6 TWENTIETH-CENTURY LITERARY THEORY

2 ROMAN ]AKOBSON: 'THE DOMINANT'

The first three stages of Formalist research have been briefly char-
acterized as follows: (1) analysis of-the sound aspects of a literary
work; (2) problems of meaning within the framework of poetics;
(3) integration of sound and meaning into an inseparable whole.
During this latter stage, the concept of the dominant was particu-
larly fruitful; it was one of the most crucial, elaborated, and pro-
ductive concepts in Russian Formalist theory. The dominant may
be defined as the focusing component of a work of art: it rules,
determines, and transforms the remaining components. It is the
dominant which guarantees the integrity of the structure.
The dominant specifies the work. The specific trait of bound
language is obviously its prosodic pattern, its verse form. It might
seem that this is simply a tautology: verse is verse. However, we
must constantly bear in mind that the element which specifies a
given variety of language dominates the entire structure and thus
acts as its mandatory and inalienable constituent dominating all
the remaining elements and exerting direct influence upon them_
However, verse in turn is not a simple concept and not an indivisi-
ble unit. Verse itself is a system of values; as with any value system,
it possesses its own hierarchy of superior and inferior values and
one leading value, the dominant, without which (within the
framework of a given literary period and a given artistic trend)
verse cannot be conceived and evaluated as verse ....
We may seek a dominant not only in the poetic work of an indi-
vidual artist and not only in the poetic canon, the set of norms of
a given poetic school, but also in the art of a given epoch, viewed
as a particular whole. For example, it is evident that in
Renaissance art such a dominant, such an acme of the aesthetic
criteria of the time, was represented by the visual arts. Other arts
oriented themselves toward the visual arts and were valued ac-
cording to the degree of their closeness to the latter. On the
other hand, in Romantic art the supreme value was assigned to
music. Thus, for example, Romantic poetry oriented itself toward
music: its verse is musically focused; its verse intonation imitates

Reprinted from Readings in Russian Poetics: Formalist and Structuralist

Views, ed. Ladislav Matejka and Krystyna Pomorska (Ann Arbor, Mich.,
1978), pp. 82-7.
 Russian Formalism and Prague Structuralism 7
musical melody. This focusing on a dominant which is in fact
external to the poetic work substantially changes the poem's
structure with regard to sound texture, syntactic structure, and
imagery; it alters the poem's metrical and strophical criteria and
its composition. In Realist aesthetics the dominant was verbal art,
and the hierarchy of poetic values was modified accordingly.
Moreover, the definition of an artistic work as compared to other
sets of cultural values substantially changes, as soon as the concept
of the dominant becomes our point of departure. For example, the
relationship between a poetic work and other verbal messages
acquires a more exact determination. Equating a poetic work with
an aesthetic, or more precisely with a poetic, function, as far as we
deal with verbal material, is characteristic of those epochs which
proclaim self-sufficient, pure art, l'art pour l'art. In the early steps of
the Formalist school, it was still possible to observe distinct traces of
such an equation. However, this equation is unquestionably erro-
neous: a poetic work is not confined to aesthetic function alone, but
has in addition many other functions. Actually, the intentions of a
poetic work are often closely related to philosophy, social didactics,
etc. Just as a poetic work is not exhausted by its aesthetic function,
similarly aesthetic function is not limited to the poetic work; an
orator's address, everyday conversation, newspaper articles, adver-
tisements, a scientific treatise - all may employ aesthetic considera-
tions, give expression to aesthetic function, and often use words in
and for themselves, not merely as a referential device.
In direct opposition to the straight monistic point of view is the
mechanistic standpoint, which recognizes the multiplicity of func-
tions of a poetic work and judges that work, either knowingly
or unintentionally, as a mechanical agglomeration of functions.
Because a poetic work also has a referential function, it is some-
times considered by adherents of the latter point of view as a
straightforward document of cultural history, social relations, or
biography. In contrast to one-sided monism and one-sided plural-
ism, there exists a point of view which combines an awareness of
the multiple functions of a poetic work with a comprehension of its
integrity, that is to say, that function which unites and determines
the poetic work. From this point of view, a poetic work cannot be
defined as a work fulfilling neither an exclusively aesthetic function
nor an aesthetic function along with other functions; rather, a
poetic work is defined as a verbal message whose aesthetic function
is its dominant. Of course, the marks disclosing the implementation
of the aesthetic function are not unchangeable or always uniform.
Each concrete poetic canon, every set of temporal poetic norms,
8 1WENTIETH-CENTURY LITERARY THEORY

however, comprises indispensable, distinctive elements without

which the work cannot be identified as poetic.
The definition of the aesthetic function as the dominant of a
poetic work permits us to determine the hierarchy of diverse lin-
guistic functions within the poetic work. In the referential func-
tion, the sign has a minimal internal connection with the
designated object, and therefore the sign in itself carries only a
minimal importance; on the other hand, the expressive function
demands a more direct, intimate relationship between the sign
and the object, and therefore a greater attention to the internal
structure of the sign. In comparison with referential language,
emotive language, which primarily fulfils an expressive function,
is as a rule closer to poetic language (which is directed precisely
toward the sign as such). Poetic language and emotional language
often overlap each other, and therefore these two varieties oflan-
guage are often quite erroneously identified. If the aesthetic func-
tion is the dominant in a verbal message, then this message may
certainly use many devices of expressive language; but these com-
ponents are then subject to the decisive function of the work, i.e.,
they are transformed by its dominant.
Inquiry into the dominant had important consequences for
Formalist views of literary evolution. In the evolution of poetic form
it is not so much a question of the disappearance of certain
elements and the emergence of others as it is the question of shifts
in the mutual relationship among the diverse components of the
system, in other words, a question of the shifting dominant. Within
a given complex of poetic norms in general, or especially within
the set of poetic norms valid for a given poetic genre, elements
which were originally secondary become essential and primary. On
the other hand, the elements which were originally the dominant
ones become subsidiary and optional. In the earlier works of
Shklovsky, a poetic work was defined as a mere sum of its artistic
devices, while poetic evolution appeared nothing more than a
substitution of certain devices. With the further development of
Formalism, there arose the accurate conception of a poetic work as
a structured system, a regularly ordered hierarchical set of artistic
devices. Poetic evolution is a shift in this hierarchy. This hierarchy
of artistic devices changes within the framework of a given poetic
genre; the change, moreover, affects the hierarchy of poetic genres,
and, simultaneously, the distribution of artistic devices among the
individual genres. Genres which were originally secondary paths,
subsidiary variants, now come to the fore, whereas the canonical
genres are pushed toward the rear....
 Russian Formalism and Prague Structuralism 9
However, the problems of evolution are not limited to literary
history. Questions concerning changes in the mutual relationship
between the individual arts also arise, and there the scrutiny of
transitional regions is particularly fruitful; for example an analysis
of a transitional region between painting and poetry, such as illus-
tration, or an analysis of a border region between music and
poetry, such as the romance.
Finally, the problem of changes in the mutual relationship
between the arts and other closely related cultural domains arises,
especially with respect to the mutual relationship between literature
and other kinds of verbal messages. Here the instability of bound-
aries, the change in the content and extent of the individual
domains, is particularly illuminating. Of special interest for investi-
gators are the transitional genres. In certain periods such genres are
evaluated as extraliterary and extrapoetical, while in other periods
they may fulfil an important literary function because they comprise
those elements which are about to be emphasized by belles lettres,
whereas the canonical literary forms are deprived of these elements.
Such transitional genres are, for example, the various forms of
litterature intime-Ietters, diaries, notebooks, travelogues, etc. - which
in certain periods (for example, in the Russian literature of the first
half of the nineteenth century) serve an important function within
the total complex of literary values.
In other words, continual shifts in the system of artistic values
imply continual shifts in the evaluation of different phenomena
of art. That which, from the point of view of the old system, was
slighted or judged to be imperfect, dilettantish, aberrant, or
simply wrong or that which was considered heretical, decadent,
and worthless may appear and, from the perspective of a new
system, be adopted as a positive value ....
The shifting, the transformation, of the relationship between
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. It was the
Formalist research which clearly demonstrated that shifting and
change are not only historical statements (first there was A, and
then Al arose in place of A) but that shift is also a directly experi-
enced synchronic phenomenon, a relevant artistic value. The reader
of a poem or the viewer of a painting has a vivid awareness of two
orders; the traditional canon and the artistic novelty as a deviation