structuralist

is as creative as the artist insofar as it is not the nature of the copied object that defines an art, rather it is what man adds to it in reconstructing it: It is the technique that constitutes the very being of all creation.

essentially an activity based on the specific kind of imagination, or rather imaginary, of 'structuralist man'. Breaking new ground, he rejects the traditional division of the roles of artist and critics, on the grounds that the only difference between the creative and the critical activities is that, whereas the artist 'imitates' nature in order to give an 'impression' of the world., the structuralist critic's 'imitation' is aimed at 'making it intelligible'. This makes both activities equally creative, since 'it is not the nature of the copied object that defines an art . .. it is what man adds to it in reconstructing it: it is the technique that constitutes the very being of all creation'. Here, in inchoate form, lies the first formulation of what was to become Barthes's most far-reaching contribution to contemporary criticism, his theory of reading. Barthes then goes on to define structuralist activity as basically consisting of two main operations: 'quartering' or 'pulling to pieces' (decoupage), and 'harmonization', or 'blending together' (agencement). Quartering is meant to isolate the 'mobile fragments' in an object, whose differential situation produces a certain meaning (such as the phoneme in Saussure's linguistics, or the mytheme in Levi-Strauss's structural anthropology). (Literary Theory and Criticism: An Oxford Guide By Patricia Waugh)

structuralist, n.All

structuralist