony is a descendant of the Low Mimetic, it moves steadily back towards myth, thus Frye asserts that the classifications are cyclical depending on the cultural situation

Metaphor and Metonymy

Jakobson examines the overarching concept of “metaphor in literature” to argue that metaphor is a unipolar term that over-encompasses two distinctly bipolar forms of comparison: metaphor and metonymy

Metaphor

• Metaphor refers specifically to two terms that are related by similarity (this can be similes, analogies, comparisons, or antitheses).
• The key word here is similarity. Metaphor is specifically concerned with the similarity

Metonymy

• Metonymy is different from metaphor in that it does not compare two terms but substitutes a similar term. This substitution is of several types:
  • symbol for thing symbolized (the throne for the king)
  • maker for thing made (John Deere for tractor)
  • container for contained (drink the whole glass)
  • part for whole (all hands on deck)
• The relationship in metonymy is not of similarity but of contiguity–in the connection among the meanings.

Why is this important?

• This distinction is important because of the relation to Structuralism’s rules on genre and the classification of genre. Jakobson argues that there is a distinct difference in the focus of poetry and prose. Poetry focuses on the sign, prose on the referent. Therefore, comparison occurs in specific ways–poetry uses metaphor while prose uses metonymy. This little detail can help Structuralists better understand the relationship between genre and language (and whether the author is remaining loyal to the rules of the genre)