Formalism

[Gopa B. Caesar]

Formalism

Original a Russian movement
Heterogeneous school
Flourished during Russian Revolution—time of great artistic experimentation
Attempt to create scientific method of literary analysis

2 Main groups
Moscow Linguistic Circle—led by Jakobson
Opayaz—Society for the Study of Poetic Language—led by Victor Shklovsky

Formalists had to 1st counter academic critics’ preoccupations with psychology and biography
Strived to establish:
-Science or “poetics” of literature
-Linguistic basis of literature and especially poetry
-Distinctive quality of literature/literariness
-Importance of formal literary devices
-Theory of literary evolution
-Form and technique as part of content

Stalin forced critics to support socialist realism

Emphasizes the importance of artistic form

Sees literary language as language made strange

Upholds the form and structure of art (“artness”) as special and distinct from the mundane, ordinary, and practical

Theorizes defamiliarization—power of literary language and the literary to defamiliarize familiar objects

[Gopa B. Caesar]

-Influential to American New Criticism and Structuralism
-Important distinctions between Formalism and New Criticism
-Formalists sought to theorize nature of “literary”
-Formalists sought to establish literary evolution
-New Critics emphasize individual literary document
-Certainly did influence New Criticism
-Also influenced Jakobson’s Prague School of Structuralism and French Post-Structuralism

[Gopa B. Caesar]

Boris Eichenbaum (1886-1959)

Prominent figure in Formalism
Eventually shifted critical views—came to privilege biography
Presents Skhlovsky as intellectual leader of movement
Dubs literary language as language made strange

[Gopa B. Caesar]

From The Theory of the ‘Formal Method’ (1926/1927)

Essay considers accomplishments and developments in Formalism’s 1st decade
Formal method emerges from desire for scientific method for studying literature
Formalist’s really ask of what subject matter is literary study
Trying to summarize work of Formalists—not create dogma
Formalist method not a program or a doctrine
Method adjusts theories in accordance with materials
Formalists only attempted to create independent science of literature and literary study
Formalists remained isolated from “divine” aesthetics and ready-made theories
Radical ideas
Formalists created unconventional poetics
Pre-Formalist literary thinkers used antiquated psychological and historical models
Battle between Symbolists and Formalists

[Gopa B. Caesar]

From The Theory of the ‘Formal Method’ (1926/1927) Cont.

Formalists tried to unrest politics from Symbolists
Formalist passion for empirical positivism
Formalist ambition for specific scientific approach
Must study specifics of literature that distinguish it from other material
Jakobson—object is literariness, not literature
Formalists turned to linguistics rather than history or aesthetics
Formalists’ experiments in nonsense language
Used to defy claims of Symbolists
Dilemma of meaningless language
Symbolists claim of transcendent meaning
Formalists addressed question of sound in verse
Symbolists upheld primacy of image-symbol
Formalist’s reconfigure image as part of poetic language
Defamiliarization—new and special concept of mundane object
Poetic vs. practical language
Shklovsky’s work on plot and stylistic devices
Plot as constituting specific peculiarity of narrative art
Genetic approach cannot (alone?) explain literary conventions
Works of art defined by relation to other works of art
Newer work does not have new content—changes old form
Formalists become interested in literary history
Cannot see literary work in isolation
Formalists went beyond “Formalism”

[Gopa B. Caesar]

From The Theory of the ‘Formal Method’ (1926/1927) Cont.

Plot elements helped Formalism distinguish form of story and its material/content
Issue of motivation allowed Formalist critics to approach works more closely
Allowed critics to explore relation between plot structure and material
Shklovsky’s reading of Tristram Shandy
Difference between plot and story
Theoretical work of Formalists became more specialized
Pioneering work of Formalists on prose
More “complicated” work on prose
No general Formalist theory of verse
Meter became a background—no longer a superficial accessory of poetry
Formalist theory of verse founded on analysis of rhythm
      -Not metrics in isolation
Tradition of specialized metrical studies
No longer believed rhythmic variation could be engendered by adjusting metrical form

[Gopa B. Caesar]

From The Theory of the ‘Formal Method’ (1926/1927) Cont.

Rhythmic devices determine rhythm
Poetic form as content of poetic speech
Accidental vs. contrived poetic language
Emotional vs. poetic language
Words taken away from ordinary speech when placed in verse
Formalists invested form with integrity and value
Material itself a formal element
Form dynamic
Poetry, unlike prose, tends toward utility
Verse distorts semiotics of words
Form dynamic—cannot simply use ready-made interpretive methods
Previous academic theories of literature emphasized biography and psychology
          -Did not value literary form
1084: Formalists had to abolish academic traditions
Question of literary evolution
Succession
Tradition
Parody
1085: Literary evolution not a linear process
Multiple schools and movements in one epoch
1085: “Younger” tradition emerges to replace old tradition as soon as old is canonized
Dialectical self-creation of new forms
1086: Not concerned with biography or psychology of artist
Interested in evolution of literature and dynamism of form
1086: Evolution of literature as self-formed social phenomena
Literature not a special theoretical subject but a special theoretical approach
Still working through ideas and accomplishments of Formalists
1087: Summary of Formalist claims/accomplishments

[Gopa B. Caesar]

From The Theory of the ‘Formal Method’ (1926/1927) Cont.

Distinguished practical from poetic language
Explored form, technique, function of literary
Uphold rhythm over meter—rhythm as constructive element in poem
Plot as structure—material subordinate to formal idea
Literary evolution
No one single Formalist method—theory and history merge

[710000757]

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[Tamanna Islam]

[Gopa B. Caesar]

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[Tamanna Islam]

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[Gopa B. Caesar]

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[Ferdousi Begum]

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[Gopa B. Caesar]