4.07.2006
Readings in Russian Poetics (Narrative)
Title
Matejka, Ladislav and Pomorska, Krystyna. Readings in Russian Poetics: Formalist and Structuralist Readings. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1978.
Field
Narrative
Summary
Let's do this one by Part and by essay, ok?
Part 1: This section of the book goes over the basic tenets of Russian Formalism, the reaction against Positivism and what is at stake in this method of literary analysis/history.
The Theory of the Formal Method: Boris M. Ejxenbaum: "The school of thought on the theory and history of literature known as the Formal method derived from efforts to secure autonomy and concreteness for the discipline of literary studies." (3) Formalism isn't a method, it is putting literature as the object of study first (as opposed to Positivism which allow for a sociologizing of literature) "Art had to be appreaciated at close range, and science had to be made concrete...Their [the Formalists] basic point was and still is, that the object of literary science, as literary science, ought to be the investigation of the specific properties of literary material, of the properties that distinguish such material from material of any other kind." (7) Formalism focused on the sounds of verse, that verse was not the same as prose, that rhythm is important (and meter secondary to rhythm). Further, in studying literature, we can say that form (as opposed to method) is important, but especially form as understood as device. "What is clearly at stake here is the endeavor to predicate a unity of device over a diversity of material."(16) We have to distinguish between plot and story. "Form conceived as content itself, incessantly changing shape in relation to previous models, naturally required our approaching it without abstract, hard-and-fast classificatory schemes, but instead our taking into account its concrete historical meaning and significance."(29) "What interests us is the very process of evolution, the very dynamics of literary forms in so far as it may be observed in the facts of the past. The central problem of literary history for us is the problem of evolution outside individual personality."(33)
On Realism in Art, Roman Jakobson: On the problem of realism - realism for who? the author or the reader, who determines what is real and for whom is reality determined? "No one will call a 'key' a 'lock,' but this does not mean that the word 'lock' has only one meaning. We cannot equate with impugnity the various meanings of the word 'realism' just as we cannot, unless we wish to be called mad, equate a hair lock with a padlock. It is true that the various meanings of some words...are far more distinct from one another than they are in the case of the word 'realism,' whre we can imagine a set of facts about which we could simultaneously say, this is realism in the meaning C, B, A1, etc., of the word. Nevertheless, it is inexcusable to confuse C,B,A1, etc." (46)
Literature and Biography, Boris Tomasevskij: Do we need to know an author's biography to understand the text? Yes and no - if the biography is out there and created by the author himself, then yes. If we must create it ourselves, then no.
Literary Environment, Boris M. Ejxenbaum: "Literary-historical fact is a complex construct in which the fundamental role belongs to literariness - an element of such specificity that its study can be productive only in immanent-evolutionary terms."(62)
On Literary Evolution, Jurij Tynjanov: "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. It must clarify the problem of the evolutionary interaction of function and forms. The study of evolution must move from the literary system to the nearest correlated system, not the distant, even though major systems."(77)
Problems in the Study of Literature and Language, Jurij Tynjanov and Roman Jakobson: "Pure synchronism now proves to be an illusion: every synchronic system has its past and its future as inseparable structural elements of the system." (79)
The Dominant, Roman Jakobson: "The shifting, the transformation, of the relationship between the individual artistic components became the central issue in Formalist investigations. This aspect of Formalist analysis in the field of poetic language had a pioneering significance for linguistic research in general, since it provided important impulses toward overcoming and bridging the gap between the diachronic historical method and the synchronic method of chronological cross section...The Formalist studies brought to light this simultaneous preservation of tradition and breaking away from tradition form the essence of every new work of art."(87)
As the rest of the parts are more like case studies of what is discussed above, I'll just give a few lines on each part as opposed to each essay.
Part II - This section looks at folklore and how it differs from literary production as it has its generatation and maintanence in collectivity, further, it has recognizable, but mutated (in a way) devices that get repeated in all its iterations (this is exemplary of synchrony that isn't static and evolution in literature).
Part III - This section is on verse, verse v. prose, poetry, rhythm and meter, etc.
Part IV - This section is on speech and dialogue, indirect and direct discourse, etc.
Part V - This section comprises three formalist readings of different genres/texts - Old Russian Literature, The Mystery, and the Short Story. The two latter essays are quite interesting in the ways that it ties in the stuff from section IV on dialogue and secondary voice that is present to mislead (the mystery) or to make a joke/satire (O Henry's satire).
Part VI - I will summarize one of the two essays in this section which offer a summary of the Formalist tradition and contemporary interpretations of it.
Russian Formalism in Retrospect, Krystyna Pomorska: "'Literariness,' or those features which make a work literature, was proclaimed the material for investigation. A concentration of 'literary fact' itself was carefully observed against the sociological fallacy of Positivism, with its offshoots of biography and psychologism." (274) "The decisive factor for the structure of a prose piece was found in its suject (plot), the element of construction, in contradistinction to the story itself, which was recognized as and equated with the subject matter."(275) Formalism rejected the genetic approach to literature, focusing on classification and typology. On Propp's work on folklore: "it incorporates the two operations to which a work of art is subjected: the synchronic (descriptive) and the diachronic (historical). Moreover, it shows that the synchronic procedure should precede the diachronic, and that synchrony is not static but dynamic."(276) "The theory of evolution, taken as changes of artistic forms according to their own immanent laws, largely refuted the question of 'progress' and showed the impossibility of applying it to art." (278)
Keywords
Literariness, Plot, Story, Synchronic, Diachronic, Evolutionary, Form, Device.
Matejka, Ladislav and Pomorska, Krystyna. Readings in Russian Poetics: Formalist and Structuralist Readings. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1978.
Field
Narrative
Summary
Let's do this one by Part and by essay, ok?
Part 1: This section of the book goes over the basic tenets of Russian Formalism, the reaction against Positivism and what is at stake in this method of literary analysis/history.
The Theory of the Formal Method: Boris M. Ejxenbaum: "The school of thought on the theory and history of literature known as the Formal method derived from efforts to secure autonomy and concreteness for the discipline of literary studies." (3) Formalism isn't a method, it is putting literature as the object of study first (as opposed to Positivism which allow for a sociologizing of literature) "Art had to be appreaciated at close range, and science had to be made concrete...Their [the Formalists] basic point was and still is, that the object of literary science, as literary science, ought to be the investigation of the specific properties of literary material, of the properties that distinguish such material from material of any other kind." (7) Formalism focused on the sounds of verse, that verse was not the same as prose, that rhythm is important (and meter secondary to rhythm). Further, in studying literature, we can say that form (as opposed to method) is important, but especially form as understood as device. "What is clearly at stake here is the endeavor to predicate a unity of device over a diversity of material."(16) We have to distinguish between plot and story. "Form conceived as content itself, incessantly changing shape in relation to previous models, naturally required our approaching it without abstract, hard-and-fast classificatory schemes, but instead our taking into account its concrete historical meaning and significance."(29) "What interests us is the very process of evolution, the very dynamics of literary forms in so far as it may be observed in the facts of the past. The central problem of literary history for us is the problem of evolution outside individual personality."(33)
On Realism in Art, Roman Jakobson: On the problem of realism - realism for who? the author or the reader, who determines what is real and for whom is reality determined? "No one will call a 'key' a 'lock,' but this does not mean that the word 'lock' has only one meaning. We cannot equate with impugnity the various meanings of the word 'realism' just as we cannot, unless we wish to be called mad, equate a hair lock with a padlock. It is true that the various meanings of some words...are far more distinct from one another than they are in the case of the word 'realism,' whre we can imagine a set of facts about which we could simultaneously say, this is realism in the meaning C, B, A1, etc., of the word. Nevertheless, it is inexcusable to confuse C,B,A1, etc." (46)
Literature and Biography, Boris Tomasevskij: Do we need to know an author's biography to understand the text? Yes and no - if the biography is out there and created by the author himself, then yes. If we must create it ourselves, then no.
Literary Environment, Boris M. Ejxenbaum: "Literary-historical fact is a complex construct in which the fundamental role belongs to literariness - an element of such specificity that its study can be productive only in immanent-evolutionary terms."(62)
On Literary Evolution, Jurij Tynjanov: "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. It must clarify the problem of the evolutionary interaction of function and forms. The study of evolution must move from the literary system to the nearest correlated system, not the distant, even though major systems."(77)
Problems in the Study of Literature and Language, Jurij Tynjanov and Roman Jakobson: "Pure synchronism now proves to be an illusion: every synchronic system has its past and its future as inseparable structural elements of the system." (79)
The Dominant, Roman Jakobson: "The shifting, the transformation, of the relationship between the individual artistic components became the central issue in Formalist investigations. This aspect of Formalist analysis in the field of poetic language had a pioneering significance for linguistic research in general, since it provided important impulses toward overcoming and bridging the gap between the diachronic historical method and the synchronic method of chronological cross section...The Formalist studies brought to light this simultaneous preservation of tradition and breaking away from tradition form the essence of every new work of art."(87)
As the rest of the parts are more like case studies of what is discussed above, I'll just give a few lines on each part as opposed to each essay.
Part II - This section looks at folklore and how it differs from literary production as it has its generatation and maintanence in collectivity, further, it has recognizable, but mutated (in a way) devices that get repeated in all its iterations (this is exemplary of synchrony that isn't static and evolution in literature).
Part III - This section is on verse, verse v. prose, poetry, rhythm and meter, etc.
Part IV - This section is on speech and dialogue, indirect and direct discourse, etc.
Part V - This section comprises three formalist readings of different genres/texts - Old Russian Literature, The Mystery, and the Short Story. The two latter essays are quite interesting in the ways that it ties in the stuff from section IV on dialogue and secondary voice that is present to mislead (the mystery) or to make a joke/satire (O Henry's satire).
Part VI - I will summarize one of the two essays in this section which offer a summary of the Formalist tradition and contemporary interpretations of it.
Russian Formalism in Retrospect, Krystyna Pomorska: "'Literariness,' or those features which make a work literature, was proclaimed the material for investigation. A concentration of 'literary fact' itself was carefully observed against the sociological fallacy of Positivism, with its offshoots of biography and psychologism." (274) "The decisive factor for the structure of a prose piece was found in its suject (plot), the element of construction, in contradistinction to the story itself, which was recognized as and equated with the subject matter."(275) Formalism rejected the genetic approach to literature, focusing on classification and typology. On Propp's work on folklore: "it incorporates the two operations to which a work of art is subjected: the synchronic (descriptive) and the diachronic (historical). Moreover, it shows that the synchronic procedure should precede the diachronic, and that synchrony is not static but dynamic."(276) "The theory of evolution, taken as changes of artistic forms according to their own immanent laws, largely refuted the question of 'progress' and showed the impossibility of applying it to art." (278)
Keywords
Literariness, Plot, Story, Synchronic, Diachronic, Evolutionary, Form, Device.
# posted by SMRT : 4:23 PM
