• Literary theory is a set of concepts and methods
individuals use in the explaining or interpreting literature.
These theories help to reveal the true meaning of literature
through criticism and interpretation of the text.
Literary theory offers varying approaches for
understanding the role of historical context in interpretation
as well as the relevance of linguistic and unconscious
elements of the text.
•
All critical practise regarding literature depends on an
underlying structure of ideas in at least two ways: theory
provides a rationale for what constitutes the subject matter
of criticism – “the literary” – and the specific aims of critical
practise – the act of interpretation itself.
•
• Formalists criticism is a way in which the reader can
approach, analyze, and understand a text using
conversational narrative structures.
•Formalists
try to be objective by ignoring external factors
and focusing only on the literature itself.
Formalists see the literary work as an object in its own
right.
•
Formalism disregards environment, era, and author to
focus only on the work itself.
•
Formalists believe it is crucial to understand the
relationship between the symbol and the object,
experience, or emotion being signified.
•
Formalism can cause a reader to see a familiar object or
experience from a completely new perspective.
•
Formalism compiles of a thorough analysis of the motifs,
devices, techniques and other literary forms.
•
Formalists focus on the analyzing the irony, imagery ,
metaphors, characters, symbols and point of view.
•
Those who practise formalism claim they do not view works
through the lens of feminism, psychology, Marxism, or any
other philosophical standpoint. They are also interested in
the work’s affect on the reader.
•
Formalist critics are able to examine the relationship
between form and meaning in a work.
•
Formalism also called Russian Formalism began from two
groups:
•
The society for the Study of Poetic Language founded in
1916 at St. Petersburg (later Leningrad) led by Viktor
Shoklovsky.
•
The Moscow Linguistic Circle founded in 1915.
Formalism stopped being important in the Soviet Union in
1929 because of the lack of political perspective.
Roman Jakobson made Formalism, or Anglo-American New
Criticism influential in the West.
Formalism arose in the 1920’s and 1930’s and
flourished during the 1940’s and 1950’s.
•Formalism
began as a result of a group of men who met
regularly to discuss their interpretations and views of
the literature they read.
These men preferred to use a highly structured and
scientific approach to examining literature .
•
Formalism was created in direct opposition to Marxist
literary theory in that Marxism believed literature was a
product of its author, influenced by the political and
social environment where as Formalism believed the text
should be viewed on its own terms.
•
Viktor Shklovsky was a Russian and Soviet critic, writer,
and pamphleteer. In 1916 he founded the OPOYAZ, one of
the two groups, with the Moscow Linguistic Circle.
Boris Eikhenbaum was a Russian literary scholar, and a
representative of Russian formalism. In 1918, Boris joined
OPOYAZ and participated in their research until the middle
of the 1920s. Eikhenbaum provided definition and
interpretation for the group and helped outline their
approach to literature.
Roman Jakobson was a Russian linguist and literary
theorist. One of the first of the structural analysis of
language, which became the dominant trend of linguistics
on the first half of the twentieth-century. Jakobson was
among the most influential linguists of the century.
Ivor Armstrong Richards was an influential English
literary critic and rhetorician. His books, especially
Principles of Literary Criticism and Practical Criticism
proved to be founding influences for the New Criticism.
Richards is regularly considered one of the founders of
the contemporary study of literature in English.
John Crowe Ransom was an American poet, essayist,
magazine editor, and professor. Ransom was a leading
figure of the school of literary criticism known as the
New Criticism, which gained its name from his 1941
volume of essays The New Criticism.
1.
2.
Tension. It often involves irony or paradox.
Intentional fallacy. Formalistic critics refer to the belief
that the meaning of a work may be determined by the
author’s intention as “the intentional fallacy”.
3.
Affective Fallacy. The belief that the meaning or value of
a work may be determined by its affect on the reader.
4.
Objective correlative. Originated by T. S. Eliot, this term
refers to a collection of objects, situations, or events that
immediately evoke a specific emotion.
Pros
Cons
Criticism done without a
research
Text is viewed in isolation
Emphasising the value of
literature apart from its
context
Formalism ignores the
context of the work
Makes literature timeless
Reduces literature to
nothing more than a
collection of rhetorical
devices
The charred west side of the house had silhouettes of “…
a man mowing a lawn…a woman bent to pick flowers…a
small boy, hands flung in the air; higher up, the image of a
thrown ball, and opposite him a girl, hands raised to catch
a ball which never came down.” The imagery in this quote
symbolizes life, but also how life can come to an abrupt
end.
• Literary devices:
- Cacophony: “…voices wailed. Fire, fire, run, run, like a
tragic nursery rhyme, a dozen voices, high, low, like
children dying in a forest, alone, alone.”
- Personification: “It quivered at each sound, the house
did.”
- Simile: “...it was dropped into the sighing vent of an
incinerator which sat like evil Baal in a dark corner.”
•
Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree, If mankind
perished utterly; And Spring herself, when she woke at
dawn Would scarcely know that we were gone.” This
rhyme sums up the entirety and meaning of the work
because it relates to how the house kept on functioning
and living even after the homeowners died.
Formalism, Encyclopedia Britannica
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/213786/Formalism
Vince Brewton, Literary theory, Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
http://www.iep.utm.edu/literary/
Form Follows Function: Russian Formalism, New Criticism, NeoAristotelianism; Perdue Owl
https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/722/03/
Nicole Smith, An Overview and Extended Definition of Formalism in Literature
and Theory, Article Myriad
http://www.articlemyriad.com/overview-formalism-literature-theory/
Louis Hébert, The Functions of Language, Signo
http://www.signosemio.com/jakobson/functions-of-language.asp
Viktor Borisovich Shklovsky, Encyclopedia Britannica
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/541246/Viktor-BorisovichShklovsky
John Crowe Ransom, Poets from the Academy of American poets
http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/12
Work Submitted by:
Yulia Sankova,
Oksana Kaczala,
Kaitlin Montanera
and Eva Gross