Formalist
Criticism
Discussion Overview:
The theory, defined
The history/people behind it
Its Tenets/Rules/Conventions
Typical Questions Asked
Its Advantages and Disadvantages
The steps involved in its application to a text
The Theory,
defined
The Theory, defined:
According to Abrams, Literature is held to
be the subject to critical analysis by the
sciences of linguistics but also a type of
linguistics different from that adapted to
ordinary discourse, because its laws
produce the distinctive features or
literariness.
! Complete interdependence of
form and content is what makes a
text a literary
The Historical Content
of the Theory
Early formalism developed quite independently in
America and Russia but it was Russian formalism,
which flourished during the pre- and post-
revolutionary period in Russia, that had the more far-
reaching effects. Formalism rose to prominence in the
early twentieth century as a reaction against
Romanticist theories of literature, which centered on
the artist and individual creative genius, and instead
placed the text itself back into the spotlight, to show
how the text was indebted to forms and other works
that had preceded it.
Formalism,in the broadest sense, was the
dominant mode of academic literary study
in the United States and United Kingdom
from the end of the Second World War
through the 1970s, and particularly the
formalism of the “New Critics”.
Moreover, from the earliest meetings of
Formalists, they had been focused on what
Jakobson in 1921 started to call
‘literariness’ which makes a literary text
different from other genres.
Formalism wanted to discover general laws
which makes literature more specific and
close to science. According to the
Formalists, ‘literariness’ resides in poetry –
the initial focus of their interest – where
ordinary language becomes ‘defamiliarized’.
Beginning in the late 1970s, Formalism
began to fall out of favor in the scholarly
community. A number of new approaches,
which often emphasized the political
importance of literary texts, began to
dominate the field.
People Behind this theory
The Russian Formalist critics, Roman Jakobson,
Viktor Shklovsky, and I.A Richard are probably
the most popular proponents of formalism.
1.) Roman Jakobson was a bridge between Russian
formalism and structuralism. He was a founder member
of the Moscow Linguistic Circle and his all writings
reveal the centrality of linguistic theory in his thought.
He was also an enthusiastic supporter of experimental
poets. Apart from his linguistic research, Jakobson
gained respect for his very precise linguistic analyses of
classic works of literature. Jakobson attempted the
daunting task of trying to define “literariness” in
linguistic term.
2.) Shklovsky was the lead critic of the group.
Shklovsky’s main objective in “Art as Device” is to
dispute the conception of literature and literary
criticism common in Russia at that time. The aim of
Shklovsky is therefore to isolate and define
something specific to literature or “poetic
language”: these, as we saw, are the “devices”
which make up the “artfulness” of literature.
Shklovsky contributed two of their most well-known
concepts: Defamiliarization (“estrangement” or
“making it strange”) and the plot/story distinction.
“Defamiliarization” is one of the crucial ways in
which literary language distinguishes itself from
ordinary, communicative language, and is a feature
of how art in general functions, namely, by
presenting things in strange and new ways that
allow the reader to see the world in a different
light.
The plot/story
distinction, the second
aspect of literary
evolution according to
Shklovsky, is the
distinction between the
sequence of events the
text relates (“the story”)
from the sequence in
which those events are
presented in the work
(“the plot”).
3.) Ivor Armstrong Richards was an influential
literary critic and rhetorician. Richards’ books,
especially The Meaning of Meaning, Principles of
Literary Criticism, Practical Criticism, and The
Philosophy of Rhetoric, were seminal documents not
only for the development of New Criticism, but also
for the fields of semiotics, the philosophy of
language, and linguistics.
The
Tenets/Rules/Conventions
• The form and technique of the text is more
important than the content.
• The text is not connected to any other
influence.
• The text does not do anything with culture
or societal influence, authorship and content
but focuses on modes, genres and technique.
• The text stands on its own complete entity
not including the writer who wrote it.
Typical Questions Asked
How is the work structured or organized?
- beginning..next how does it end?
What is the relationship of each part of work to the work
as a whole? How are the parts related to each other?
Who is narrating or telling what happens in the work?
How is the narrator, speaker, or character revealed to
readers?
Who are the major and minor characters, what do they
represent, and how do they relate to one another?
What is the setting? How is the setting related to
what we know of the characters and their
actions? To what extent is the setting symbolic?
What kind of language does the author use to
describe, narrate, explain, or otherwise create
the world of the literary work?
*images *similes *symbols
- what are their function?
- what meanings do they convey?
Advantages:
The approach can be prepared without much
research.
Emphasizes the value of literature apart from
its context.
Disadvantages:
The text is seen in isolation.
It cannot account for allusions.
Ittends to reduce literature to little more than
a collection of rhetorical devices.
Denotation vs. Connotation
Specific,
exact, and Emotional and
concrete meaning imaginative
of a word association
The meaning that surrounding a word.
can be found in the Attitudes,feelings,
dictionary. and emotions
aroused by a word
Positive connotation: Being on the track team
made Alan slender and lean. (attractively thin)
Neutral connotation: Being on the track team
made Alan thin.
Negative connotation: Being on the track team
made Alan skinny and scrawny. (unattractively
thin)
Affective Fallacy
thebelief that the meaning or value of a
work may be determined by its affect on
the reader
Intentional fallacy
thebelief that the meaning or value of a
work may be determined by the author's
intention
I Vialed the Universe
by Leoncio P. Deriada
I vialed the universe
And laughed at the concentrated Gods.
But the Genie escaped with His halo of
riddles.
I pondered anew and unslept.
Thoughts were strange with the strangeness
of new towns.
Thoughts were as vast as the unvialed God.
I could not bottle or battle Him.
There: I saw Him mark in the matutinal mist
I surrendered.
Formalist Analysis of I Vialed the Universe
The poem “I Vialed the Universe” written by Leoncio P.
Deriada is a short poem that consists of nine lines. It has no
rhyme. It talks about the faith of the speaker which was
regained because at first, he does not seem to believe in
God; “I vialed the universe and laughed at the concentrated
Gods.” but through these lines, “But the Genie escaped with
his halo of riddles. I pondered anew and unslept. Thoughts
were strange with the strangeness of new towns. Thoughts
were as vast as the unvialed God”, and he realized that “he
could not bottle or battle Him”, because he is just a human
being and there is someone supreme over all creations;
“There: I saw Him mark in the matutinal mist” then
therefore surrendered to God; “I surrendered.”
Indeed after how long the speaker in the poem
tried to control his own life and attempt to be in
control and ignore the need for God, at the end, he
succumbed to the powers of those larger of those
larger than him. He realizes and encounters God’s
existence and eventually surrenders to Him.
