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Poststructuralism in Language and Literature
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Poststructuralism was an outcome of the debates by critics
and analysts who found language and literature to be deeper and richer than the
Structuralist theory suggested. In many ways, Poststructuralism is an extension
to radical extremes of the premises suggested by the structuralists. Both give
primacy to language at the centre of their world, but, Poststructuralism
presents a retrospective critique of certain Structuralist commitments.
In language, Structuralism formed only one of the many
circles which interacted with one another and made the decipherment of meaning
more complex. This necessitated the study of literary works in more precise terms
for reasons of identifying structures of feelings and emotions embedded in
them; thus, emerged Poststructuralism.
Post Structural critics said, “read the text against
itself”. As such, in doing so, they uncover various layers of meaning
embedded in the text. They analyse the text semantically looking for ‘similarities
in sound’, the origin and root meanings of words and metaphors. By highlighting
these, their analysis becomes extremely crucial generally leading to explosion
of language into multiplicities of meaning. They tend to explore the disunity,
rather than continuity.
Poststructuralism also sought to contend with the issue of
determinism according to which the person reading operated in a rigid
framework, passively going through the interplay of structures as texts
unfolded the drama of conflicts and antagonisms. In this sense,
Poststructuralism became self-reflexive and uncertain. It argues that we live
in a world where there is no possibility of certainty in belief or clarity. One
can say there is no fixed or stable point of reference. As such
Poststructuralism became open-ended.
The famous writers who are often termed as Poststructuralists
are Michel Foucault, Roland Barthes, Jacques Derrida, Zizek, Jean Baudrillard, Julia
Kristeva and Judith Butler. However, some of them are also associated with
Structuralism.
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