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Russian Formalism

The modern literary theory developed with Russian Formalism. Russian Formalism is not

Russian version of the Formalists movement; rather it is called so for it developed in and around

Russia. The movement developed during the 1910s and 1920s. In 1924, the Russian ruler

Vladmir Ilich Lenin died and later Stalin came to power. Earlier Formalists had to leave their

native land due to the higher degree of surveillance and were forced to do scholarly works in

fields that are non-political. Notable Russian Formalists are Viktor Shklovsky, Yuri Tynianov,

Vladimir Propp, Boris Eichenbaun, Roman Jakobson, Grigory Gukovsky and Boris Tomashesky.

Formalism is the study of literary forms. Russian Formalism is the result of interaction

between two groups of scholars- Moscow Linguistic Circle and OPHAJE School of Linguistics.

Both these groups were fabricating a movement which came to realization only by their

interaction.

The Moscow Linguistic circle consists of a group of linguists dissatisfied by literary

studies in Russia. The circle was also called Prague Linguistic Circle for the critics of the

movement came together in Prague for discussions. The school started in 1926 and continued till

the Second World War. Vilem Mathesius, Roman Jakobson, Nikolai Trubetzkoy, Rene Wellek

and Jan Mukarovsky belong to this circle. Rene Wellek and Jan Mukarovsky developed the

Czech Formalism. In 1989, the Prague Schools activity was renewed under the leadership of

Oldrich Leska.

The OPHAJE School of Linguistics is also known as Society for Study of Poetic

Language. It was a learned society established between 1916 and 1918 by many eminent
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linguists, prosodists, theoreticians and historians. The society was headed by Viktor Shklovsky.

Boris Eichenbaum and Yuri Tynyanov belong to this group.

Russian Formalism emerged to make literature an independent discipline. It is neither an

approach nor a methodology. The movement aims at finding out the subject matter of literature.

It does not ponder on how to study literature. It ruled out the significance of biography and

psychology of authors. They considered texts as the single object for analysis. They judged

biography and psychology the outcome of certain redundant critical practices. According to T S

Eliot, the objective of criticism is to divert the attention of reader from poet to the poem.

According to Rene Wellek, Russian Formalism sharply emphases the difference between

literature and life, it rejects the usual biographical, psychological and sociological explanations

for literature. It develops highly ingenious methods for analyzing works of literature and for

tracing the history of literature in its own terms. Formalism paved way for structuralism and

New Criticism.

Boris Eichenbaum discussed his concepts of Formalism in his essay The Theory of the

Formal Method. According to him, Formalism is characterized only by the attempt to create an

independent science of literature which studies specifically literary material(20). Mikhal

Bakhtin, Pavlev Medvedev and Valentin Voloshinov developed Formalism by combining it with

Formalism and Marxism.

One of the drawbacks of the Formalists is that they concentrate only on poetic forms. The

Formalists believe that ordinary or automatized language is an impediment to study of literature.

The ordinary language is something mundane, uninspired or boring due to recurrent use.
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There are six important idioms in Russian Formalism, namely defamiliarization,

literariness, device, function, content and form. The term defamiliarization was coined by

Viktor Shklovsky in his 1917 essay Art as Technique. Defamiliarization or ostranenie is a

process of making things, objects, places, language and situations strange and unfamiliar.

According to Roman Jakobson, defamiliarization is organized violence committed on language.

As a result of defamiliarization, poetic language becomes abstruse.

According to Shklovsky, art exists that one may recover the sensation of life; it

exists to make one feel things, to make the stone stony The technique of art is to make

objects unfamiliar, to make form difficult, to increase the difficulty and length of

perception because the process of perception is an aesthetic end in itself and must be

prolonged. Art is a way of experiencing artfulness of an object; the object is not

important.(Habib, 20)

There are three levels at which defamiliarization takes place at three levels phonetic

level, rhythmic level and semantic level. According to Jakobson, at phonetic level there is

roughening. In rhythmic or syntactic level, it affects the loss of rhythm of poetry. Shklovsky

believes that the rhythm of poetry is ruptured rhythm. The rhythm of poetry is from its disorder.

He explains this by taking the example of Greek temple in which where there is order and not a

single column is disrupted. At semantic level, poetry is characterized by the presence of

ambiguity. Ordinary speech is characterized by absence of ambiguity and hence there is no

polysemy.

The subject of literary study is literariness. It is the quality that differentiates poetry from

other literatures. It is an inherent quality of languages and is a result of defamiliarization.

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Devices act on language producing literariness. Literariness cannot be defined by objects

depicted in the texts. According to Viktor Shklovsky, devices are like oil in cooking. They

enhance the freshness of language without uttering the constituent linguistic units. Devices

themselves may be automatized by repeated use. According to Roman Jakobson the object of

study in literary science is not literature but literariness/ that is, what makes a given work a

literary work.

Function is introduced to overcome automatization of devices. According to Formalists,

the devices are valued for their functions of defamiliarization and they have no value of their

own. Instead of repeatedly using same devices for same functions, the writers should use the

devices for different functions in different literary texts. By this method, the automatization of

devices can be triumphed over. For example, the use of myth transfer subjective feelings or

emotions and it makes the work psychologically convincing.

Form is a receptacle for content. Form receives any content that the writer wishes. For

example, pastoral elegies are set in pastoral setting. Conventionally, content is privileged over

form. Formalists believe that form and content are synonymous. They are like two sheets of the

same paper. It is the form that determines the content. Elements of form or characteristics of

form are part of content. Content is an extension of form. Formalists use the terms device and

material for form and content. They believe that forms arise in literary works automatically and

unconsciously.

Formalists believe that author is a byproduct of criticism, writing, literary work or

reading practices. Conventional reverence given to author is taken away from them. An author
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uses language skills. Knowledge of literature is essential for his use of language skills. In short,

an author can be called as a wordsmith.

According to Formalists, meaning has no significance in the study of literature. A literary

text is not expected to be pedagogic or didactic. Meaning is a byproduct of pedagogic practices.

Neurosis is artistically productive and it is even better for the development of the psyche.

According to Formalists, biography and psychology of authors have no role in their writings. A

literary work is the end product and it is a manifest form of literariness.

In 1918, Lenin came to power and he prescribed socialist realism. Socialist realism is

representing a modified form of reality through imagination of writer. It is a politically loaded

literature which portrays the capitalist exploitation of the proletariat, the uncompromising class

struggle, the ultimate victory of the proletariat and establishment of political sovereignty.

Critics have pointed out certain limitations for Russian Formalism. The Formalists speak

more of poetry with the assumption that literature and poetry are synonymous. They ignored

other genres. The Russian Formalists have no theory of language, culture or history of society.

They concentrated on language, but they had only a pre-Saussarian view of language.

Formalism paved way for the later movements Structuralism and New-Criticism. It is a

way for technology rather than theology. Russian Formalism: History and Doctrine by Victor

Erlich describes the evolving process of Russian Formalism. The earliest writings of the

Formalists appeared in the journal LEF- Left Front of Art.

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Roman Jakobsons Model of Linguistic Communication

Content

Addresser Contact Addressee

Code

Message

. .

Emotive Referential conative

Phatic

Metalingual

Poetic
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Works Consulted

Schmitz, Thomas A. Modern Literary Theory and Ancient Texts. Malden: Blackwell,

2002. Print.

Habib, M. A. R.. Modern Literary Criticism and Theory . Malden: Balckwell, 2008. Print.

Literary Theory: Russian Formalism . Narratologist. Narratologist.com. 2004. Web. 5 Jan

2017. www.thenarratologist.com/literary-theory/literary-theory-russian-Formalism.

Russian Formalism. Oxford Reference. Oxford Reference.com. n.d. Web. 8 Jan 2017.

www.oxfordreference.com/view/101093/01/authority20110803100434336

Deepak. Russian Formalism. Literarism. The Republic of Letters. 8 Apr 2012. Web. 10

Jan 2017. www.literarism. blogspot.in/2012/04/russian-Formalism.html.

Elrich, Victor. Russian Formalism. JSTOR. 2000. Web. 9 Jan 2017.

www.jstor.org/stable/2708893

Formalism. Encyclopedia Britannica. Britannica.com.2017. Web. 4 Jan 2017.

www.britannica.com/topic/Formalism-literary-criticism

Prague Linguistic Circle. New World Encyclopedia. May 27, 2015. Web. 7 Jan 2017.

www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Prague-Linguistic-Circle

Society for the Study of Poetic Language. Encyclopedia2. The Free Dictionary. N.d. Web.

6 Jan 2017. www.encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Society-for-the-study-of-poetic-language