Readings in Russian Poetics: Formalist and Structural Views

by Ladislav Matejka (Editor), Krystyna Pomorska (Editor)

The "Formal method" is a code of literary criticism, having its analogues in other than verbal arts, which arose in Russia shortly before the 1920s. Part of a larger momentum which in general turned away from theory as a means to understanding art, as for instance, did scholarship in the fine arts in Germany, the Formalists undertook to establish literary study on a new, specific basis. They wished to limit themselves to the actual instance of art in front of them, and to bring to it only such materials as would an empirical investigator; theirs was, in the words of a spokesman, "a special scientific discipline concerned with literature as a specific system of facts." In this system they wished to discover the defining features: what is it in a work of literature that makes it specifically a "literary" work?These are the issues raised by the Formalists. The subsequent history of their movement is an elaboration of this theoretical ground. Examples of Formalist thinking from the movement's origins through its major redefinitions and most significant expansions show much of the notable work that has been done in furthering the cause of literary studies as a systematic discipline. This volume is a collection of the most important contributions concerning the Formalist school, most of them translated for the first time from the Russian or the Czech. The editors have included articles on the general literary theory, on problems in the study of poetry, on selected problems in prose, and on specific literary works (including some by Dickens and O. Henry). The contributors include B. M. Ejxenbaum, Roman Jakobson, M. M. Baxtin, V. N. Volosinov, and others. In addition, the editors have each contributed retrospective and summarizing articles.

Contents:
Èjxenbaum, B.M. The theory of the formal method --
Jakobson, R. On realism in art --
Tomaševskij, B. Literature and biography --
Èjxenbaum, B.M. Literary environment --
Tynjanov, J. On literary evolution --
Tynjanov, J. and Jakobson, R. Problems in the study of literature and language --
Jakobson, R. The dominant --
Jakobson, R. and Bogatyrev, P. On the boundary between studies of folklore and literature --
Propp, V. Fairy tale transformations --
Brik, O.M. Contributions to the study of verse language --
Tynjanov, J. Rhythm as the constructive factor of verse --
Tynjanov, J. The meaning of the word in verse --
Vološinov, V.N. Reported speech --
Baxtin, M. Discourse typology in prose --
Trubeckoj, N.S. Afanasij Nikitin's Journey beyond the three seas as a work of literature --
Šklovskij, V. The mystery novel : Dickens's Little Dorrit --
Èjxenbaum, B.M. O. Henry and the theory of the short story --
Pomorska, K. Russian formalism in retrospect --
Matejka, L. The formal method and linguistics.

Genres: Criticism, Nonfiction

306 pages, Hardcover

First published October 15, 1971

About the author

Ladislav Matějka (May 30, 1919 in České Budějovice – September 29, 2012 in West Newton, Massachusetts) was a Czech scholar of semiotics and linguistic theory, who translated and published many contributions to Prague linguistic circle theory. He received his doctorate in Charles University in Prague in 1948 and then emigrated to the U.S. From 1956 until 1989 he taught at University of Michigan in the Slavic Department. In 1962, he founded Michigan Slavic Publications, a series that has published more than 100 volumes by authors such as Roman Jakobson and Nikolai Trubetzkoy.

From 1982-1993 he edited the series Cross Currents that published material by Milan Kundera, Josef Škvorecký and Czesław Miłosz. His academic correspondence has been deposited at Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center, Boston University.

Reviews

[Eric Byrd · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really your only English-language go-to for the classic Formalist essays. More pithy insight per-page than almost anything else. The title is dry-as-dust but taken together the essays have the heady air of brilliant young innovators hatching ideas in the years before they were scattered and suppressed in the nightfall of Stalinism, Socialist Realism--all that shameful, barbaric, lobotomizing Soviet cretinism. God Bless the Dalkey Archive Press!