Formalism is an approach to analyzing literature that focuses on the form of the text rather than its content or context. It originated with Russian Formalism in the early 20th century. Key concepts include Viktor Shklovsky's idea of "defamiliarization" where a text makes the familiar strange, and Roman Jakobson's identification of the six functions of language. Formalism sees language as the foundational element of literature and examines how meaning is derived from a text's literary devices, form, and style rather than external influences.

1. Literary Theory & Criticism:
Unit 2
Formalism,
Structuralism
& Post-structuralism

2. Formalism: Form and content are inextricable.
Linguistic Turn Cultural Turn
Russian Formalism New Criticism
- Viktor Shklovsky Human Liberalism
- Roman Jackobson

3. Linguistic Formalism: Basic Concepts
• Scientific approach to literary analysis, based on the science of linguistics (the
systematic and theorized study of language).
• Language is the foundational element of literature, but the language of literature
is distinct from the ordinary use of language, and independent of external
conditions.
Through defamiliarization
• What is said and How it is said are indissoluble.
Fabula (story) Sjuzhet (plot)

4. Viktor Shklovsky (1893 – 1984)
• Concept of ostranenie (‘estrangement’) or defamiliarization in ‘Art as Technique’ (also
translated as ‘Art as Device’),Theory of Prose (1925).
• The need to turn concepts or ideas that have become over-familiar into ‘estranged’
concepts and ideas (e.g. allegories, fables, fairy tales, poetry, etc.).
• "The purpose of art is to impart the sensation of things as they are perceived and not as
they are known. The technique of art is to make objects 'unfamiliar', to make forms
difficult, to increase the difficulty and length of perception because the process of
perception is an aesthetic end in itself and must be prolonged. Art is a way of
experiencing the artfulness of an object; the object is not important."

5. Roman Jackobson (1896 – 1982)
Identified 6 functions of language:
1. referential (context: descriptive, e.g. deixis)
2. aesthetic/poetic (message ‘for its own sake’: operative)
3. emotive/expressive/affective (sender: self-expression)
4. conative (receiver, e.g. vocative or imperative)
5. phatic (channel/ medium of interaction, e.g. greetings)
6. Metalingual (code: language explains language)
Corresponding to the 6 factors affecting communication

6. Cultural Formalism/ Neoformalism
New Criticism: Basic Concepts
• Literature emanates from the natural processes of human consciousness.
• T.S. Eliot (1888 – 1965) in ‘Hamlet and His Problems’: Objective-Correlative.
• 4 different approaches:
- Affective fallacy: meaning lies in the text, not in the reader.
- Intentional fallacy: abstraction of authorial intention (the text as an object).
- Intrinsic approach: the text can be understood from within itself; external
factors are not relevant to understanding the text (Ivor Armstrong Richards).
- Formalistic approach: detailed analysis of form (e.g. stylistics).

7. Cultural Formalism/ Neoformalism
Human Liberalism: Basic Concepts
• Intrinsic, yet universal meaning of literary texts.
• Literature is of timeless significance.
• Human nature is unchanging.
• Purpose of literature is to uphold basic human values.
• Literature should be sincere, yet subtle.
• Enactment/ embodiment of values, rather than explanation.
• Organic fusion of form and content.

8. Formalism
Unit 2, Part 1
The End