DEPARTMENT OF LITERATURE, FILM, AND THEATRE STUDIES
Approaches to Texts
Lecture Week V: Russian Formalism
David Musselwhiteaccording to Eichenbaum ("History of the Formal Method"): unsystematic and pragmatic
according to Jameson: "art as device" became a programmatic statement
three phases:1. early sloganistic (Shklovsky’s "The Resurrection of the Word" (1914); "Art as Device" (1917)
2. Research and Development: Shklovsky’s "The connexion between devices of syuzhet construction and general stylistic devices" (1919)
3. New more sophisticated concepts: Jakobson’s notion of the "dominant" (1936) and Tynianov’s theories of literary evolution. (1927)
from form to function to system
autonomy to relative autonomy
from langue (i.e. code/competence) -- inclined to "arts for art's sake"
to
parole (utterance/performance) -- ideo/sociolinguistics
Jakobson:
The object of study in literary science is not literature but "literariness," that is, what makes a given work a literary work. Meanwhile, the situation has been that historians of literature act like nothing so much as policemen, who, out to arrest a certain culprit, take into custody (just in case) everything and everyone they find at the scene as well as any passers-by for good measure. The historians of literature have helped themselves to everything— environment, psychology, politics, philosophy. Instead of a science of literature, they have worked up a concoction of homemade disciplines. They seem to have forgotten that those subjects pertain to their own fields of study—to the history of philosophy, the history of culture, psychology, and so on, and that those fields of study certainly may utilize literary monuments as documents of a defective and second-class variety among other materials.
Jameson: everything in the work of art exists for the work of art to come into existence itself in the first place
versus subjectivism, biography, representational realism, naturalism
pro autonomy of literature
versus Potebnia: thinking in images
versus Veselovski: genetic/diffusionism
1. "The resurrection of the word" (1914)
The fate of works of old artists of the word is of the same nature as the fate of the word itself: they complete the journey from poetry to prose. The death of things. The aim of Futurism is the resurrection of things — the return to man of sensation of the world…. words have become familiar…..We do not sense the familiar, we do not see it, but recognise it…. ‘artistic’ perception is perception in which form is sensed. [palpability] – see below on ostranenie
What is typical for artistic perception is our material disinterestedness in it. Exhilaration at the speech of one’s defence counsel in the law court is not an artistic sensation, and, if we sense the nobility and humanity of the thoughts of the most humane poets in the world, then these sensations have nothing in common with art. [i.e. close to "art for art's sake" and aestheticism: see Trotsky's critique of Formalism -- "In the Beginning was the Deed!" (Art and Revolution)]
Only the creation of new forms of art can restore to man sensation of the world, can resurrect things and kill pessimism.
2. "Art as Device" – the manifesto of the Formalist movment
versus Potebnia’s "Art is thinking in images."……
Images belong to no one: they are "the Lord’s." The more you understand an age, the more convinced you become that the images a given poet used and which you thought his own were taken almost unchanged from another poet…… poets are much more concerned with arranging images than with creating them. [cf. chess pieces] Images are given to poets; the ability to remember them is far more important than the ability to create them.
Imagistic thought does not, in any case, include all the aspects of art nor even all the aspects of verbal art.
Potebnia did not distinguish between the language of poetry and the language of prose. Consequently, he ignored the fact that there are two aspects of imagery: imagery as a practical means of thinking, as a means of placing objects within categories; and imagery as poetic, as a means of reinforcing an impression…. Poetic imagery is a means of creating the strongest possible impression. As a method it is, depending upon its purpose, neither more nor less effective than other poetic techniques; it is neither more nor less effective than ordinary or negative parallelism, comparison, repetition, balanced structure, hyperbole
Habitualization devours works, clothes, furniture, one’s wife, and the fear of war. "If the whole complex lives of many people go on unconsciously, then such lives are as if they had never been." And art exists that one may recover the sensation of life; it exists to make one feel things, to make the stone stony. 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," [ostranenie] 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.
After we see an object several times, we begin to recognize it….. Art removes objects from the automatism of perception in several ways.
semantic shift
(alienation i.e. looks forward to Brecht)
making the object move
3. "The connexion between devices of syuzhet construction and general stylistic devices
(a) By motif I mean the simplest narrative unit.
(b) By syuzhet I mean the theme, consisting of various situational motifs
fable/plot
story stuff/treatment
The crooked road, the road on which the foot senses the stones, the road which turns back on itself – this is the road of art…. Words become disjointedly and in place of a single complex, in place of the automatically pronounced word tossed out like a chocolate bar from an automatic machine, a word is born -- a sound, an articulating motion. And a dance is a walk which is felt……
versus Veselovsky:
The tale breaks up into pieces and is created anew. To sum up: fortuitous coincidences are impossible. Coincidences can be explained only by the existence of special laws of syuzhet construction. Even allowing for borrowings does not explain the existence of identical stories appearing at an interval of thousands of years and tens of thousands of miles….. In fact, tales are continually disintegrating and being recomposed on the basis of particular, but as yet unknown, laws of syuzhet construction. … This is due to a conventionality which lies at the heart of every literary work, in that situations are freed from their everyday interrelation and influence each other according to the laws of the given artistic web. [This, in some ways, looks forward to Levi-Strauss's structuralism with its interest in universal patterns in the mind]
Devices: retardation; simple and negative parallels, staircase construction, framing devices, repetitions, tautology….
I suggest a look at Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The issue is the freeing of a fugitive slave. Huck Finn represents the prosaic method; he suggests:
"My plan is this," I says. "We can easy find out if it’s Jim in there. Then get up my canoe tomorrow night, and fetch my raft over from the island. Then the first dark night that comes, steal the key out of the old man’s britches, after he goes to bed, and shove off down the river on the raft, with Jim, hiding day-times and running nights, the way me and Jim used to do before. Wouldn’t that plan work?"
To which Tom Sawyer replies:
"Work? Why cert’nly, it would work, like rats a-fighting. But it’s too blame’ simple; there's nothing to it. It’s as mild as goose-milk. Why, Huck, it wouldn’t make no more talk than breaking into a soap factory."
And now Tom offers a poetical plan full of complications. The leg of a bed, round which a chain is wrapped, is sawed through, although it would be possible simply to raise it; the shack is undermined; a cord ladder is made and is passed to the prisoner in a pie; the-neighbours are warned of a kidnapping; in a word, everything is played out according to all the rules of art.
eg. Robinson Crusoe
Repetitions, chinese box structure, stair-case structure, making strange, making the object move, defamiliarization, retardation…
As a general rule, I would like to add: a work of art is perceived against a background of, and by means of association with, other works of art. (Compare Macherey). The form of the work of art is determined by the relation to other forms existing before it. The material of a work of art is definitely played with a pedal, i.e. is separated out, "voiced". Not only a parody, but also in general any work of art is created as a parallel and a contradiction to some kind of model. A new form appears not in order to express a new contents but in order to replace an old form, which has already lost its artistic value ....
I venture to introduce a comparison. The action of a literary work is carried out on a specific field; the character-types – masks, the roles in modern theatre -- would correspond to the pieces in chess. The syuzhets correspond to gambits, i.e. the classical moves of this game, which players may use in variants. The tasks and the peripeteias correspond to the role of the opponents’ moves.
Note the change: from static form to dynamic system:
Eichenbaum: Sklovskij’s article mapped the way out of the sphere of theoretical poetics into the history of literature. The original concept of form took on the added complexity of new features of evolutionary dynamism, of incessant change. The transition to the history of literature had come about, not by way of simply expanding the range of topics for investigation, but as the result of an evolution in the concept of form. It was now evident that a literary work is not perceived in isolation—its form produces an impression against the background of other works, and not on its own…. Not one but several literary schools exist during each literary epoch. They exist in literature simultaneously, but one of them forms the canonized crest. (cf. the notions of emergent and residual features and the uneven development of the text) The others exist without being canonized and without resonance….. Once the older art has been canonized, new forms are created in a lower stratum, the "junior line," which forces its way into the position occupied by the older one…. Each new school of literature is a revolution—something like the emergence of a new class. But that, of course, is only an analogy. The defeated line is not annihilated, it does not cease to exist. It only topples from the crest, drops below for a time of lying fallow, and may again rise as an ever present pretender for the throne. Moreover, in practice, things are complicated by the fact that the new hegemony is usually not a pure instance of a restoration of earlier form, but one involving the presence of features from other junior schools, even features (but now in a subordinate role) inherited from its predecessor on the throne.
Importance of Propp Transformations in Folk Tales: 31 functions, 151 elements – but external determinations of change
Write your own fairy story...
4. The Dominant
Jakobson’s Communication Model -- from "Linguistics and Poetics"
context
referential
message
poetic
addresser
emotive
______________________
addressee
connative
contact
phatic
code
metalinguistic
the shifting dominant
the concept of the dominant was particularly fruitful…The dominant may be defined as the focusing component of a work of art: it rules, determines, and transforms the remaining components. It is the dominant which guarantees the integrity of the structure.
For example, it is evident that in Renaissance art such a dominant, such an acme of the aesthetic criteria of the time, was represented by the visual arts. On the other hand, in Romantic art the supreme value was assigned to music. In Realist aesthetics the dominant was verbal art, and the hierarchy of poetic values was modified accordingly.
a poetic work is not confined to aesthetic function alone, but has in addition many other functions. Actually, the intentions of a poetic work are often closely related to philosophy, social didactics, etc.(cf. Macherey) Just as a poetic work is not exhausted by its aesthetic function, similarly aesthetic function is not limited to the poetic work; an orator’s address, everyday conversation, newspaper articles, advertisements, a scientific treatise—all may employ aesthetic considerations, give expression to aesthetic function, and often use words in and for themselves, not merely as a referential device.
Inquiry into the dominant had important consequences for Formalist views of literary evolution. In the evolution of poetic form it is not so much a question of the disappearance of certain elements and the emergence of others as it is the question of shifts in the mutual relationship among the diverse components of the system, in other words, a question of the shifting dominant. Within a given complex of poetic norms in general, or especially within the set of poetic norms valid for a given poetic genre, elements which were originally secondary become essential and primary. On the other hand, the elements which were originally the dominant ones become subsidiary and optional. In the earlier works of Sklovsky, a poetic work was defined as a mere sum of its artistic devices, while poetic evolution appeared nothing more than a substitution of certain devices. With the further development of Formalism, there arose the accurate conception of a poetic work as a structured system, a regularly ordered hierarchical set of artistic devices. Poetic evolution is a shift in this hierarchy. The hierarchy of artistic devices changes within the framework of a given poetic genre; the change, moreover, affects the hierarchy of poetic genres, and, simultaneously, the distribution of artistic devices among the individual genres. Genres which were originally secondary paths, subsidiary variants, now come to the fore, whereas the canonical genres are pushed toward the rear.
Finally, the problem of changes in the mutual relationship between the arts and other closely related cultural domains arises, especially with respect to the mutual relationship between literature and other kinds of verbal messages. Here the instability of boundaries, the change in the content and extent of the individual domains, is particularly illuminating. Of special interest for investigators are the transitional genres. In certain periods such genres are evaluated as extraliterary and extra-poetical, while in other periods they may fulfil an important literary function because they comprise those elements which are about to be emphasized by belles lettres, whereas the canonical literary forms are deprived of these elements. Such transitional genres are, for example, the various forms of littérature intime—letters, diaries, notebooks, travelogues, etc.—which in certain periods (for example, in the Russian literature of the first half of the nineteenth century) serve an important function within the total complex of literary values.
In other words, continual shifts in the system of artistic values imply continual shifts in the evaluation of different phenomena of art. That which, from the point of view of the old system, was slighted or judged to be imperfect, dilettantish, aberrant, or simply wrong or that which was considered heretical, decadent, and worthless may appear and, from the perspective of a new system, be adopted as a positive value.
Realisms -- see Jakobson's essay on "Realism in Art"
A: From the point of view of the author:
A1: Deformation of artistic canon to get closer to reality
A2: Conservation of canon as faithfulness to reality
B: From the point of view of the person judging -- i.e. reader/viewer:
B1:progressive subjective view of A1 – more accurate
B2: conservative subjective view of A1 -- distortion
B1’s view or primitive art confuses A2 with A1 -- i.e. sees conservative conventions of primitive art as revolutionary deformations
C: Nineteenth century realism: for B1 sometimes A1 then A2 (Lukacs)
for B2 sometimes A2 then A1
B1 needs to become neorealistD: Realistic devices: eg. metonymy (Anna Karenin’s handbag)
E: Reality of the work’s construction itself.
5. "On literary evolution" (1927):
The very existence of a fact as literary depends on its differential quality, that is, on its interrelationship with both literary and extraliterary orders. Thus, its existence depends on its function. What in one epoch would be a literary fact would in another be a common matter of social communication, and vice versa, depending on the whole literary system in which the given fact appears.
Thus the friendly letter of Derzavin is a social fact. The friendly letter of the Karamzin and Puskin epoch is a literary fact. Thus one has the literariness of memoirs and diaries in one system and their extraliterariness in another.
A literary system is first of all a system of the functions of the literary order which are in continual interrelationship with other orders. Systems change in their composition, but the differentiation of human activities remains. The evolution of literature, as of other cultural systems, does not coincide either in tempo or in character with the systems with which it is interrelated. This is owing to the specificity of the material with which it is concerned. The evolution of the structural function occurs rapidly; the evolution of the literary function occurs over epochs; and the evolution of the functions of a whole literary system in relation to neighbouring systems occurs over centuries.
A work is correlated with a particular literary system depending on its deviation, its "difference" as compared with the literary system with which it is confronted. What constitutes the interrelationship of literature with neighbouring orders? What, moreover, are these neighbouring orders? The answer is obvious: social conventions. Social conventions are correlated with literature first of all in its verbal aspect. This interrelationship is realized through language. That is, literature in relation to social conventions has a verbal function.
literary and extra-literary series
(compare this with Macherey)
letters, palace intrigue; salon gossip
Don Juan; Werther
orientation, set, evaluation
We use the term "orientation." It denotes approximately the "creative intention of the author. Furthermore, the author’s intention can only be a catalyst. In using a specific literary material, the author may yield to it, thus departing from his first intention. (cf. Macherey)
Eichenbaum: How Gogol’s "Overcoat" was made – for the sake of skaz -- i.e. for the sake of intonation, set, orientation
dialogism and polyphony
To summarize, the study of literary evolution is possible only in relation to literature as a system, interrelated with other systems and conditioned by them. Investigation must go from constructional function to literary function; from literary function to verbal function [i.e. its interrelationship with the social conventions]. It must clarify the problem of the evolutionary interaction of functions and forms. The study of evolution must move from the literary system to the nearest correlated systems, not the distant, even though major, systems. In this way the prime significance of major social factors is not at all discarded. Rather, it must be elucidated to its full extent through the problem of the evolution of literature. This is in contrast to the establishment of the direct "influence" of major social factors, which replaces the study of evolution of literature with the study of the modification of literary works—that is to say, of their deformation.
from autonomy to relative autonomy – the notion of a series of series reconnects literature to other discursive components/level – leads to current discourse theory
7. Formalism and change – summary:
1. Basically synchronic
2. yet notion of semantic shift, ostranenie, making strange implies change
3. Originally just substitution and mutation.
4. "Knight’s move" – minor to major, inferior to superior
5. Evolution
6. Analogy of class struggle
7. Elements to functions
8. The notion of different and asychronous social series
9. The notion of the shifting dominant – aesthetic, referential, emotive etc
10. Typologies of realisms
11. Dialogic orientations, sets, intonations – looking forward to Bakhtin, Volosinov, Medvedev
