The Structure of Literature

The Structure of Literature

First edition
Author	Paul Goodman
Subject	Literary criticism
Published	April 30, 1954 (1954-04-30)
Publisher	University of Chicago Press
Pages	282
OCLC	233320
LC Class	PN45 G63

The Structure of Literature is a 1954 book of literary criticism by Paul Goodman, the published version of his doctoral dissertation in the humanities. The book proposes a mode of formal literary analysis that Goodman calls "inductive formal analysis": Goodman defines a formal structure within an isolated literary work, finds how parts of the work interact with each other to form a whole, and uses those definitions to study other works. Goodman analyzes multiple literary works as examples with close reading and genre discussion.

The main points of Goodman's dissertation were made in a 1934 article on aesthetics by the author, who studied with the philosopher Richard McKeon and other neo-Aristotelians at the University of Chicago. Goodman finished his dissertation in 1940, but it was published only in 1954 by the University of Chicago Press at McKeon's behest. Reviews aggregated in Book Review Digest were mixed. Critics described the book as falling short of its aims, with engaging psychological insight and incisive asides mired in glaring style issues and jargon that made passages impenetrable or obscured his argument. Though Goodman contributed to the development of what became known as the University of Chicago's Chicago School of Aristotelian formal literary criticism, he neither received wide academic recognition for his dissertation nor had his method accepted by his field.