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The Prison-House of Language: A Critical Account of Structuralism and Russian Formalism
Fredric Jameson's survey of Structuralism and Russian Formalism is, at the same time, a critique of their basic methodology. He lays bare the presuppositions of the two movements, clarifying the relationship between the synchronic methods of Saussurean linguistics and the realities of time and history.
230 pages, Paperback
First published August 21, 1972
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About the author
Fredric Jameson
166 books679 followersFredric Jameson was an American literary critic, philosopher and Marxist political theorist. He was best known for his analysis of contemporary cultural trends, particularly his analysis of postmodernity and capitalism. Jameson's best-known books include Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (1991) and The Political Unconscious (1981).
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
September 30, 2011
early 1970s accounting of the thinking of de Saussure (I), russian formalism (II), and french structuralism (III). Seeming to be an expansion on 1973 article, "Metacommentary," a sequel to "Marxism and Form."
The thinking through social life and the literature it produces by metaphor of 'language' and 'structure' is both breathtakingly brilliant and stupid (for being endlessly self-referential). So why even bother? (a) such theorists can shed light on the particular historical moments they were writing in; (b) you can't complete a diachronic, "historicized" account of anything without first drawing up the maps, the possibilities, the relevant binary oppositions that can represent a synchronic "slice of time."
Also, it's very useful to learn the self-destruct codes for:
de Saussure
Shklovksy
Propp
Levi-Strauss
Barthes
Foucault
Derrida
(greimas and jakobson seem to get off relatively easy. bakhtin and vygotsky weren't discovered yet)
Structuralism seems to embody along with it the seeds of its own destruction. Jameson hopes to follow through "the model" (think Kuhn's paradigms) to pass on to the other side, having eaten it it may be preserved through its cancellation.
The thinking through social life and the literature it produces by metaphor of 'language' and 'structure' is both breathtakingly brilliant and stupid (for being endlessly self-referential). So why even bother? (a) such theorists can shed light on the particular historical moments they were writing in; (b) you can't complete a diachronic, "historicized" account of anything without first drawing up the maps, the possibilities, the relevant binary oppositions that can represent a synchronic "slice of time."
Also, it's very useful to learn the self-destruct codes for:
de Saussure
Shklovksy
Propp
Levi-Strauss
Barthes
Foucault
Derrida
(greimas and jakobson seem to get off relatively easy. bakhtin and vygotsky weren't discovered yet)
Structuralism seems to embody along with it the seeds of its own destruction. Jameson hopes to follow through "the model" (think Kuhn's paradigms) to pass on to the other side, having eaten it it may be preserved through its cancellation.
May 27, 2015
This early work sets the tone for all of Jameson's critical enterprise: his omnivorous intelligence devours diverse strains of thought, while his exquisitely supple Marxist partisanship is nourished by their insights and sharpened through the critique of their deficits.
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July 31, 2011A brilliant, dense argument that "Post-structuralism" and "decontstruction" do not actually meaningfully depart from "structuralism" and the prison that the author feels the later amounts to.
March 12, 2022
I first read this book in 1988, when I was taking post-graduate courses for my teaching degree. While Jameson’s book was not specifically for a literature course I was taking, I had thought that it would supplement my understanding of structural and deconstructionist literary theory. I also, in a quite different way, used the book in education course, as the subject of a readability test—measuring the level of difficulty/abstraction found in a book—which results would help to determine its suitability for different reading audiences.
At the time I subjected The Prison-House of Language to this reading test, I did not fully appreciate just how much the abstraction coefficient it yielded spoke to the book’s very (absence of) content, in particular how the concept of Saussurean semiology—as deployed in Russian Formalist critical theory and (mostly) French Structuralist critical theory—spoke of meaning being derived only from the interplay of signifiers, which concrete referents were outside the purview of semiology. The readability test discerned that the book was most suitable for post-graduate-level readers, and the level of abstraction was off the charts, ie, when it spoke of theory, it spoke of little that was concrete.
Despite the apparent disparagement, I enjoyed reading The Prison-House of Language, then and now. When I first read it, drawn to its grim title and my fascination with the bounds of language, I was confounded by the topic, and my pleasure derived from having persisted with Jameson’s every brilliant word, despite incomprehension. In my recent reading, I was less confounded by semiology and its critical ramifications, and I even had some intimation that understanding was tantalizingly proximate. Also, I was less in awe of Jameson’s erudition, and I challenged his assertions and questioned the extent to which the structuralist method(s) could be used to assign merit to (or define merit in) any particular work.
The introductory chapter about Saussure and semiology—how words operate in both a temporal and fixed (diachronic and synchronic) fashion—was necessary grounding, though the abstractions in this and the remove from a commonsensical understanding of language and thought was immense. The following chapters, on Formalism and then Structuralism, began with Saussure’s premises adapted to these theorists’ different purposes.
The chapter on Formalism included all the relevant names—Viktor Shklovsky (concept of ostranenie), Yuri Tynianov (concept of foregrounding), Vladimir Propp (analysis of folktales), Boris Eichenbaum (“How Gogol’s Overcoat Was Made”), Roman Jakobson (doctrine of mutation; metaphor vs. metonymy), and Boris Tomashevsky—and Jameson asserts their work set out the interplay of the diachronic and synchronic, that in “history there is never any repetition, simply because nothing ever disappears but only changes shape.”
The longer chapter on Structuralism shows that the French, beginning with Claude Lévi-Strauss, were less concerned with individual works of art than they were in the structures upon which they depended. Though there is a similar historical component in Structuralism, its practitioners more consciously exploited Saussure’s distinction between langue and parole, and the antinomies that arose in the interplay of signifiers. Structuralism, like Formalism, was not monolithic, and Jameson touches on the varieties of concerns of its various, best-known practitioners: Jacques Lacan (linguistic transformation of Freudianism), Jacques Derrida (concepts of difference, trace, and deconstruction), Louis Althusser (Marxist theoretical praxis), A.J. Greimas (the elementary structure of signification), and Roland Barthes (social/literary analyses, concept of metalanguage).
Jameson’s conclusions about Structuralism apply equally well to Formalism: “…if Structuralism has any ultimate and privileged field of study, it may well be found in the history of ideas conceived of in a new and rigorous fashion” and that the “ultimate propaedeutic value of the linguistic model [is] to renew our fascination with the seeds of time.” There’s much to chew on in this book, and there are moments in reading Jameson’s dense prose that one can’t help but begin to hallucinate how those slippery signifiers (inter)play and slide over one another—much as those slithy toves must have done for Lewis Carroll.
At the time I subjected The Prison-House of Language to this reading test, I did not fully appreciate just how much the abstraction coefficient it yielded spoke to the book’s very (absence of) content, in particular how the concept of Saussurean semiology—as deployed in Russian Formalist critical theory and (mostly) French Structuralist critical theory—spoke of meaning being derived only from the interplay of signifiers, which concrete referents were outside the purview of semiology. The readability test discerned that the book was most suitable for post-graduate-level readers, and the level of abstraction was off the charts, ie, when it spoke of theory, it spoke of little that was concrete.
Despite the apparent disparagement, I enjoyed reading The Prison-House of Language, then and now. When I first read it, drawn to its grim title and my fascination with the bounds of language, I was confounded by the topic, and my pleasure derived from having persisted with Jameson’s every brilliant word, despite incomprehension. In my recent reading, I was less confounded by semiology and its critical ramifications, and I even had some intimation that understanding was tantalizingly proximate. Also, I was less in awe of Jameson’s erudition, and I challenged his assertions and questioned the extent to which the structuralist method(s) could be used to assign merit to (or define merit in) any particular work.
The introductory chapter about Saussure and semiology—how words operate in both a temporal and fixed (diachronic and synchronic) fashion—was necessary grounding, though the abstractions in this and the remove from a commonsensical understanding of language and thought was immense. The following chapters, on Formalism and then Structuralism, began with Saussure’s premises adapted to these theorists’ different purposes.
The chapter on Formalism included all the relevant names—Viktor Shklovsky (concept of ostranenie), Yuri Tynianov (concept of foregrounding), Vladimir Propp (analysis of folktales), Boris Eichenbaum (“How Gogol’s Overcoat Was Made”), Roman Jakobson (doctrine of mutation; metaphor vs. metonymy), and Boris Tomashevsky—and Jameson asserts their work set out the interplay of the diachronic and synchronic, that in “history there is never any repetition, simply because nothing ever disappears but only changes shape.”
The longer chapter on Structuralism shows that the French, beginning with Claude Lévi-Strauss, were less concerned with individual works of art than they were in the structures upon which they depended. Though there is a similar historical component in Structuralism, its practitioners more consciously exploited Saussure’s distinction between langue and parole, and the antinomies that arose in the interplay of signifiers. Structuralism, like Formalism, was not monolithic, and Jameson touches on the varieties of concerns of its various, best-known practitioners: Jacques Lacan (linguistic transformation of Freudianism), Jacques Derrida (concepts of difference, trace, and deconstruction), Louis Althusser (Marxist theoretical praxis), A.J. Greimas (the elementary structure of signification), and Roland Barthes (social/literary analyses, concept of metalanguage).
Jameson’s conclusions about Structuralism apply equally well to Formalism: “…if Structuralism has any ultimate and privileged field of study, it may well be found in the history of ideas conceived of in a new and rigorous fashion” and that the “ultimate propaedeutic value of the linguistic model [is] to renew our fascination with the seeds of time.” There’s much to chew on in this book, and there are moments in reading Jameson’s dense prose that one can’t help but begin to hallucinate how those slippery signifiers (inter)play and slide over one another—much as those slithy toves must have done for Lewis Carroll.
Read
January 11, 2025This would have been impossible to digest if I hadn’t encountered a good number of Structuralist works & histories before, including in Jameson’s own Years of Theory, a super helpful primer. Jameson’s exegesis and critique of Structuralist methods helped stabilize and deepen some of my previous understandings (Derrida and Althusser) and confused others (Barthes and the metalanguage), but ultimately clarified why Structuralism is so simultaneously alluring, sporadically clarifying, and infuriating/claustrophobic. TL;DR, it can’t think itself. It’s turtles all the way down, & Jameson has to descend through quite a number of multilayered shell specimens before bottomlessness comes into view. Not as generative and propulsive-feeling as Marxism and Form, I think by dint of the subject matter, but glad to have read before tackling Jameson’s later dialogues with major Structuralist thinkers.
December 17, 2024
This was one of my go-to references in the late 1970s and early 1980s as I attempted to grasp structuraliasm.
January 31, 2020
Pretty interesting history and criticism of the structuralist model, as a linguist I found quite a lot to enjoy and to apply even within the scope of modern-day Chomskyan linguistics. Whilst Jameson can get a bit hard to read sometimes, his prose is never exhausting and always insightful. The analysis is by no means exhaustive, but nonetheless interesting. I would say that it's a good read for the unitiated provided that they take their time reading it. Since I was somewhat familiar with the ideas of structuralism from linguistics, Lacan (by way of Zizek) and Althusser, I didn't find it daunting, but it is something that is worth to digest.
August 1, 2015
Not for the faint of heart, and bring supplements, but for Jameson fans, a power house. A Proustian like verse on all things both postmodern and linguistic. I would give it a five were it a little more friendly.
Read
October 16, 2017The first chapter's hard going, but afterward he's on the warpath.
July 13, 2021
Dense, but always clear and enlightening.
October 22, 2025
If this man ever wrote a beautiful sentence in his life, he surely defenestrated it on sight. The prose in this book is about as appealing as eating a box of rusty nails.
That said:
Jameson’s assessment of the Russian formalists in the first half is much kinder and productive than I expected it to be, and is where this work’s elegance lies. That said, many better critics of Russian formalism who could properly read Russian have come after this work, yet it’s interesting to see how Jameson was receiving their ideas through German translation.
The second half is truly painful, although you get a hint of what would later become his characteristic epithet (“Always historicize!”) leading towards his continuing suggestion for a kind of Marxist hermeneutics. At its most fun when it’s at his most bitchy—such as referring to Althusser’s writing as “terroristic hectoring”—!
That said:
Jameson’s assessment of the Russian formalists in the first half is much kinder and productive than I expected it to be, and is where this work’s elegance lies. That said, many better critics of Russian formalism who could properly read Russian have come after this work, yet it’s interesting to see how Jameson was receiving their ideas through German translation.
The second half is truly painful, although you get a hint of what would later become his characteristic epithet (“Always historicize!”) leading towards his continuing suggestion for a kind of Marxist hermeneutics. At its most fun when it’s at his most bitchy—such as referring to Althusser’s writing as “terroristic hectoring”—!
February 26, 2025
It’s like watching the universe naked.
整体的问题意识是，结构主义语言学、形式主义文论和20世纪中后期的结构主义哲学——这几个给予共时性最高优先性的学派——如何理解“历史”？自从索绪尔力排new grammarian对语言流变的执着、划清历时性和共时性的界限之后（人话讲，历史语言学纠结的辅音元音转变对每个时刻的母语者而言毫无意义），形式主义和结构主义以不同的思路继承了他的遗产，但似乎都陷入“屠龙者悖论”——几个学派的高光时刻都在于对旧范式的抨击；在这之后，索绪尔自己、Shklovsky/Propp、施特劳斯纷纷被自己围困。好消息是，詹明信的观察没有到此结束——还好还有丁雅诺夫，还好还有拉康、阿尔杜塞、德勒兹、克里斯特娃。结论：所指与能指同样向历史开放。
整体的问题意识是，结构主义语言学、形式主义文论和20世纪中后期的结构主义哲学——这几个给予共时性最高优先性的学派——如何理解“历史”？自从索绪尔力排new grammarian对语言流变的执着、划清历时性和共时性的界限之后（人话讲，历史语言学纠结的辅音元音转变对每个时刻的母语者而言毫无意义），形式主义和结构主义以不同的思路继承了他的遗产，但似乎都陷入“屠龙者悖论”——几个学派的高光时刻都在于对旧范式的抨击；在这之后，索绪尔自己、Shklovsky/Propp、施特劳斯纷纷被自己围困。好消息是，詹明信的观察没有到此结束——还好还有丁雅诺夫，还好还有拉康、阿尔杜塞、德勒兹、克里斯特娃。结论：所指与能指同样向历史开放。
May 25, 2024
Great book! Very clear on linguistics, Russian formalism, and the mysteries of French structuralism. Clear explanations of context and vocabulary.
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October 17, 2016415 J31p 1974
March 21, 2016
marxist reading of structuralism and formalism. the carceral metaphor of the title is not really warranted.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews