Russian Formalism

Introduction to Russian Formalism and its Influence on Literary Studies

• Russian Formalism is a literary theory that emphasizes the importance of form in literature.
• It developed a method to identify the literary characteristics in different texts, with a focus on literariness.
• Literariness refers to the capacity of a text to be considered literature, and all literary texts need to have it.
• Before Russian Formalism, scholars studied texts based on biography, history, and sociology.
• Russian Formalism dismisses extratextual approaches and focuses on the specific qualities of the literary work.
• Defamiliarization is a key concept in Russian Formalism, which creates linguistic complexity to be understood and challenges automated perception.
• The narrative concept of function, developed by Vladimir Propp, is an important aspect of Russian Formalism.
• Propp identified 31 functions and 7 types of characters in folk tales, and a function is an act of character defined from the point of view of its significance for the course of the action.
• Russian Formalism has influenced many literary schools, including Stylistics, New Criticism, and Structuralism.
• Literary Stylistics, a school derived from linguistic Stylistics, studies language as artistic creation and literary language as an individual creation.
• Stylistics analysis starts from linguistic detail and connects to the psyche of the creator.
• Russian Formalism is considered to be the initiator of contemporary literary theory and arose during WWI with scholars such as Shklovski, Tomashevski, Tiniánov, Eichenbaum, Propp, and Jakobson.

Test your knowledge of Russian Formalism and its impact on literary studies with this informative quiz! From the key concepts of literariness and defamiliarization to the narrative concept of function, this quiz will challenge your understanding of this literary theory and its influence on literary schools such as Stylistics, New Criticism, and Structuralism. Whether you're a student of literature or simply interested in literary theory, this quiz is a great way to test your knowledge and learn more about this important movement.