Chronicles Simplifed

 Structuralism  The French intellectual movement of the 1950s known as structuralism is thought to have started with the writings of anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss and literary critic Roland Barthes. It arrived in Britain in the 1970s and rose to prominence in the 1980s. The theory is difficult to understand in isolation because it is linked to the study of broader structures in various situations. Structuralist Chickens and Liberal Humanist Eggs This theory suggests that "structure" is imposed by one's experiences and perceptions of the world rather than being innate to its objects. So, meaning is always outside (rather than inside) of things and is attributed to them by the viewer. In the context of literature, "structure" refers to the way that a text represents a particular genre. They are related to one another, just as a phrase is to the language. The text (phrase) is subject to the genre's (language) norms and conventions. Understanding Donne'...