Structuralist Literary Theory


French Structuralism represents a set of primarily literary theoretical approaches between the
1960s and 1980s in France. Originally it grows from structural linguistics of Ferdinand de Saussure
and from structural anthropology of Claude Lévi-Strauss, enriched by crucial suggestions delivered
by Russian Formalists and others. The main area of French structuralists’ interest is centred
around theory of narration (narratology), nevertheless, they also deal with literary criticism,
anthropology, sociology, psychology, and others. Among others, the most important members of the
school are Gerard Genette, Tzvetan Todorov, Claude Bremond, Algirdas Julien Greimas, and, to an
extent, Roland Barthes. French Structuralism influenced a vast number of consequent literary
theoretical narratological approaches (by developing and elaborating on its terminology and
methodology), as well as it also triggered the anti-structuralist theoretical movement known as
Post-Structuralism.


Czech Structuralism (The Prague School) is a Czech linguistic, literary theoretical, aesthetic and
semiotic school which comprised a group of scholars, mainly European and Czech, in Prague
especially in the 1920s and 1930s. Although Czech structuralists adopted some ideas directly from
Russian Formalism, they also borrowed from other sources, such as (de Saussurian) semiotics,
communication model, functionalism, holism (mereology), aesthetics, phenomenology, and others.
Czech structuralism enriched various contexts of a theoretical inquiry, such as literary history
(developing literary structure), theory of fiction (poetic reference), aesthetic function, norm,
value, and the thematic built of literary artworks.