Literary Theory

A critical theory is a theory of society that aims to emancipate those subjected to relations of domination or power. In contrast to the contemplative model of knowledge implicit in the Greek etymology of theory which comes from the word theoros or “a spectator”—critical theory regards the pursuit of knowledge as a politically engaged activity. In part, this is because social power involves more than just manipulative resources or force. Relations of power and domination also depend on particular attitudes and beliefs, or purported knowledge. It follows that by confirming or refuting beliefs or attitudes, theory has implications for corresponding patterns of domination (Lentricchia, 45-69).

Structuralism is the method that has to do with the humanities in this century of great progress and Levi-Strauss in France is the master of structuralism. It stems from the application to anthropology and the humanities of a linguistic model. Its initiator was de Saussure in his Course in General Linguistics. Linguists, such as Meillet or Vendryes, were still trying to explain the evolution of a language by linking it to that of a society. Saussure is more concerned with genesis, it reverses the relationship between system and history (Lentricchia, 45-69). In language, the language that distinguishes it is the set of conventions adopted to enable the exercise of language in individuals and the saying that is this very exercise. The object of linguistic science is the system of signs, resulting from the mutual determination of the sound chain of the signifier and the signified concept chain. This system is structured. The meaning of a term is not defined by its relationship to an object, but by its relationship to other words in the language: the meaning is differential.

By applying this type of analysis in anthropology, Levi-Strauss keeps the spirit anti-historicist. Structuralism is a combinatorial operates without regard to history. It differs, however, any form theory. Formalism and structuralism are separated because they adopt different attitudes towards the concrete (Lentricchia, 45-69). Unlike the formalism, structuralism refuses to contrast the concrete to the abstract and focus on the latter. Laforme is defined by a material that is foreign. The structure does not separate content: it is the same content, apprehended as a logical organization of real property. In this sense structuralism, however, the resulting formalism, opposes much: a little away from the concrete structuralism, it brings back a lot. The savage mind is not pre-logical, but logical. It is thought working at a first level, the concrete is the "logic of the concrete."

It is first and perhaps best, in the study of kinship systems that Levi-Strauss has applied his method. Like language, in fact, this system is established, not at the level of words, but the relationship of couples: husband-wife, father-son, brother, sister, maternal uncle and son of the sister. As yet the language, kinship is a communication system. It does not develop spontaneously from a factual situation, but as an arbitrary system of representations: this is not a biological modality, but an ...