Russian Formalism

The principal texts are available in the following collections:

Matejka, L., and Pomorska, K. (edd.), Readings in Russian Poetics (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1971). The best collection.

Bann, S., and Bowlt, S. (edd.), Russian Formalism (Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press, 1973)

Lemon, L. T., and Reis, M. J. (edd.), Russian Formalist Criticism: Four Essays (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1965)

Todorov, T. (ed.), Theorie de la litterature: Textes des formalistes russes (Paris: Seuil, 1965)

For an overview of formalist poetics, see

The essay by Ann Jefferson, in Jefferson and Robey.

Erlich, V., Russian Formalism: History, Doctrine (The hague: Mouton, 1955)

The Russian Formalists' work was extended and critiqued by the Bakhtin circle, especially:

Bakhtin, M. M., and Medvedev, P. N., The Formal Method in Literary Scholarship. A critical introduction to sociological poetics (Cambridge, MA: Harvard U. P., 1985)

Voloshinov, V., Marxism and the Philosophy of Language (New York: Seminar Press, 1973)

For a good, brief, account see:

Bennett, T., Formalism and Marxism (London: Methuen, 1979)

And for a later Marxist critique of formalism:

Jameson, F., The Prison-House of Language: A Critical Account of Structuralism and Russian Formalism (New Jersey: Princeton U. P., 1972)

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