 Hello, welcome back to NPTEL, the national program on technology enhanced learning. These are a series of lectures under the general topic English language and literature. We have four modules as you are aware by now on various aspects of English language and literature. The current module that is module 4 is one devoted to various branches of literary criticism. You have already been through a couple of literary criticism or literary criticism approaches namely classical criticism, liberal humanism, Marxism, feminism etcetera. Today we are in an important school of thought, this is not to say that the other schools are not important. However, why I say that this is important is because it you know it was the beginning of you know a landmark so to speak or a watershed really not a landmark a watershed in the practices in the way people practice literary criticism and the school of thought is known as structuralist criticism a following which we have the poststructuralist school that will be talking about after this right. So, what I am going to do in this lecture is first give you you know or tell you about the important tenets of structuralism in general right structuralism is not something that you apply or that is applicable only to the domain of literary criticism right. So, we first talk about structuralism as it came to us through linguistics then I shall talk about what structuralist literary criticism is and in the end I shall be looking at how a poem namely William Blake's famous poem London may be analyzed using structuralist critical tools. So, well then let us begin to talk about what which book we shall be referring to there are of course, so many books available today right as far as literary criticism is concerned where structuralism and poststructuralism are always featured right. However, for the purposes of this lecture you may look at an a very useful book a beginners book really and it is entitled beginning theory right and introduction to literary and cultural theory by Peter Berry. There are also several other books to that look only at you know structuralism and poststructuralism that those of you are you who are at higher levels may want to look at for instance books like structuralism and sins then Jonathan colors the pursuit of signs also structuralist poetic. So, there are several titles that you may go on to look at, but from my experience you know as somebody teaching structuralism I have found that students who do not know the basics of structuralism go on to say that they find structuralist analysis very difficult after which poststructuralist and in particular deconstructing is constructionist sorry approaches to a text becomes all the more difficult. Well it is not just students who say that there are several teachers who also do not like to sort of dabble in structuralist and poststructuralist theories. My suspicion is and I may be totally wrong, but let me say for myself this has helped me a lot in once you in the sense that once you know the basics of structuralism it becomes rather easy really to you know go on and read you know few more you know quote unquote difficult text right. So, let us then ask you to read Peter Berry now as with many other lectures what I shall be doing is every now and then I shall be looking at or reading out certain extracts from Peter Berry's text in order and then I shall be like I do in the classroom sort of expounding on those or explaining those to you. So, what when we looked at liberal humanism right when you heard you know when you listen to professor Borwas Krishna Borwas lecture on liberal humanism you came to understand that liberal humanism talks about you know the attitude to good if you look at the slide here attitude to good literature which transcends the limit limitations of age. So, there are you know what we call the age old literary works that are always valuable or whether in whether thematically or stylistically or to do with narrative or poetic style right. They transcend the overcome the limitations of space and time and they are always the timeless classics ok. Next we also saw that in let us call it conventional criticism in conventional critical practice we look at the social, the political, the autobiographical, the literary historical ok to bring upon in a bit to look at look at the text in a bit to understand or throw light upon various aspects of the text and another way also of studying the text is the new critical way of studying the text which is understanding the text and studying it in isolation as perhaps it was Arnold if I am not mistaken to see the object as in itself it really is right or what we call you know the autotelic text ok. So, today we shall find that structuralism is different in the sense that not simply because it comes from linguistics, but also that it has some radical pronouncements to make as far as language and then following that the literary text is concerned ok. Then we also saw on the liberal humanism or in again in conventional criticism the literary text being celebrated because it enhances you know it enhances life and propagates human values ok or the moral school of criticism. It is also the literary text is usually and also by you know everyone who reads the text ok valued for its capacity for empathy and compassion right. So, moral values the you know the characteristics the literary characteristics of the text right as a new criticism the human humanist aspects as well as the humanitarian aspects of the text ok. All these are critical schools critical approaches that are taught in you know every institution even from the school level right. Next we are now turning to the structuralist school and let me quickly read from Chris this is actually Chris Barker who says that a structuralist understanding of culture is concerned with the system of relations of an underlying structure usually language and the grammar that makes meaning possible ok. A literary text fundamentally is about meaning ok you may talk about the style you may talk about its historical moorings etcetera, but the reader looks for meaning in a text or the reader looks for the meaning of a text ok say a poem right. So, as we moved you know through this lecture you will understand that a text now is going to be looked at or is going to be analyzed not for the moral you know message it gives us ok or not solely for it nor also you know for its for its stylistic aspects right that is the text in itself, but there is something very different going in here ok. We are looking at how meaning emanates the possibility of meaning or how meaning rather how meaning is possible in a text. For that we have several terms that we will need to learn ok the again as I said if you are not afraid most of you are engineering students here because this this course is actually has been designed for students at IITs and other engineering institutions right. So, if you are not scared of learning those difficult terminology in your sciences in you know in your physics and chemistry and biology for instance and in your engineering then you should not also shy away from learning terms here right. So, then what did we find that the structure is according to Chris, but critic Chris Barker structural structure is understanding of culture and of cultural artifacts and of cultural objects like a literary text for instance is like understood in terms of a certain system in terms of a certain system within which there are relations among units from which meaning emanates ok. So, we will you know unpack this and we shall really easily understand what this means ok. In terms of an underlying structure hence structuralism right the text now the literary text of poem for instance is going to be now looked at in terms not for the individual words kind of you know mean or you know the only the resonances of the individual the individual word per se, but we are going to see this in terms of the text in terms of a structure right and this structure or underlying grammar of a text is what makes meaning possible right. So, we are going to look at a text as what the text as a system ok. So, let us the text here a literary text is a system or is seen in structuralism as a system of relations fine. Now the study of the sign right the study of the sign more about this just a while later the study of the sign which is known as semiotics or semiology is part and parcel of understanding a literary text from the point of view or from the critical approach known as structuralism right. So, when we talk about a literary text from a sorry from a structuralist perspective we are also bringing in the sign which is so to speak the building block of both the text and of structuralism in general. Now philosophically speaking now if you ask about the philosophical orientation of structuralism the mind the human mind is seen as a structuring mechanism ok. We have certain cognitive abilities right and the mind the mind gathers or let us say a response to external stimuli to data that are coming in right. How you know how does the mind let us ask a question like this how does the mind makes make sense ok. How does the mind how does the human mind make sense of data that are you know the plethora of data that it is if I may use the word bombarded with all the time. So, the structuralists say or structuralist philosophy if you will say that the mind is a set of structuring mechanisms through which it makes or with the help of which it makes sense of incoming data. These structure you know the mind therefore, through the structuring mechanisms follows rules to make as I said sense of the world the sense of the world or the external world mind the world outside of you know it is it is being and it you know it uses these structuring mechanisms these cognitive structuring mechanisms to make sense of the world. Now we are coming in this slide to a very important formulation given by the Swiss linguists and we have heard of him Ferdinand de Saussure. In the this is let us say we are talking about the beginning of the 20th century the first decade of the 20th century. Saussure's famous work which actually was you know published by his students and teachers who collected his classroom you know lectures and who compiled these into the course in general linguistics. Saussure made a very important theoretical formulation and that is if you look at this slide that a word in language a word is a sign. Now again he does not mean here the reverse that a sign is a word signs are things that signify something to us that stand for something for us. So, signs are not only words remember signs can also be images obviously it can be auditory it can be sounds it can be visual it can also be odor or smell right. So, something that tells us something that something that signifies come to that later signifies something. So, Saussure said that a word too is a sign and importantly please look at this slide he split the sign into two component parts right. The sign is comprised of a the signifier and b the signified. Now as I said remember in the beginning we have to know the basics we have to grasp the basics and this is where it all begins right. So, what did we find we found that a word is a sign and according to Saussure's formulation a sign is it comprises two parts a the signifier and b the signified. For instance let us it is a very very common example that is used by every teacher almost I would say right. So, let us say the word tree is a sign isn't it if a word is a sign the word tree is a sign comprising four letters t r e e right. So, this tree has one part which is the sound image say I utter the word tree right and the the other person can hear me saying the word tree. The when we say tree it signifies or it you know in our minds we have what Saussure actually call not he did not really call it a concept he called it a psychological impression a psychological impression or what we today call the concept. So, the remember the tree the the word here we are referring to is a sign tree is a sign and tree comprises signifier which is the moment I say tree or even it is not just a sound you know image it is also the written image. For instance t r e e written here on this tablet right and immediately the psychological impression we have is what is signified by t r e e that is a that is the idea of a tree not a specific tree, but the psychological impression of tree right. Now, if you look at this slide this whole process is known as the process of signification right. So, recall now what is the study of the sign known as the study of signs is known as symbology or semiotics. So, signs can take different forms that is images visual images auditory you know auditory images order or smell and the written right. So, anything that stands for something or signifies something we saw here again let me let me you know recapitulate we saw that you know we can take an example for instance tree and we as as sasor has said the tree tree is a sign comprising two parts the signifier tree and the signified that is our concept or psychological impression of of tree. Now, the very important formulation that is given by sasor is this that the connection between the signifier and the signified is arbitrary right. The connection is an what does it mean to say arbitrary that is there is none nothing tree ish there is nothing tree ish about a tree that tells us please call me tree right. Now, of course, there is evidence for it how the evidence is that the a tree is referred to in different languages by different words. Now, if there was something tree ish about a tree that asks you or asks us to call it a tree and by no other name then the relationship between the signifier and signified would have been a non arbitrary one that is if you look at the slide there would have been a one to one correspondence between the signifier tree and psychological impression that we have that is there would have been let us use another you know or proper word there would have been an essential or ontological relationship between the signifier and the signified, but sasor says that for instance if I am sitting on a chair the signifier chair gives us or gives rise to in our mind. So, psychological impression or concept of chair, but there is nothing chair ish about this chair that I am sitting on and that would tell people that people to or impale people to call it a chair right. So, the sound or the you know the letters even the letters for instance c h a i r have nothing to do with this physical chair. So, this was a very important and I said it was a landmark you know theoretical formulation to be made. Now, again let me say it is not that you know it is not that the gree gree philosophers like Plato or Aristotle did not talk about it, but sasor was in a juncture in literary in sorry linguistic studies where you know when he found himself in a scenario where the study of or a linguistics was largely diachronic in nature diachronic let us look at this word diachronic in nature that is it was over time right. He brought in what we call the synchronic you know chrono is time right. He brought in the synchronic approach that is look at language as a system look at how language works not simply at how language changes not simply at historical linguistics or the diachronic or the change of language language systems a languages over time ok. He actually wanted to conduct a structuralist he wanted to give a structuralist formulations on you know on a language and to show how the language system works or almost like you know looking at what this language system is in almost in a laboratory sort of way you know fixing it and trying to look at its component parts or how it works. So, this is an important change in you know the overall orientation of studies of language. So, we found that the relation between the signifier and the signified is arbitrary again what does it mean to say arbitrary that there is no ontological or there is no one to one correspondence between the signifier and the signified. Now, what does this mean then? This means that we enter the language system ok. We as speakers of a language have to surrender you know have to surrender ourselves to the language system and this language system is a system of conventions ok. Conventions in the sense that we have to agree to college here imagine a situation in which in the English language there were hundreds of words to signify tree or there are hundreds thousands of words to signify a chair ok. What happens in that sense in that in such a scenario there would be linguistic chaos right and we would never be understood even if you said that according to context we may have different you know you know we may have different words for tree it is quite the other way round really right because you talk about chair you all you talk about you know natural chair here you also talk about the chair in the sense of a chair person do you follow. So, it is important to realize how important social contribution is and we shall see in a while how this could be applied to the literary text. Therefore, we may also say here that meaning is a combination of a sound image or also a written image and the concept this is the association right the association of the sound image with a concept and that is how meaning arises in language according to so so. Therefore, a text right now again we I am not saying this is only a literary text text could be any text for that matter a text is seen by the structuralist critic following you know following structuralist philosophy and following structuralist linguistics that is he or she sees the text as a structured system not remember now not largely or solely a text as a system giving us or a text as an entity that gives us a moral message or something that is very beautifully constructed with the use of you know proper language and use of all the characteristics that we talk about we talk about conventional literary criticism. So, the text is a structured system here it is a system of signifying practices there are signs in the text and the entire text is seen as you know a convention right a convention in both reading and writing of signifying practices why because the words there are signs right and those signs you know signify something the signifier is supposed to signify something they are also the text is also seen in terms of units and rules as we shall see later it is also seen very importantly do many may say in a reductionist way very importantly in terms of core a core structure which is known as binary oppositions please look here at the slide known as binary opposites for instance nature and culture are binary opposites light and dark are binary opposites in culture male and female good and evil strong and weak right. So, text can then be searched you know you could search a text for it is you know one of its core structure is mooring so to speak that is its binary opposite on which the text is sort of pivoted or on which the text stands right. So, meaning therefore, if you ask where does meaning in a text come from meaning comes from underlying structures and as you saw here one of the underlying structures here is what is the core binary opposition or you know a couple of binary oppositions on which so to speak the text is pivoted right. This way of thinking or this way of doing literary criticism this kind of you know let us say philosophical approach or orientation it is important for us to know is known as an anti humanist approach remember anti humanist is not anti humanitarian there is a difference. Humanism is a school of thought it is a phase in the history of ideas it is a philosophy that sees the human as a center of all reference this is very important the human being is at the center of all reference. In terms of Freud for instance the ego right the individual ego or even the collective ego really the ego is paramount here and everything is understood as constructed by human beings everything is understood as coming from the ego. But the structuralist enterprise is one which is anti humanist or which lays more importance much more importance really on structures in the system than on the human ego do you understand. So, it is nothing to do with in not being humanitarian but simply put the human now the human ego is out of the picture now the structure is paramount in understanding reality in understanding the literary text etcetera. So, if we extend this to any you know any aspect of culture any cultural artifact the text be it music be it dance be it any institution and its arrangements for instance we then see the sign as you know part of a whole system of units and rules right through which only this is important or only through which we may understand cultural phenomena. This kind you know of formulation leads us to an important anthropologist I am sure many of you have heard his name Chaud Levy Strauss who is famous for his work with the structuralist you know approach to anthropology you can know as structuralist anthropology where we also study where he studied societies and communities or you know using the structuralist approach in terms of binary core binary oppositions or opposites in terms of units and rules in you know almost certain schemas many would save in formulae by which you understand the culture. So, therefore, what are the structures in question and this is given to us by Peter Barry the structures in question are those imposed by our way of perceiving the world and organizing experience this is the point we talked about you know in the beginning really how the mind is a structuring mechanism and perceives an otherwise chaotic world and its data you know is enormous data in you know by means of the structuring mechanisms therefore, meaning this is extremely important meaning is outside things rather than inside things meaning lies outside. Now, another linguist Roman Jacobson he talked about you know like remember we talked about the tree and he talked about the very basic unit as you know being phonemes the letters T R E E he went even beyond the sign remember this the word is a sign it goes beyond the sign and talks about its you know its formative units as the phonemes or these letters. Now, in structuralist anthropology the structuralist anthropologist or like say cloud levy straws talks about you know borrows this idea or you know talks about or others sorry talks in a similar way by talking about this core formative myths these are not myths will less than that sub that is at a at an infra level which is the mytheme see phoneme and mytheme. So, mythemes are the formative units of a culture and archetypes have different meanings in different structures. Now, the important point here is many feel that its structuralism is so scientific both in anthropology and literature and culture in language or linguistics that it does not you know does not allow for any difference this is certainly not so we know that the word tree means both an actual organic tree and it can also refer to a tree diagram that you are doing say in your computer sciences can refer to a tree diagram it can also refer to a family tree can also refer to what we call in evolution the tree of life. So, its structuralism does not say our structuralists have never sort of claimed that they are not looking at diversity in meaning this is an important part variation of meaning in cultures is an extremely important part of structuralism that meaning the relationship between the signifier and the signified is a arbitrary and that it may also according to context give rise to different meanings. So, therefore, as you see in the slide here meaning is relational and meaning is culturally determined. So, let us again look at the slide for instance the myth of Oedipus you know you are aware of the text very important text Oedipus Rex by Sophocles. Now, Claude Revistraus's approach in structuralism is for instance the Oedipus myth and this is given to us by Peter Barry. In the Oedipus myth the cycle of tales connected with the city of Thebes for instance the story and the cycle of tales are connected with basic oppositions binary oppositions again here like animal and human relation or a person who is your relative and a stranger husband and son. Now, you can read taking the cue from Oedipus you can read any text in terms of its core binary or core basic binary oppositions and these are going to take different forms different context in as text move in time and in space. But the important thing is to understand even though there are cultural variations the structuralists have identified these core structures that are there in every culture and also in every text. So, let me read I said I would read from Peter Barry from you know at times and he says that the typical structuralist process is moving from the particular to the general this is very important placing the individual work within a wider structural context. The wider structure might also be found in the whole the corpus of an author's work or in the genre conventions of writing about that particular topic or in the identification of sets of underlying fundamental diodes this is a diadic structure of the binary opposition. And then he goes on to say a signifying system in this sense is a very wide concept it means any organized and structured set of science any organized and structured set of science which carries cultural meanings included in this category would be such diverse phenomena as say works of literature tribal rituals of fashions the styling of cars or the contents of advertisements. This is important for us to understand even a literary critic like Peter Barry you know says that the structuralist interpretation interpretive interpretive or sorry interpretive method is one that is not simply you know not simply to do only with linguistics or with the literary text for instance there are rituals that we may may analyze in terms of structures underlying structures there are advertisements there are fashions there are styles of anything from from cars to music as said earlier to anything that may be seen in terms of what we call what he calls here underlying fundamental diodes. Now, just have some water we still have the poem to look at so quickly you know talk about what another structuralist critic Rola Baat Rola Baat really had two phases to his work it is held that the early phase was a structuralist phase and the later phase being a poststructuralist one he had this important contribution to make he said that we talk about signification we need to talk about signification at two levels let us look at the slide one is the denotative level the level of denotation and the other is the connotative level which is the level sorry here the level of connotation right. The denotative level or the level of denotation is one that is descriptive and literal you are not looking at you know symbolic meanings here for instance if you say a tree you are simply looking you simply understood it in the literal sense of being a tree and then he said that however there is another level of signification which is that of connotation right and he said that connotation is associative this is associative in the sense for instance this may be a little unfortunate here I am just bringing it as is been given by the critic is when you talk say the word pig for instance at the denotative level we are the descriptive literal sense we understand the pig as an animal but at the connotative level it may connote something else something other than the animal for instance pig may refer to a male chauvinist now again sorry for this example or many say you know it is your room is like a pig's tie for instance he is a she is a you know so there are levels at which we understand one is at the descriptive level and the other is at the associative level the level of association this was given to us by Rola Barth right therefore myths or you know both in society in cultures and in literature therefore are always connotative they connote or they are what he calls second order signs right so we are also to understand find out the connotative meaning in our understanding of the text not just this literary meaning most of the pleasure in the text really I would say or we may safely say comes from the level of connotation not simply at a descriptive level enables a very rich understanding of the text this connotative level again is not that all of us are going to find the same connotations right depending on reader communities depending on depending on individual differences depending on cultural differences the connotations may be different there is as post structuralist would say right the privilege of the reader to read it unless of course one is making no sense or you know nonsensical way one is reading it however the there is the privilege of the reader to bring in a different connotative interpretation to the text ok so let us now before you know time runs out what we are going to do is I am going to look at the text in question right now the text is well known one it is a poem entitled London by the English poet William Blake now if you look here I am going to give you a link because of copyright reasons I am not really showing this to you in a slide this is the link well so let me read the poem out to you and that said earlier for copyright reasons I am not reproducing this here in the slides you may follow the link read the poem and then come back to my lecture ok so this is London by William Blake I wander through each chartered street near where the chartered temps just flow and mark in every face I meet marks of weakness marks of woe in every cry of every man in every infants cry of fear in every voice in every band the mind forged manacles I hear how the chimney sweepers cry every blackening church appalls and the hapless soldiers sigh runs in blood down palace walls but most through midnight streets I hear how the youthful harlots curse blasts the newborn infants tear and blights with plagues the marriage hers ok please read this poem over and over several times and one of the first things that we may say about this poem is an obvious one which is this poem is a poem of social protest ok right it is a poem that talks about exploitation talks about exploitation right and we shall see how it is again as I said earlier a text that could be read of course in several ways no doubt about it but a text it is a text that could also or it lends itself quite easily to a reading from a structuralist perspective focusing on the binary opposites ok remember what for these binary opposites that we had talked about a while ago ok for instance nature slash culture ok human slash animal male slash female ok light slash dark these are opposites right in culture we understand these things as opposites though they may not really be opposites but the mind structures these things as opposites right so what are then the opposites binary opposites in hearing in this poem London ok let us look at the first Sansa here I wander through each chartered street now wander each chartered when we do a structuralist analysis we are going to find binary opposites in the first line itself this is tremendously interesting ok I wander now look he Blake is not using the word walked he could have easily used the word walked I walked through each chartered street it makes perfect sense ok but he is using a word wander now to wander again what are what is the both in both the literal sense and also in the connotative sense ok wander here means to walk about alright but more in the sense of roaming around fine so wander brings you know carries the connotations ok you know in the literal sense we can say yes one also means wander means to roam about almost you know in a sense of aimlessly right what is the difference between walking and wandering right you when you walk it does not necessarily mean that you are walking or you know about or you know you have you are roaming around aimlessly you have another word for it wander so this here means wander roam around ok most aimlessly it suggests you have the time right you have the time and the freedom to do so fine look at the word chartered C H A R T R E D charters the street is chartered the poet the persona is not ok chartered in the sense of hired for instance you talk about chartered flights for instance ok which are only meant for a particular person or a group of persons right hired in this chartered in the sense of hired chartered also in the sense of having a license ok which is again to do with government rules do you follow ok so I wander through each chartered street now the two opposites that we may glean from here are these these two wandering and being chartered right now I wander through each chartered street near where the chartered terms does flow and mark in every face I meet marks of weakness marks of war in every cry of every man in every infant's cry of fear in every voice in every band the mindforged manacles are here now compared to this you know person the persona right who is walking the streets of London who is who notices right the marks of sadness the marks of war who notices the chartered terms the river full of you know one three flowing river now full of commercial you know vehicles for instance for maybe ships or boats there ok engaged in commercial transactions the chartered streets right the streets are also chartered in the sense that giving us at the connotative level right giving us a sense of something that is not free. So, one of the first things that we may talk about here we build tentative binary opposition between the freedom of the poetic persona who registers these things and the restraint right the restraint or the constraints let us say of not just you know things in in a surroundings like the river Thames or you know the streets of London, but also the people who are constrained by war who are constrained by sorrow do you follow of course, this is how you know even if you are not deliberately doing this exercise the mind will as you read the poem also be trying to make sense of it not simply by the moral message or this is a poem of exploitation or there are you know we talking about you know we talking about sorrow and weakness in London at a particular time given time the mind is also excuse me subconsciously if you will making trying to you know push things into either side of the two binary oppositions. Then let us read on after generalized statement where everything is you know every person every face talks about sorrow every face talks about you know this infants cry and there is the cry of every man. Now, the cry here means not necessarily a cry of anguish the cry here could also mean the cry of the vendor for instance the cries of commerce like of people you know in engage in commercial transactions for instance. Now, he says that I hear the mind forged manacles that is chains manacles are chains that have been forged in the mind again another you know another another image connoting restraint connoting constraint to understand chartered mind forged manacles. So, we are now sort of managing the text or reading the text and our mind is managing it into putting it in you know in either side of the binary oppositions. Then we have three figures a very famous figures of the chimney sweeper sorry chimney sweeper then of the soldier and of the youthful harler. So, when we read this poem from a structured perspective we can easily talk about another binary opposition that is of the exploiter and the exploiter in this dyadic structure we have the exploiter and the exploiter. So, as we are reading what is happening or how this how even the meaning of this poem emanates is under this who is exploited is the chimney sweeper the chimney sweeper and on the other hand the exploiter is shown here to be the church the chimney sweeper and the time these are these are very young boys who were sent up the chimney you know to clean you know the chimneys and they would often come down covered with soot sometimes even you know even burnt even some of sometimes the skins would be scorched. So, this was seen as an exploitation of these young boys. So, the chimney sweeper is the exploited figure here and in the other hand we have the church then the next figure is that of the soldier who Blake says whose blood run you know whose psi runs in blood down palace walls and on the other hand we have the palace and the final figure is that of the youthful the young harlot or prostitute and on the other hand we may say the institution of marriage this of course is a little problematic right. There are critics and readers who would like to put place the harlot on the other side of the binary opposition and saying the marriage here is a casual you know is a casualty, but if you look at the way Blake has written the poem we can easily argue otherwise. For instance, when he talks about the chimney sweeper look at the logic of the architecture of the text. He talks about the chimney sweeper then he talks about the church that is the exploited the next he talks about the soldier followed by the palace and here the harlot followed by the marriage hers. So, anyhow in this reading of the text when we put the harlot on the other side we find that there is another bind apart from the freedom and constraint or restraint or the lack of freedom or diet we also have the exploiter exploited diet. So, when we are reading this text you are making sense of the text our mind is sort of chunking you know these according to our core structuralist mechanism in our mind which is the binary opposition which cognitive psychologists would say who carry out work on children that the one of the first things cognitive operations in the mind of the baby of the infant is that of binary opposition. So, this is the way we would look now by no means is this the only way we have only I have just pointed out to you only one tool of structuralist analysis that is of the binary opposition or binary opposites on inner text and we have taken William Blake's famous poem London where we find that we can at first reading we can easily sort of look at excuse me easily look at or find out that there are two binary sets of binary opposition one is you know that of the freedom of the poetic person who registers these things and on the other hand the lack of freedom in almost everything about London be it its river Thames or its streets its busy streets and you know all most of the populace and then the second binary opposition we found was that of the exploiter and the exploiter which the poem structurally and in its architecture very clearly shows it is really I think a majestic way in also very neat way in which the poem has been structured structurally it is you know it is an excellent poem finally sort of exploding in the idea of the harlot's cry you know doing two things blasting its new borned infancy here in the form of a curse and you know sounding the death knell of the institution of marriage right. So, this is one of the ways in which we can do structuralist criticism there are many others for instance Rola Bart also talks about certain codes right he talks about here the five codes which are which were identified by him in his again seminal work as said he calls that a text he says that a text may be read from the point of view of codes that are kind of signified by the text these being for instance the symbolic the semen cultural hermeneutics and the pro erratic code. So, therefore, to summarize structuralist would look at genre look at conventions remember where is it we find the word convention we found the word convention when we talked early on about sassour saying the language is a system of conventions to which we surrender right. So, the conventions of a particular literary genre the network of intertextual connections inside the text the model of an underlying universal narrative structure the recurrent patterns or motives for instance the recurrent pattern of exploit or exploited that we saw in the poem London. So, the next lecture would be on structuralism and I am quickly giving a preview here in the sense that when we talk about structuralism versus post structuralism right we see that a structuralist critic would seek parallels and echoes you know of in the text as a system it would look at structures it would look at binary opposites seminal binary opposites of the text and on intertextuality while the post structuralist critic would move beyond that and search for contradictions in the text and how you know as the famously said how a text fails itself right look for contradictions paradoxes shifts absences disunity and really the impossibility of meaning. So, while the structuralist say that meaning is possible and then that the possibility of meaning is because of the underlying structures of the text because of the system of relations where words that are signs in that system in a text right get on their meaning in relation to one another not if you look at the poem London again you will find that the poem is a set a system of relations in which you know the word chartered is not simply that the we understand the term chartered by dictionary meaning and also in relation to all things that are chartered. So, quickly if you get a question for instance like how is structuralism you know what shed compared to other kinds of you know more conventional ways of looking at a literary text then you would say that structuralism the structuralist approach to literary criticism is definitely a radical departure from other ways of looking at a text from older ways of looking at a text. In the sense that it sees a literary text in terms of a system of relations right it sees meaning in a text as emanating from relations of the words that are units in the text in relation to other words in the text. It sees the cumulative coming out you know of the meaning of a text depending on structures like the binary structures on certain codes as Rola Bart had said and on how words get the resonances from other words not only within the text also as intertextualist critics would say how they in a larger if you look at you know if you can expand the model and look at certain text as nodes and how each text within a particular genre would take off from the other where there are echoes of previous text. So, intertextuality is also part of the structuralist enterprise at times though it does stand alone as a way of doing literary criticism. So, let us stop here today and and again as I say you know the many ways in which we could have done this but this being a basic level lecture. So, thank you for being with me in this lecture and in the next lecture we are going to look at post structuralism particularly at deconstruction. Thank you.