Structuralist vs Poststructuralist

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Structuralism in literary criticism is a movement that began in 1950s. The foundation of this movement was laid by the linguist Ferdinand de Saussure with his ideas on structures in the study of language. Structuralist theory is based on the belief that meaning is not a private experience but each of human constructions must have an underlying structure. In literary criticism, for instance, a critic with a structuralist approach will try to locate a structure in every text. Other figures closely associated with structuralism are Claude Levis Strauss and Roland Barthes. The next literary movement that began basically in response to structuralism was Post structuralism. Jacques Derrida and again Roland Barthes are the most prominent figures of post structuralist movement. Emerged in France in 1960s, post structuralist positions itself as a study of how knowledge is produced. As per the post structuralist approach, to understand an object (e.g., one of the many meanings of a text), it is necessary to study both the object itself and the systems of knowledge which were coordinated to produce the object. It can sometimes be suggested that structuralism and post structuralism are in common. Structuralism lays an emphasis on language and post-structuralism retains this emphasis. They both function as a critique of meaning that calls into question the structural relationship between a signifier and a signified. The account of historicism and its association with an overall pattern in history is not neglected in both cases. However, to believe that the approaches in structuralism and post structuralism are in absolute parallel would be far-fetched. There are many obvious distinctions that set apart these two intellectual movements. Post structuralism is flagrant as being a critical response to the basic assumptions of structuralism. A structuralism is ultimately
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