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Russian Formalism is a literary criticism school that emphasizes the text as the focus of investigation. It rejects interpretation based on ideology, history, or psychology. The Formalists advocated a scientific method of studying literature, with defamiliarization as a key feature. It influenced structuralism and new criticism.
Russian Formalism is a Russian-formed school of literary criticism that became highly influential in the early decades of the 1900s. Some of its concepts are still in use today in literary criticism. Its central tenant is that the text of the writer’s work should be the focus of any investigation or criticism concerning the work. Russian formalists believed that literature, including poetry, should not be interpreted on the basis of ideologies, historical interests or psychological principles. Literary art is the total effect of the literary devices and “strategies” that the writer uses to achieve her goals.
Scholars point out that Russian formalism is not the precise term for the school of criticism. Many of its early adherents could not agree on what all of its principles and goals should be. They considered themselves simply “formalists”. In the 1930s, Russian authorities used the term formalist as a pejorative to describe any “elitist” artist.
The Formalists advocated a goal and what they considered a “scientific” method of studying literature and poetic language. Literary scholarship was thought to be a distinct field of study, separate from the disciplines of psychology and sociology. Only those features that distinguish literature from all other types of thinking and expression should be subjected to critical study.
A key feature that the Formalists identified as distinguishing the literature from other endeavors was its use of “defamiliarization.” This term refers to the way literature uses language in new, unfamiliar, and even strange ways. The writer is in control of a universe of her own creation. She can explain the world in a whole new light through her choice of language and story construction. What the writer says cannot be separated from how she says it.
Formalists believed that literature has its own history and distinct innovations. It is up to the writers to find new approaches to defamiliarization. Two modern examples of the literary strategy of defamiliarization are James Joyce’s “stream of consciousness” writing and Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s use of magical realism in his novels.
Russian formalism influenced the literary theory of structuralism. Structuralism argues that the relationships between concepts depend on the culture and language in which the concepts are created. These relationships can be discovered and studied.
The “new criticism” school is comparable to, although not evolved from, Russian formalism. Both schools of thought believe that literature should be studied on its own terms. It cannot be evaluated in terms of cultural and historical “externalities”. The focus of study should be the literary strategies and craft of the writer.
