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NARD50 Russian Formalism+
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NARD50 Russian Formalism
Translation – reception – application

Adobe Systems
NARD50 – Part II. Overview of RF
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Part I. Overview of Russian Formalism
̶Readings:
̶Emerson, Caryl. “Critical Models, Committed Readers, and Three Russian Ideas.” In: The Cambridge
Introduction to Russian Litetature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008): 11-33.
̶Steiner’s three metaphors of RF
̶The Machine
̶The Organism
̶The System
̶Eagleton, Terry. Theory of Literature.

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NARD50 – Part II. Overview of RF
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Brief history of RF
l1910s
lMoscow Linguistic Circle, OPOJAZ (Society for the Study of Poetic Language)
-linguists, literary scholars
lReaction to:
-Romanticism
-Positivism
-Psychology
lPost-1917 development (Soviet “science”, emigration)
lInternational recognition (Prague, U.S.A., France)
̶

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NARD50 – Part II. Overview of RF
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Aims and Goals
lLiterary work as an independent object
l“Literariness”
lThe literary form – the world
lConcepts:
-Automatism – Defamiliarization
-Causality – Teleology
-Material – Method/Devices
-Fabula (story) – Syuzhet (plot)

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NARD50 – Part II. Overview of RF
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Concepts I
lLiterary work as an independent object
l“Literariness”
lThe literary form – the world
lConcepts:
-Automatism – Defamiliarization
-Causality – Teleology
-Material – Method/Devices
-Fabula (story) – Syuzhet (plot)

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NARD50 – Part II. Overview of RF
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Concepts II
lCausality – Teleology
-ordering of “facts”
lMaterial – Method/Devices
-parts and the whole
-e.g. metaphors
lFabula – Syuzhet
lorder of events – narration of events
̶

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NARD50 – Part II. Overview of RF
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lBoris Eikhenbaum
-Theory of the "Formal Method"
ltheory derives from material
lthere is no finished science
lresearch as method, not a dogma/ideology
lYuri Tynyanov
-the form has a meaning-constitutive function and a priority over the content
-study of complex structures, evolution(s) of genre(s), work-centered method
-“system” → hierarchy within a work of art
̶

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NARD50 – Part II. Overview of RF
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lRoman Jakobson
lLiterariness
lPLC
lbinary structures (dynamic, mutually dependent oppositions)
lthe communication model
lfunctions of language:
lmetonymy – metaphor opposition
̶

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NARD50 – Part II. Overview of RF
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lVladimir Propp: Morphology of the Folktale
-Russian magical fairy-tales, epic ballads (byliny)
-a single action may be performed by different “persons” → 31 functions (separation, return,
discovery, punishment...) → roles (hero, villain, helper...)
-a hierarchichal, structured system
-A. J. Greimas, C. Bremond, T. Todorov

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NARD50 – Part I.
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Part II. Translating Russian Formalism
(seminar discussion)
̶Reading:
̶Sher, Benjamin. “Skhlovsky and the Revolution.” In: Theory of Prose by Victor Shklovsky,
translated by B. Sher (Champaign & London: Dalkey Archive Press, 1991): xv–xxi.
̶Problems of translation
̶Russian/English tradition(s)
̶Idealistic and Neo-positivistic tendiencies
̶Focus on Shklovsky

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NARD50 – Part III. Discussion
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Part III. RF for the English Reader
(seminar discussion)
̶Shklovsky, Viktor. “Art as Device.” In: Theory of Prose, translated by B. Sher (Champaign &
London: Dalkey Archive Press, 1991): 1–14.
̶Focus on: terminology, argument, historical context, examples
̶Defamiliarization
̶

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NARD50 – Part III. Discussion
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̶Booth, Wayne C. “Introduction.” In: Problems of Dostoyevsky’s Poetics by Mikhail Bakhtin,
translated and edited by Caryl Emerson (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984):
xiii–xxviii.
̶Focus on:
-dialogism, polyphony
lProblems of Dostoevsky’s Art
-carnevalesque, grotesque
lRabelais and His World
-chronotopes; motifs (fool, picaro, idyll)
lThe Dialogic Imagination
l“From the Prehistory of the Novelistic Discourse”
̶

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NARD50 – Part III. Discussion
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̶Bakhtin, Mikhail. “From the Prehistory of Novelistic Discourse.” In: The Dialogic Imagination:
Four Essays, translated by M. Holquist (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1981): 41–83.
̶Focus on: terminology, argument, historical context, examples
̶The novel

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NARD50 – Part III. Discussion
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Bibliography
̶*Bakhtin, Mikhail. “From the Prehistory of Novelistic Discourse.” In: The Dialogic Imagination:
Four Essays, translated by M. Holquist (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1981): 41–83.
̶*Booth, Wayne C. “Introduction.” In: Problems of Dostoyevsky’s Poetics by Mikhail Bakhtin,
translated and edited by Caryl Emerson (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984):
xiii–xxviii.
̶Emerson, Caryl. “Critical Models, Committed Readers, and Three Russian Ideas.” In: The Cambridge
Introduction to Russian Litetature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008): 11-33.
̶Erlich, Victor. Russian Formalism: History – Doctrine (The Hague: De Gruyter Mouton, 1980), eBook
(EBSCOhost).
̶Holquist, Michael. Dialogism: Bakhtin and His World (London: Routledge, 2002 [1990]).
̶*Sher, Benjamin. “Skhlovsky and the Revolution.” In: Theory of Prose by Victor Shklovsky,
translated by B. Sher (Champaign & London: Dalkey Archive Press, 1991): xv–xxi.
̶*Shklovsky, Viktor. “Art as Device.” In: Theory of Prose, translated by B. Sher (Champaign &
London: Dalkey Archive Press, 1991): 1–14.
̶Steiner, Peter. Russian Formalism: A Metapoetics (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984).
̶Thompson, Ewa M. Russian Formalism and Anglo-American New Criticism : A Comparative Study. (The
Hague: De Gruyter Mouton, 1971), eBook (EBSCOhost).
̶Wellek, René. “13: Russian Formalism,” and “15: Mikhail Bakhtin.” In: A History of Modern
Criticism: 1750–1950. Vol. 7: German, Russian, and Eastern European Criticism: 1900–1950 (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1991): 318–47 and 354–71.
̶
̶* these are compulsory readings for the class