Formalism

Formalism:-

Ø     A kind of literary theory and analysis originated in Moscow and St. Petersburg.

Ø     Termed as ‘Formalism’ derogatorily by opponents of Russian Formalism.

-         As it focuses upon the formal patterns and technical devices of literature to the exclusion of its subject matter and social values.

Ø     From suppression of Soviet it moved to Czechoslovakia - continued by the members of the Prague linguistic circle.

-         Included R. Jacobson (emigrated from Russia) Jon Mukharovsky, Rene Wellek.

Ø     It views literature as a special mode of language proposes a fundamental opposition between the literature (Poetical) VS. “ Practical” (ordinary)  use of language.

Ø     The Linguistic of practical discourse differs from the linguistic literature.

-         The ‘literariness’ of literary work. – Jacobson

-         In the maxim of foregrounding of the utterance – Jan Mukharovsky.

-         By foregrounding its linguistic medium - the aim is to estrange or defamiliarize. “ make strange”.

-         Coleridge’s “freshness of Sensation” of familiar objects (Romantic) it was author’s experience but in Formalism It is literary devices.

Ø     Roman Jacobson:-

-         Setting up and also violating patterns in the sound and syntax of poetic language.

-         The analysis of meter, alliteration and rhymes.

Ø     In prose: - distinction between the ‘story’ and a plot.

-         The author transforms the raw material of story into a literary plot with the help of devices.

Ø     Its influence upon American New Criticism. On the form of Stylistics and of Narratology.

Ø     Its opposition has been voiced by Marxists, Reader-Response Criticism, Speech-act theory and New historicism.

For further reading:-

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/213786/Formalism
http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5667
http://www.theartstory.org/definition-formalism.htm
http://www.moma.org/collection/theme.php?theme_id=10083
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/formalism