Semiotic literary criticism, also calledliterary semiotics, is the approach toliterary criticism informed by the theory of signs orsemiotics. Semiotics, tied closely to thestructuralism pioneered byFerdinand de Saussure, was extremely influential in the development ofliterary theory out of the formalist approaches of the early twentieth century.[1]
The early forms of literary semiotics grew out of formalist approaches to literature, especiallyRussian formalism, and structuralist linguistics, especially thePrague school. Notable early semiotic authors includedVladimir Propp,Algirdas Julius Greimas, andViktor Shklovsky.[2] These critics were concerned with a formal analysis of narrative forms which would resemble a literary mathematics, or at least a literarysyntax, as far as possible. They proposed various formal notations for narrative components and transformations and attempted a descriptive taxonomy of existing stories along these lines.
Propp'sMorphology of the Folktale (orig. Russian pub. 1928; English trans. 1958) provides an example of the formal and systematic approach. In successive chapters, Propp analyzes the characters, plot events, and other elements of traditional folktales (primarily from Russia and Eastern Europe). For each of these key components he provides a letter designation (with superscripts to designate specific subtypes). He proceeds to analyze individual tales by transposing them into this notation and then to generalize about their structure. For example:
He then gives the complete structure of this story in one line of notation, the analysis complete and ready to be compared systematically with other tales:
Later semiotic approaches to literature have often been less systematic (or, in some special cases such asRoland Barthes'sS/Z, they have been so specifically and exhaustively systematic as to render the possibility of a complete literary semiotics doubtful). As structuralist linguistics gave way to apost-structuralist philosophy of language which denied the scientific ambitions of the general theory of signs, semiotic literary criticism became more playful and less systematic in its ambitions. Still, some authors harbor more scientific ambition for their literary schemata than others. Later authors in the semiotic tradition of literary criticism includeTzvetan Todorov,Mikhail Bakhtin,Roland Barthes,Juri Lotman,Julia Kristeva,Michael Riffaterre, andUmberto Eco.
