Formalism Literary Theory

 Formalism literary theory 

Formalism

• ·           Introduction
• ·         Defamiliarisation
• ·         Agendas of Russian formalism
• ·         Reaction
• ·         conclusion

Formalism is a form of literary theory and literary criticism that deals primarily with the structure of a given text. This theory analyzes and interprets the text by focusing on its characteristics. It rejects external influences such as authorship, culture and social influences and focuses on style, form, gender and discourse. It can thus be argue that this method of criticism diminishes the historical, cultural, and biographical perspective of literary works. Formalists focus on features such as grammar, syntax, structure, and literary devices. Formalism is seen for formal instruments. The focus is on the text and not on the context. It began with a practical criticism of I.A. Richardson in England. Richardson asked the students to interpret the poems without naming the poet. In this way, the student pays more attention to the text than to the poet's historical context, biography, or poem. Formalism as a movement began in Russia in 1910 and grew in 1920. 

There were two groups in Russia: the Moscow Language Society and the Prague Language Circle. The head of the Moscow Linguistic Society was Roman Jacobson. He was the famous man who said that the two basic structures of language are metaphor and metonym. 

Viktor Shklovsky led the other group. Who wrote an article "Art as Technique", ‘Literature is basically an ordinary language,’ he said. The literary language we use in literature is ordinary language, but we defame that language. The formalist thought that literary language differs from ordinary language, which is gloomy and used only for everyday communication. Formalists believe that the literary language has a very special function. The literary language is unique to them and has one purpose or another. For this reason, Roman Jacobson introduced the concept of "literariness," a concept that distinguishes a text from another piece of writing, such as a newspaper. The literary language differs from the colloquial language by its "literary quality". Anyone can turn ordinary language into a literary language using tools such as image, poetry, meter, rhythm, etc. Formalists focus on tools and technical elements such as prediction, satire, irony, and contradiction to create textual meanings. According to Roman Jacobson, "literature is an organized form of violence committed on ordinary speech". Ordinary language is transform into literary language through literature or other formal instruments. According to the formalist, the way something is said is more important than the way it is said. He was more interested in the scientific verification of the style. For them, the literary language is a special kind of language. He is interested in a form and design developed for the study of literary tools called "Foregrounding". The prelude to language is the use of literary devices to deviate from the normal use of everyday language. According to Viktor Shklovsky, defamiliarization is a key element of Russian formality. With defamiliarization, literary writing disappears from everyday language and lets the reader see the world in a strange way. 

 For instance, Tolstoy defamiliarizes the acquaintance by not calling the familiar by its name. He describes something as if seeing it for the first time, an event as if it were happen for the first time. He avoids accepted names in his statements, names of its parts and related parts of other objects. For example in "Shame" Tolstoy "disables”, the idea of flogging like this: "to grab people who the law is broken, they have to be thrown on the ground and "to rap on their bottoms with switches". Alternates, and after a few lines "to lash about on the naked buttocks." Then he comments, “Just why precisely this stupid, savage means of causing pain and not any other - why not prick the shoulders or any part of the body with needles, squeeze the hands or the feet in a vise, or anything like that?” The well-known process of flogging has been made alien to both by proposing to change its form without changing its nature. Tolstoy uses the technique of "defamiliarization”. In other words, colloquial language does not have as much impact as literary language. The formalist says that when we interpret literature with social or political implications, we may not be able to enjoy the aesthetics of the text. Therefore, you are ignoring the context and background of the author. Formalism reacted to Marxism. Marxism has a habit of looking at everything in context. Formalist thinkers thought we were not looking at things out of context. The text does not need to be view from a historical perspective.

However, the formalism began in Russia but had ramifications in the United States and Europe. He sowed the seeds that eventually led to the structure. In the texts, he emphasized the terms literature, foresight and alienation.