The Evolution of Literary Criticism: From Structuralism to Ecocriticism

Structuralism

This Theory developed in the 1950s and extended into the 1960s. The primary objective of this theory was to identify the fundamental structures that make human experience possible. In contrast to phenomenology, which only describes consciousness, Structuralism analyzes the structures of language, psyche, and society that operate largely at the unconscious level. This process attempts to understand how meaning is produced. The reader acts as an agent within this framework, as he or she deciphers the codes that generate meaning.

The intellectual foundation of structuralism was developed by a group of French thinkers who were influenced by Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure’s theory of language. They applied the concepts of structural linguistics to the study of social and cultural phenomena.

Some significant examples:

Claude Lévi-Strauss used it in anthropology; Roman Jakobson, Roland Barthes, and Gérard Genette applied it in literary and cultural studies; Jacques Lacan in psychoanalysis; Michel Foucault in intellectual history; and Louis Althusser adopted it within the framework of Marxist theory.

Structuralist thought also deeply influenced scholarly theories in England and the United States during the 1960s and 1970s. Within the context of literature studies, the main focus of Structuralism is how literary works create meaning and what effects those meanings have. But this theory does not attach importance to new interpretations of the works. Its main concern is to provide new ideas about literature and to develop a framework for a signifying practice, which is one of many possible practices. Hence, the structuralist approach encouraged symptomatic and suggestive readings of texts and initiated cultural studies, so that the signifying processes of diverse cultural practices could be explored and discovered.

Poststructuralism:

The poststructuralist turn replaces the intellectual effort that had been made in Structuralism to master and codify structures. This shift is particularly visible in the works of Roland Barthes, Jacques Lacan, and Michel Foucault. These thinkers had planted the seeds of poststructuralist thought in some of their earlier writings. Their main concern was to show how theories become entangled in the very phenomena they seek to explain, and how texts generate meaning by disrupting the conventions that structural analysis identifies.

Poststructuralist thinkers highlight that it is impossible to describe a single whole or coherent signifying system, because every system is constantly changing. Rather than directly pointing out the “errors” of structuralism, poststructuralism takes a critical stance against concepts such as knowledge, totality, and subject. All three are considered problematic.

In the poststructuralist framework, the structures of systems of signification occupy a paradoxical position: on the one hand, they are dependent on subjects as objects of knowledge; on the other hand, the same subjects are shaped and constrained by those structures—their agency is in the grip of the productive forces that create those structures.

In this way, poststructuralism, while being a natural extension of the structuralist project, questions its foundational assumptions, and proposes a radically different interpretative framework for meaning, identity, and discourse.

Deconstruction:

Marxisms, Psychoanalysis, Feminisms, and Historicisms are considered offshoots of poststructuralism. The primary concern of these approaches is to recognize the fluidity of the subject, and to question identity—understood as a purely contextual phenomenon. Along with these, these frameworks also critically assess notions of objective knowledge. Within poststructuralism is articulated the philosophy of Deconstruction, which is a significant contribution of Jacques Derrida. This philosophy provides critical commentary on the assumptions that Structuralism proposed in the name of “structure”.

Deconstruction as Strategy:

Deconstruction is an intellectual strategy that evaluates the hierarchies of binary oppositions of Western thought. Some prime examples of such binaries are:

• speech/writing
• presence/absence
• nature/culture
• mind/body
• form/meaning

The objective of deconstruction is not to destroy binaries; rather to undo them and reassign them into a new structural and functional framework. Deconstructing binary oppositions means to expose that these binaries are socially/ideologically “produced” through a particular discourse, and they have no natural or essential relationship.

Deconstructive Reading of Texts:

The core of this approach is a new reading practice in which the process of reading the text against itself is emphasized. The text is understood as a multiple, fragmented, and disunited entity—in which shifts, breaks, contradictions, silences, aporias (i.e. gaps or blind spots), and fault lines (cracks in meaning) are present. These fractures and instabilities within the text expose earlier assumptions and intellectual activities that were imposed on it.

Thus, deconstruction is a critical-philosophical practice that challenges the so-called stability of meaning, structure, and signification, and understands each text as an ongoing process of difference and deferment.

Psychoanalysis

Psychoanalysis is considered a systematic analysis of the unconscious mind. Sigmund Freud claimed that creative writing is a product of the unconscious, and the primary objective of psychoanalysis is to unravel this operative process. The unconscious desires and drives that occur in the author’s unconscious mind are embedded in the literary work. Psychoanalytic reading decodes these patterns by identifying hidden linguistic and symbolic structures.

Carl Jung’s notion of “collective unconscious” further complicates this relation. In his view, literary work is in a relation with the unconscious, and this unconscious is structured through a racial memory. Jacques Lacan made this even more radical by positing that “the unconscious is structured like a language.” The functional role of psychoanalysis is that it adopts a reconstructive process to understand the mental condition of the patient, where psychological complexity is understood by replaying a critical past event. Traumatic events are easily decipherable in this analysis, as they provide a pathway to understand the multi-layered character of human personality.

Feminist Theory

The primary standpoint of feminist theory is to demand equal rights for women and to create a gynocentric discourse. Feminism has both a constructive and disruptive role—on the one hand, it tries to dissolve the gender binary (man/woman), and on the other hand, it recovers a suppressed history of women’s writing.

British and American feminisms’ major engagement has been with the analysis of women’s consciousness, but they have also been criticized for neglecting other feminist perspectives—especially linked to caste, race, and ethnicity. Feminism emphatically rejects patriarchal discourses. Psychoanalytic feminists have additionally critically challenged the implicit sexist biases of psychoanalysis. Feminist theory’s wide scope evidences that its engagement extends to masculinity studies, queer theory, sexuality studies, as well as social, economic, and political dimensions.

New Historicism / Cultural Materialism

Theoretical engagements of historical studies unfolded simultaneously during the 1980s and 1990s in the form of Cultural Materialism in Britain and New Historicism in America. Cultural Materialism’s concern centered on the historical formation of subjectivity and the debatable role of literature during the Renaissance. New Historicism made it its objective to trace the interconnections between text, discourse, power, and subjectivity in the context of the Renaissance. New Historicism has offered a critique of the religious and political ideologies of the Renaissance, and has shown that the literature contains and limits subversive energies, despite its apparent subversiveness.

Postcolonial Theory

Postcolonial theory systematically analyzes the strategies of European imperialism and their ongoing consequences. This framework critically analyses the projects of independent nationhood, cultural assertion, and identity formation. Important concerns include national consciousness, resistance, hybridity, subaltern studies, othering, and ambivalence.

Postcolonial scholarship is confronted through the frameworks of conflicting languages, hybrid cultural positionalities, and “Empire writing back.” This approach empowers intellectuals of colonized societies to reclaim and rewrite their suppressed, distorted, and forgotten histories.

Ecocriticism

Ecocriticism or green criticism represents a shift in which discourse moves from androcentrism to geocentrism. This literature highlights the interconnectedness of nature and environment. Ecocriticism argues that nature directly shapes human attitudes and behaviours, and is crucial in redefining human affective psychology.

The intersection of environmental degradation, ecological crises, masculinist domination, and feminist perspectives is explored in literary representations. Especially, animal studies focus on domination and exploitation. The larger resolve of ecocritical studies is to develop a positive and sustainable outlook for human–nature–animal interactions.

Conclusion

Contemporary literary criticism has become a highly organized, interdisciplinary scholarly field. It is not only a domain of interpretive and appreciative study but is actively interlinked with philosophy, art, science, technology, culture, values ​​and wider human interactions. The diversification of theoretical approaches has made criticism exploratory and adventurous.

The primary task of students and scholars of literature is to comprehend, observe, scrutinize, analyse, evaluate and assess works of art—through appropriate theoretical frameworks. Only through this process can the inherent complexities and layered meanings of literary texts and criticism be understood.

Source : Wikipedia