Abstract: The cross-disciplinary and multi-lingual theoretical journey of "structuralism" is one of the essential topic in contemporary international literary criticism and comparative poetics. Is "structuralism" a school or ideological trend? Roland Barthes argues that structuralism is neither a school nor a movement but an activity. Is "structuralism" a theory or a methodology? Structuralist Jan Mykarovsky believes that structuralism is neither a theory nor a methodology but a cognitive position independent from both. Structuralism de facto is not only a construction activity but a cognitive position and even an ideological paradigm. It is the structuralist criticism belonging to dialogue and interactivity, contrast and conflict between "poetic paradigm" and "hermeneutic paradigm", "phenomenological paradigm" and "sociological paradigm" that promotes prosperity of 20^th century's world literary criticism. We can face the diversified forms of structuralist criticism only through the in-depth exploration of its ideological paradigm thus entering into the multifaceted structuralist criticism and transcending the perpetually popular but being simplified "structuralism".

Key words: structuralism paradigm, theoretical journey, comparative poetics, retrospect