|
AN INTRODUCTION TO RUSSIAN
FORMALISM “El formalismo ruso es uno de los
movimientos de teoría y crítica de la literatura más importantes del siglo
XX. Surgió en Rusia
entre 1914
y los años 30. Se divide principalmente en dos escuelas, la escuela de Moscú
liderada por V. Shklovsky y la escuela de Praga
liderada por Roman Jakobson.”.
In words of Viktor
Shklovsky, leader of Moscow Linguistic
Circle, the main aim of
Russian formalism is "crear formas complicadas, incrementar la
dificultad y la extensión de la percepción, ya que, en estética, el proceso
de percepción es un fin en sí mismo y, por lo tanto, debe prolongarse". Scklovsky defends Futurism because this movement is based on
form, the reader must concentrate his attention on form. Scklovsky
defends an anti-contenidist aesthetic, based on significants, on materials. And in literature materials
are sounds Scklovsky concentrates on the analysis
of rhytmic and fonetic
characteristics of poetry. (http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formalismo_ruso
) There are, in the chronology
of Russian formalism, two main stages: the first one, from 1915 to 1920,
characterised by the confrontation and controversy with Positivism, and the
second one, from 1920 to 1930, characterised by the maturity and an expansion
in the study field. According to the glossary of literary theory of the Apart from Scklovsky, the main authors of this influential school
were Tinianov, Eichenbaum,
Jakobson and Jakubinsky.
They made a revolution on literary criticism by establishing the
specificity and autonomy of poetic language. Jakubinsky
said that literary language was characterised by
its opaque form (the perception of its formal elements). Russian formalism
exerted a major influence on thinkers such as Bakhtin
(an author who thought that in literary texts was shown the ideology of their
authors) and on structuralism (this one was the following school, and at the
beginning was very similar to formalism). The movement's members are widely
considered the founders of modern literary criticism. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_formalism
). Russian formalism
is well-known for its emphasis on the functional role of literary devices and
its original conception of literary history. Formalists invented a scientific
method for studying poetic language. As Erlich
points out “the formalist theoreticians focused on the 'distinguishing
features' of literature, on the artistic devices peculiar to imaginative
writing”. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_formalism ). The literary fact
has to be prioritized over the metaphysical commitments of literary criticism.(…) The formalists agreed on the autonomous nature of
poetic language and its specificity as an object of study for literary
criticism. Their main endeavour consisted in defining
a set of properties specific to poetic language. Formalists said: "Literary
works, according to this model, resemble machines: they are the result of an
intentional human activity in which a specific skill transforms raw material
into a complex mechanism suitable for a particular purpose"
(Steiner, "Russian Formalism" 18). In Art as device (1916), Scklovsky says that the word must be considered as an
object, a thing that could be used to create half-words, neologisms, etc.,
and explains that art is a sum of literary and artistic devices that the
artist manipulates to create his work. (…) Literature was considered, on the
one hand, to be a social or political product where it was then interpreted
as an integral part of social and political history. On the other hand,
literature was considered to be the personal expression of an author's world
vision, expressed by means of images and symbols. The aim of Shklovsky is to isolate and define something specific to
literature: these, are the devices which make up the "artfulness"
of literature.(…) Formalists do not agree with one another on exactly what a
device is, nor how these devices are used or how they are to be analysed in a given text. The central idea, however, is
more general: poetic language possesses specific properties, which can be analysed as such. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_formalism,
http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formalismo_ruso
). One of the most famous dichotomies introduced by the Formalists is a
distinction between story and plot: story is a chronological sequence of
events, whereas plot can appear in non-chronological order. (…) Shklovsky very soon realized that this model had to be
expanded to embrace, for example, contemporaneous and diachronic literary
traditions. Literature constitutes part of the cultural system.(…) As such, it interacts with other human activities,
for instance, linguistic communication. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_formalism
). Russian formalism was not a uniform movement. The contribution of the There is no direct historical relationship between New Criticism and Russian
formalism, both
of them having developed at around the same time but independently each of
the other. However, there are several similarities: both movements showed an
interest in considering literature on its own terms, a focus on the literary
devices and a critical focus on poetry. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_formalism
). |
·
Erlich, Victor.
"Russian Formalism: In Perspective." The Journal of Aesthetics and
Art Criticism 13:2 (1954): 215-25.
·
Steiner, Peter. "Russian Formalism." The
·
Apuntes de Teoría de la literatura, curso 2004-2005, por
José Luis Falcó.