The critic Vladimir Propp used structuralist techniques to isolate 31 basic characters in Russian folk-tales. Others have shown that most stories are reduceable to a few stock situations: the revenge plot, the rescue plot, and so on#Many critics of literature dislike structuralism because it rejects all the traditional objects of criticism - the interplay of character, the use of literary devices, the author's sources and background - and concentrates dryly on the text as a self-contained sign-system#Saussure did his early work on the Indo-European language family. He also studied Lithuanian, Medieval German legends, and anagrams in Latin poetry#A lot of structuralist writing is afflicted with jargon that is completely incomprehensible to most. This has done the structuralist approach a disservice and has contributed to a reaction against the method in academic circles#Umberto Eco, author of the best-selling novel Name of the Rose, is a leading structuralist thinker. His novel, a murder mystery set around the labyrinthine library of a monastery, can be seen as an allegory of the structuralist method
