ABSTRACT
Let us begin by restating the aim and perspective of this work. As indicated in the introduction, this book is not a defence of structuralism nor an attempt to project structuralism as the only critical choice open for students of African literature and culture. Our intention in these pages is more limited and more modest: to isolate and characterize some of the dynamics of structuralism as a modern intellectual movement and to suggest how they may infIuence the way in which literary crtitics and scholars view their metier and their object. For this reason alone this book will be of special interest to writers, critics and scholars in the third world countries where indigenous traditions of literature and literary criticism are in the process of being forged.
