Literary Theory & Criticism:

Unit 2Formalism,

Structuralism

& Post-structuralism

Formalism: Form and content are inextricable.

Linguistic Turn Cultural Turn

Russian Formalism New Criticism

- Viktor Shklovsky Human Liberalism

- Roman Jackobson

Linguistic Formalism: Basic Concepts

• Scientific approach to literary analysis, based on the science of linguistics (the

systematic and theorized study of language).

• Language is the foundational element of literature, but the language of literature

is distinct from the ordinary use of language, and independent of external

conditions.

Through defamiliarization

• What is said and How it is said are indissoluble.

Fabula (story) Sjuzhet (plot)

Viktor Shklovsky (1893 – 1984)

• Concept of ostranenie (‘estrangement’) or defamiliarization in ‘Art as Technique’ (also

translated as ‘Art as Device’),Theory of Prose (1925).

• The need to turn concepts or ideas that have become over-familiar into ‘estranged’

concepts and ideas (e.g. allegories, fables, fairy tales, poetry, etc.).

• "The purpose of art is to impart the sensation of things as they are perceived and not as

they are known. The technique of art is to make objects 'unfamiliar', to make forms

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 the artfulness of an object; the object is not important."

Roman Jackobson (1896 – 1982)

Identified 6 functions of language:

1. referential (context: descriptive, e.g. deixis)

2. aesthetic/poetic (message ‘for its own sake’: operative)

3. emotive/expressive/affective (sender: self-expression)

4. conative (receiver, e.g. vocative or imperative)

5. phatic (channel/ medium of interaction, e.g. greetings)

6. Metalingual (code: language explains language)

Corresponding to the 6 factors affecting communication

Cultural Formalism/ Neoformalism

New Criticism: Basic Concepts• Literature emanates from the natural processes of human consciousness.

• T.S. Eliot (1888 – 1965) in ‘Hamlet and His Problems’: Objective-Correlative.

• 4 different approaches:

- Affective fallacy: meaning lies in the text, not in the reader.

- Intentional fallacy: abstraction of authorial intention (the text as an object).

- Intrinsic approach: the text can be understood from within itself; external

factors are not relevant to understanding the text (Ivor Armstrong Richards).

- Formalistic approach: detailed analysis of form (e.g. stylistics).

Cultural Formalism/ Neoformalism

Human Liberalism: Basic Concepts

• Intrinsic, yet universal meaning of literary texts.

• Literature is of timeless significance.

• Human nature is unchanging.

• Purpose of literature is to uphold basic human values.

• Literature should be sincere, yet subtle.

• Enactment/ embodiment of values, rather than explanation.

• Organic fusion of form and content.

FormalismUnit 2, Part 1

The End