Art as Technique

Victor Shklovsky is certainly the most erratic and probably the most
important of the Formalist critics. A charter memberof the group, he had that
rare combination of brillia11t origi11ality, combative11ess,and theoretical
flexibility required of a pro/1agandistduritig the early years of a mouemmt.
As Eichenbaum shows (" The Theory of the 'Formal Method'"), Shklovsky
touched most of the fundamentals of Formalist theory, was oflw the first to
define a problem, a11dfrequently pointed towards its so/utio11.He saw isme.1
clearly a11dslated them sharply-perhaps too sharply. Like T. E. Hulme or
T. S. Eliot, he was a master of the kind of slatemmt that disciples make
slogans ofand opponentsfind embarrassinglyeasy lo al/ack. Because he was
the most obvious and the most uulnerabletargetfor the Marxists and because
his attitude toward the Russian Reuolulio11was un11s11ally complex,1 he was
one of thefirst of the Formalists to attempt a compromise.By I 926 he was
trying to include sociologicalmaterial in his study of literature; his work on
~olstoy in 1928 analyzes War and Peace as a product of two irmoncilable
forces-the social class Tolstoy represmtedand the novel as a genre.2
"Art as Technique" (1917) is the most important statement made of early
Formalist method, partly because it announcesa break with the 011lyother
"aesthetic" approach available al that time a11din that place, and partly
becauseit offersa theoryof both the methodologyof criticism and the purposeof
art. Altlwu,t:h we have discussed the Formalists' quarrel with l'oteb,!ya i11
general terms, morespecificcommmt is appropriat, hue. Shkl01•skva/larkJ th,
views, both typical of l'otebitvaism, that "art is thinking i11images" a11dthat
its purpose is lo presmt the unk11own(most often the abstract or tra11Scendt11I)
in terms of the known. Theoretically, the views recog11ized 11eitherthe richness

I. Victor Erlich, RuJJinn FormaliJm: HiJ/O(Y-Doctrint (Vol. IV of Sla11istic l'ri11li11g.,

ed. Cornelis H. Van Sc:hon11~velcl;'S-Gravt'nhag-c; Mouton & Co.,
nnd Rej>Tintings,
1955), pp. 112-114.
2. Victor Shklovsky, "V~yntl i mir Lva Tolstovo (Formalno,sotsioloi:i,he,koyc
issledovaniye)" ["War and Peact of I.co Tolstoy (A Formalistic-Sociological
Study)"), Novy lef[New Lift], No. I (1928).
3
 RUSSIAN FORMALIST CRITICISM VICTOR SHKLOVSKY
4
woul~ ~dm_it:To the extent that a work o • 5
of poetry nor its intrinsic value. Empirically, the views were inadequate, as th~t ti is, ti ts like any other object. It m~ a.~tcan ,~e.e::i.peneuced, to the extent
Shklovsky points out. To use an examplefrom Wordsworth, the lines obyct means; it has however i .Y mem'. 111the same way that any
. ' , one a1vantage--• I • • l .• •
'/he worldis toomuchwith us; late and soon, erceptwn,
P · • for attractillu and i id' • . I 1.1 t l'JIJ;lltd l'J/1tria//), /i1r
-~ ,w 111galtenll Tl • • •
Gettingarufspending,we lay wasteourpowers: mea11111g, zt forces an aware11esr . ·i •. on. ms it not only bean
Shklovsky did not fiollow thz·s '1·<!/z.s d,111ea11mg u/1011ti/I' rtadrr. iiltlwu"!t
are cerlai11ly
poetic,yet it would be rash to argue that the poetic quality comes ·1h · 111ezt oes u d , ,..,
wz out mconsistencv. He p ,£ , 11en l11erange of his theory
from the deeply latent imagery. And at the end of his sonnet, Wordsworth p . . :.r rt.Jers to argue a d I •
erceptzonzs an md i11itself, that the ood Ii, . s oes . • A. Richards, that
resurrectsProteus a11dTriton as images to evoke a feeling that many persons
of the world. Art, to paraphrase Rich! d ife zs the lije of a manjidly aware
have hadjirst hand; the image hereis lessfamiliar than the thing it standsfor.
recordof and the occasionfor that aw: s and/o summarize Shklovsk_,•,is the
The Poteb11ya-.S)mbolistdescription of poetry, then, was inadequate both
Accordin to Shkl . re,zess.
theorf/ica/(yand /nactically. . "d·£ . ~ . ovsky, the c/uef technique1· •
zs '!;t1mzlzarzzatio11." It is ,iot , or promo/mg surh percef1tio11
Al thiJ time till' Fomwli.1l.111adeda critifal formula !hat would definethe so muc,1a de ••
a,ry number of devices. A 11011e! />0intof , . .vue ~s a result obtainable by
dijfere11cebetween lileralure and non-literature more /JTeciselymul more
ma~e a reader perceive by makin, a l 1ew:as M1klo1•.rk_y points 0111, WI/
p,enerallythan had been done, and that would at the same time state the
3 deliberately roughened rh~thm j,f!,_ ie .familiar seem strange. IV11rd11fa)'
pur/1oseof literature. Shklovsky's conceptof" difamiliarization" did both. .n: t ., . :r , or 1g11res 0 r rfi ·/ . 1 • ,
~ec . J>O smgle device then is , . l . '.I , u, I w11 all ftm,e the .1a111c
It was a/!flro/1riate historically, since, in effect, it simply tumed Potebrryaism b th ' , essenlla to po 1 • p •
ry e presenceof a certain ki11do'r I
'.I con mt or O r •
e ,y. oetry is . recognized
. ' not
upJidedown. Shklovsky's argument, brieflyslated, is thal the habitual way of
or wha/ever, but by its ability I r. '.I images, amb1,gwties,spmbols
thi11ki11gis lo make the wifamiliar as easily digestible as possible. Normally l evel l!J
,r
awareness. - o mal\e man I00 k • , an e.rre/1/iunal[y
witn • high'
our preceptio11s are "automatic," which is anotherway of saying that they are
mi11imal.From this sta11dpoi11t, learning is largely a matter of Leaming to
ig11ore.We have not really learned to drive an automobile,for example, u11til "Art is thinking in images " Tl • . •
111c mt abll' to react to the rele11anl stoplights, pedestrians, other motorists, stu.dents parrot, is neverthciess us max11~1,which evc11 higlt school {
road 11111ditio11s,and .rn 011,with a minimum of co11scious effort. E11e11tually, plulologist who is l>e . . • •• the start111g point for the c 1·
. · .g111nmg to p t t I ru( tte
we 1111~y
eue11 react/1ro/1er(y without actually 1wtfri11g what we are reacting lo-- literary theory. The idea .· . u '.lgct icr some kind of syqennt ••
"W. I . 'or tg111ated 111 1nrt I J> I ' l<
wr miss the /1edeslria11 but jail lo see what he looks like. Whe11reading It tout imagery there i., ' >y otc mya, ltas spre·1d
P t I , . s IIO art and in • I ' •
ordinary/1rose,we arc likely to/eel that somethingis wrong ifwejind ourselves o e mya writes.6 And el I , . .', par11n1 ar no poctrv"
, 1c:. SCWllte, Poetry •• II ·'
noticing the individual words as words. The purpose of art, accordi11glo ,me ioremost a special way 1· I . k' ' ,ts we as prose, is first
. o t 1111·mg l 11I k •
Shkloml.y, is lo ji1rcc 11.1 to 11olicc.Si11re/1erceptionis usual(y loo automatic, P oetry 1s a special . , . . • ' < 11ow111g."7
ti. k' . . w,1y of th111k111g··1 • . . •
art dn>tlo/1.1<1 11ari<-ty,!f tech11iq11e.1
lo impede /1era/1tio11 or, at least, lo call 1111 mg Ill images a w·1y I . ·I .• '. I IS, precisely, a w;1v 1 of
" economy ol • rnent·•I' ' 1r ' ,,w Ill I pcnn1ts • w Il,tt • •is gctHTtllv •• II I
allmlio11to themselucs.Tims "Art is a way of experiencing the artful- " e ,ort •t w·i • • • <,1 <'<
the rel; t' . ' ' • Y w 1lie 11 makes 1;)1• "· • • •
ness or an object; the object is not irnportant." 4 The object is u11im- 1 tvc c.isc of the procc .. " I\ , . . . .• <1 sc11satH>ll of

/wrta11tbecauseas art the poem does not have to point to arrythingoutside 5 I A R' I ss. , l st 1l<'ttc lccl111g is the react ion tu
• • ic iards, Scienceand
itsd{; the Jwem must "1101mean/But be."
This is not the place to debate the merits of co11Jlicling
aestheticsystems, but
%c,.·,\Kloder'.,
cnz1e (New York· ~
Poe/r)' ( I 92C
. • ,
i.1ark ;)I 1q:n111rdin C:rilici.,111: '{ he Fo1111d11!11111.1
l.itua~v Jud.1;ment, ed.
. 1iarcourt Bncc &c ('iortr, I .Joseplime
c t-.Iil.,,• , and ( :onion
we slwuld 1wle that Shklo11sky' s position is more subtle than its o/1po11ents 6 · Alexander Potcbny·i I ' . ' • ,o., 9AI), p. 513.
f • , z zap,sok I 1 ..
,angua.~e](Kharkov 1905) p 83 • ,o eon, slo1•es11osli[Ni,1,s "" the n 0 .f
3. The Russian word is ostr1111e11(ye;
it means literally "making strange." 7, Ibid., p. 97. ' , • ' • • ""'J'
·I. Sec bdow, p. I 2.
i
l
1
 VJCTOR SIIKI.OVSKY 7
RUSSIAN FORMALIST ClllTICISM
6 . • Ovsyaniko-Kulikovsky, 8 imageless art and to define them as lyric arts appealing directly to
Tl • • how the aca d em1c1an the emotions. And thus he admitted an enormous area of art which
I this economy. us is k f Potelmya attentively, almost
i cad the wor s o . f I• is not a mode of thought. A part of this area, lyric poetry (narrowly
who un<loub tc d y r . I I'. ll mmarize<l the ideas o us
t d and fa1t HU y su considered), is quite like the visual arts; it is also verbal. But, much
certainly un d crs 00 d" • \es consider poetry a
d J • numerous 1sC1p more important, visual art passes quite imperceptibly into nonvisual
teacher. Potcbny~ a~ ll\ . k" b means of images; they feel
special kind of thmkmg-t \I~ mgh \y hannel various objects and art; yet our perceptions of both arc similar.
f • agery 1s to e P c
that the purpose o im ·r I known by means oft 11e Nevertheless, the definition "Art is thinking in images," which
activities into groups and to clan y t 1e un means (I omit the usual middle terms of the argument) that art is
. as Potebnya wrote: the making of symbols, has survived the downfall of the theory
k nown. ()I , •
. . to what is being clarified is that: (a) the which supported it. It survives chiefly in the wake of Symbolism,
The relationship of the image h I . h undergoes change-the especially among the theorists of the Symbolist movement.
. r. d edicate of t at w uc
image 1s the nxe pr . h . rceivcd as changeable. • • • Many still believe, then, that thinking in imagcs---thinking in
. .. f . ttractmg w at is pc • .
unchangmg means o a d . I than what it clanfics.9 specific scenes of "roads and landscape" and "furrows and boun-
• f
(b) the image 1s arc ca I rer an s1mp er
daries" 12-is the chief characteristic of poetry. Consequently, they
In other words: should have expected the history of "imagistic art," as they call
. . d 5 by approximation, of it, to consist of a history of changes in imagery. But we find that
f • ry 1s to remm u , .
Since the purpose o image . d nd since apart from this, images change little; from century to century, from nation to 11ation,
• h the mage stan s, a '
those meanings for w 1iic
1
t be more familiar with the from poet to poet, they flow on without changing. I magcs hdong lo
imagery is unnecessary for th~ugh:~ we mus
.image tl1an with what it clarifies. no one: they arc "the Lord's." The more you understand an age,
,
. a I this principle to Tyutchev s the more convinced you become that the images a given poet used
It would be instructtve to try to PP/ f d dumb demons or to and which you thought his own were taken almost unchanged from
comparison of summer lightning to ea ant of God. I I another poet. The works of poets are classified m grouped according
. f the sky to the garmen . . ,, to the new techniques that poets discover and share, and according
Gogol's companson o . t"-" Art is thinking m images.
"Without imagery there is n~ arh d . terpretations of individual to their arrangement and development of the resources of language;
. I d to far-,etc e m •
These maxims 1iave e d to evaluate even music, poets are much more concerned with arranging images than with
t have been ma e creating them. Images are given to poets; the ability to remember
works of art. A ttemp s . . t' thought. After a quarter
l • oetry as 1mag1s 1c
architecture, an d ync p "k -Kulikovsky finally had to them is far more important than the ability to create them.
tt mpts Ovsyani o •
of a century O f sue I1 a e d • . to a special category 0 1 Imagistic thought docs not, in any case, include all the asp(·,t~ nfl
. lyr·,c poetry architecture, an music • art nor even all the aspects ofvnl>al ,u·t. A cl1a11gc i11 i1nagny is ti()(
assign ' .
. . . 11\3~,--1'120),a leading Russian scholar, w.'.~ essential to the development or poetry. We know that rreq11cntly
B. I h11itry Ovsya111ko-Kuhkovsk_y(_. I . I· lit,·rary n,nscrvativc, antagonisltto
. . r,..,\·n·xisl pcrunli< a~ ,UH .., . , an expression is thougltt to he poetic, to Ile created for aesthetic
·111nrly co11tnlmto1 lo • • • IC'.':SSp<Jt.:JU$ O 1·ti,•..., I'utunsts. J<.d.110/e.
' •
wwards the t!cliberatdy 111ea11111g_ • • . 314 pleasure, although actually it was created without such intent-c.g.,
. b / ,apisok po 1,or11 s/ovesrwsll,P· • Annensky's opinion that the Slavic languages are especially poetic
'I. Pote nya, z ~
10 Ibid., p. 291. t and Nicholas Gogol (lll09-IBS2), a and Andrey Bcly's ecstasy over the technique of placing adjective~
11. Fyo<lor Tyutchev (1803-1873), a poe: I I ere because their hold use of after nouns, a technique used by eighteenth-cent my Russian poets.
• . I t' are mcnuouec , . h I
u,aster of prose f1c11onam sa ,re, p b 's theory. Shklovsky is argumg l a
t I for hy ole nya I t the 12. This is an allusion to Vyachcslav lvanov's Uorozdy i ma.hi {J.iirrnws and
i11n'-"cf'-' cannot hr: at.:niun et . . b . ,parino the co111n1onp ace o
•" ' • I • ct\et'IS Y <011
writers rrcquc11tly ga111 I ,rir '
,., /JormdaritsJ (Moscow, 1916), a major stalcmc111 of Symbolist theory. Hd. rrolt.
exceptional rather than vice versa. Ed. note.
 VICTOR S11KLOVSKY
8 RUSSIAN foRMALIST CRITICISM
parison, repetition, balanced structure h 9
Bely joyfully accepts the technique as something artist1c, or more accepted rhetorical figures a l 11 l , yperbole, the commonly
·, IH a t 1ose method l•l l
exactly, as intended, if we consider intention as art. Actually, this t e emotional eAect f . • . s w He 1 cmp iasize
h 0 an expression (mclud· d
reversal of the usual adjective-noun order is a peculiarity of the articulated sounds) 14 B t . .• mg wor s or even
. . u poetic imagery only ext ll
language (which had been influenced by Church Slavonic). Thus a either the stock imagery off;a 11 db' a 11ads or thmkin
• erna •y resembles
J es an •
work may be (I) intended as prosaic and accepted as poetic, or e.g., the example in Ovsyaniko-Kulikovsk , g Ill images-
(2) intended as poetic and accepted as prosaic. This suggests that the which a little girl calls a b a ll a 1· le watermelon y s Language
p • and• Ari in
1tt
artistry attributed to a given work results from the way we perceive ut one of the devices of . l • • oet1c imagery is
b poetic anguage Prose • •
it. By "works of art," in the narrow sense, we mean works created by abstraction• a little wate . • imagery 1sa means of
1
special techniques designed to make the works as obviously artistic watermelon. instead of ar lmedo,~ mstlead of a lampshade, or a little
1ea 1s on y the b t •
object's characteristics that ,f d a s ract1on of one of the
as possible. • ' 0 roun ness It is d·,r
Potebnya's conclusion, which can be formulated "poetry equals saymg that the head and th e me Ion are both • roundno Tli11erent from
• •
imagery," gave rise to the whole theory that "imagery equals meant, but it has nothing t o d o wit. h poetry. • Hs 1s what is
symbolism," that the image may serve as the invariable predicate of
various subjects. (This conclusion, because it expressed ideas similar
The law Spen
Herbert] of the economy of creative
• e11ort
,r •is also generally accepted
to the theories of the Symbolists, intrigued some of their leading
[ cer wrote: •
representatives-Andrey Bely, Merezhkovsky and his "eternal
companions" and, in fact, formed the basis of the theory of Sym- I, On seeking for some clue to the law underl •
we may see shadowed f, I . - ymg 1h,.se currt"nt maxims,
bolism.) The conclusion stems partly from the fact that Potebnya ort 1 111 many of lh •111 ti •
did not distinguish between the language of poetry and the language
of prnsc. Co11scqucntly, he ignored the fact that there are two
aspects of imagery: imagery as a practical means of thinking, as a
l economizing the reader's

the desideratum
.
t d
I

.
h
or t lc carer's atlention T 0
that they may be apprehended will 1 h •
' , H' unportann: of
.•. so present ideas
t c leaSI possil,lc mc111al effort, is
owar s w 1uch most of the rules ab
means of placing objects within categories; and imagery as poetic,
as a means of reinforcing an impression. I shall clarify with an
[ pomt. ... Hence, carrying out th
vehicle of thought there ,
. .
friction .and
, stems reason to tlHnk ti • t 111
. inertia of th e vc IH<
. ·Ic. (Ie<Iurl from
. .its ·tr.·.
1
l,t
•
e metaphor that language is the
• • II
ovc quoted

. .,1. • rasrs th<"

•
example. I want to attract the attention of a young child who is compos1t1on the chief if 110 t ti . I h' • <. ' u nq
. ' , 1c so c t 111g to be do 1• , ,ind d
that m
eating bread and butter and getting the butter on her fingers. I call, fnction and inertia to the sm a IIest poss1.6 le amount.15 • ne, s to re uce this
"I Icy, butterfingers!" This is a figure of speech, a clearly prosaic
trope. Now a different example. The child is playing with my glasses And R[ichard] Avenarius:
13
and drops them. l call, "Hey, butterfingers!" This figure of
lf a soul poss<"ss iu<"xha11s1ibl,·stn·u~th
speech is a poetic trope. ( In the first example, "butterfingers" is indiflcrcnl to how mu . .
<.:1I m1g 1it
b sp<"nl
t·
· '.from1h,·n,this01•inl'xhaustibh-
11
co rs<', ii wo11ld lit'
source.
rnctonymic; in the second, metaphoric-but this is not what 1 want
14. Shklovsky is here doing t wo t 1u11gs • o f u1·1Jm
• ilw • I• '
argues that different techn· . . • orcll<'a 1111porta11rt': (I) he
to stress.) . . 1ques sci vc a smglc fun('tio1t • 1 1 •
Poetic imagery is a means or creating the strongest possible tee in1quc 1s all-imimrtanl Tl . .• • ,Ill< t tat (2) no single
.I . 1esc<omlp,·rn111sthcF·,· 1· •
impression. As a method it is, depending upon its purpose, neither will, any a11,l all li1crary I. . . . I . • • , I ina ists to be ,·011<·crned
. < t.v1cc.s' t '" ltrst pl'rmits lhcm 1·1 • •
more nor less effective than other poetic techniques; it is neither rrrnH-' ~,nglc co11sis1,·nt
,
tl <' . , · .. I . .
l OI( 1ll ,I 11us1II01i.
,
l•.d. nolt
• tn < ~<uss tl1<· dt'virf'!i

more nor less effective than ordinary or negative parallelism, cum- 15. Herbert Spencer, The /'/,i/vsof,h • n/St ,f.
New York, 11182) 2 3 ,
• •
) ; ) t [(llu111boldt Lihrary. Vol. XXXI\'·
. • PP· - • Shklovsky s quoted rd,·i..-m·,· 111 • •
1:1. Tiu: l{ussia11 text i11volV('Sa play 011 the wonl for "hat," colloquial for lhc idea of the original btit I . I • Russ1a11. prt"s<"rvcs
' s tor 1CIIS ll .
"clod," "duffer," etc. Ed. 110/e.
10 RUSSIAN FORMALIST CRITICISM
VICTOR SHKLOVSKY
only the necessarily expended time would be important. But since its .I n h is
• •
article, one of the first exam 1 . . . . . II
forces are limited, one is led to expect that the soul hastens to carry indicates inductively the contrast I ~ ~; of scientific cnt1c1sm, he
out the apperceptive process as expediently as possible-that is, with later) between the la~s of p t· I ( s a say more about this point
comparatively the least expenditure of energy, and, hence, with language.19 oc tc anguage a11d ti ie Iaws of-practical
comparatively the best result.
. We must, then, speak about the laws of ex d.
Petrazhitsky, with only one reference to the general law of mental 111 poetic language not on the b . f pen tture and economy

I
as1s o an analogy •ti
effort, rejects [William] J ames's theory of the physical basis of the basis of the laws of poet· 1 WI 1 prose, but on
. 1c anguage.
emotion, a theory which contradicts his own. Even Alexander If we start to examine the gcncnl l~w f .
Veselovsky acknowledged the principle of the economy of creative as perception becomes hab"t1 I .' b' so pcn:cptton, we sec that
ua It ecomes t • T
clfort, a theory especially appealing in the study of rhythm, and example, all of our habits retrca: into th au omatic. hus, for
agreed with Spencer: "A satisfactory style is precisely that style automatic; if one remembers th _earea of th~ unconsciously
which delivers the greatest amount of thought in the fewest words." speaking in a for . I _e sensations of holdrng a pen or of
And Andrey Bely, despite the fact that in his better pages he gave with his feeling :1;n e:~::~~c for the ~1·st time and compares that
numerous examples of "roughened" rhythm 16 and (particularly in time, he will a rec vJ; g the action for the ten thousandth
} . I . g . th us. Such habituation explains the pr· . I
the examples from Baratynsky) showed the difficulties inherent in b y w llc 1, m ordinary speech w I metp cs
poetic epithets, also thought it necessary to speak of the law of the half expressed In ti . ' . e cave phrases unfinished and words
• us process, ideally reali d • 1 .
economy of creative effort in his book 17-a heroic effort to create a replaced by symbols C I
• omp etc words are
ze tn a gebra, thmgs are
t .
theory of art based on unverified facts from antiquated sources, on speech; their initial sounds are barely ... 11(~ ~~pressed in rapid
his vast knowledge of the techniques of poetic creativity, and on offers the example of a b 'd r~ercc1vec • ' exander Pogodin
oy cons1 cnng the sente "l'J S .
Kraycvich's high school physics text. mountains are beautiful" in ti f. , f, . nee ic wiss
a' b. 20 1e o1m o a senes of letters.... • T , ~.,,
c-
These ideas about the economy of energy, as well as about the n1J

law and aim of creativity, arc perhaps true in their application to This characteristic of tho h
"practical" language; they were, however, extended to poetic algebra, but even prompts thug ti ~ot ofnly suggests the method of
. . . e c 101cc o symbols (I tt , .
language. Hence they do not distinguish properly between the laws 1111t1al letters) By this "al 1 . ,, e e1s, especially
. • ge Jratc method of ti1 h
of practical language and the laws of poetic language. The fact that ol>Jects only as shapes with i . . . oug t we apprehend
. . mp1ec1sc extensions• w, I
.Japanese poetry has sounds not found in conversational Japanese m thcll' entirety but ratlici· 1. , . . , e co not sec them
. . ccogrnzc t 11cm by ti • •
was hardly the first factual indication of the difierenccs between isttcs. We see tl1e ob· t I , ,_ 1e1r marn charactcr-
uec as I 1ougli It · J .
poetic and everyday language. Leo Jakubinsky has observed that know what it 15 • b ·t fi ,. we1c enve oped ma sack. \,Ye
Y I s con rgurat 1on but w . .
the law of the dissimilation of liquid sounds does not apply to poetic The object perceived t I .. ' I ' e see on 1y its silhouette.
' • • Hts Ill t 1c ,nanncr < f . , .
language. I 8 This suggested to him that poetic language tolerated the and does not leave eve11 ·1 J' . t . . ) p1ose pcrceptmn, fades
admission of hard-to-pronounce conglomerations of similar sounds. essence of what •t • r.
'
• '• u It·imate IY even the
ll s 11nprcss1011
t was is orgnt ten. Such perception explains why we
16. The Russian zatrud)'onny means "made difficult." The suggestion is that 19.
. Leo .Jakubinsk Y, "Sk op Icniye
• odinakov •kl, >I .
poems with "easy" or smooth rhythms slip by unnoticed; poems that are difficult poet,cheskom yazykakh" ("Th A . > I avnykh v praktichesko!ll ;
. e ccumulat,on of Id t" . 1 L" . .
or "roughened" force the reader lo attend to them. Ed. note. an d Poetic Language"] Sbomiki I I ( l(Jl 7) en tea iqu,ds Ill Practical
17. Simvolizm, probably. Ed. note. 20 ' ' - , pp. l'.i-:ll.
'. Alexander i'ogodin, ra.:;J•A,l.ak //•orcht,t1•0 lLan .
18. Leo .Jakubinsky, "0 zvukakh poeticheskovo yazyka" ["On the Sounds of P· 42. [The original sentence was• 1. • gu".!t' 11' :lit J (Kharkov, Hll3)
in ·rc11c11 ,_Lt · •
Poetic Language"], Sbomiki, I (1916), p. 38. with the appropriate initials.] , s mo111ar,i:11t,rlt la SuiJJt son/ btllts,"

I
I
I
.......
VICTOR S!IKI.OVSKY 13
RUSSIAN FORMALIST CRITICISM
12 to the extent that artfulness and artistry diminish; thus a fable
word in its entirety (see Leo Jakubinsky's
fail to hear the prose I . th other slips of the tongue) we symbolizes more than a poem, and a proverb more than a fable.
article21) and, hence, why (a ong w1 " 1 b . t' n" the over- Consequently, the least self-contradictory part of Potebnya's theory
• The process of a ge nza IO '
fail to pronounce it. . 't the greatest economy of is his treatment of the fable, which, from his point of view, he
• t· of an object perm1 s
automat1za 10n .' . d only one proper investigated thoroughly. But since his theory did not provide for
. ffi E'tl objects are ass1gne
perceptive e ort. I 1er 1 -or else they function as though "expressive" works of art, he could not finish his book. As we know,
feature-a number, for examp e . .. . Notes on the Theory ef Literature was published in 1905, thirteen years
by formula and do not even appear m cogmtton. after Potebnya's death. Potebnya himself completed only the section
. and meandering about, approached the
I was ckanmg a room ' h t I had dusted it. Since on the fable. 2 3
d 't member whet er or no After we see an object several times, we begin to recognize it. The
divan an d cou I n re . I could not remember
h bitual and unconscious, .
these movements are a b that if I had dusted 1t object is in front ofus and we know about it, but we do not see it 24 __
· • sible to remem er-so .
and felt that it was impos . I then it was the same as 1f hence we cannot say anything significant about it. Art remove~
and forgot-- that is, had acted unconsc10us y,
' •
I had not. If some conscious pers
on had been watc mg,
h' then the fact
I k' ng or looking on
• objects from the automatism of perception in several ways. Here !J
. d If I er no one was oo I , want to illustrate a way used repeatedly by Leo Tolstoy, that writer
could be estabhshe • ' 1owev , 1· f y people go on who, for Merezhkovsky at least, seems to present things as if he
'f ti hole complex ives o man
unconsciously, 1 ie w . ·r h had never been. 22 himself saw them, saw them in their entirety, and did not alter them.
unconsciously, then such lives are as _1, _t_e_Y ____ --"\
h' Habitualization evours works, Tolstoy makes the familiar seem strange by not naming the
And so life is reckoned as not mg. "If the whole familiar object. He describes an object as if he were seeing it for the
· ' wife and e ear O war.
clothes, furrnture, one s ' • ly then such lives first time, an event as if it were happening for the first time. In
. f eo le go on unconsc10us , I

I
omplex lives o many P P ,, d . ts that one may recover describing something he avoids the accepted names of its parts and
'f I I d ever been An art ex1s h
are as I t 1ey rn n . • k i·eel tilings to make t e instead names corresponding parts of other objects. For example, in
. fl'~··t ststomaeone '
the sensation o t e' I ext . . t the sensation of things as "Shame" Tolstoy "defamiliarizcs" the idea of flogging in this way:
ose of art 1s to 1mpar
stone stony. Th e purp k The technique of art "to strip people who have broken the law, to hurl them to the floor,
. d d 10t as they are nown.
they are perceive an I . . "
b' " fam1har to ma e iorm
k c s difficult to increase
' t and to rap on their bottoms with switches," and, after a few lines,
is to make o ~ects un , t' because the process of "to lash about on the naked buttocks." Then he remarks:
the difficulty and len~th odf'p<:rcelpfio~ must be prolonged. Art is Just why precisely this stupid, savage means of causing pain and not
. • sthettc en m 1tse an
perception is an ae b. t . the ob'}'ectis not important. any other-why not prick the shoulders or any part of the body with
. • • the artfullless of an o 'Jee ,
a way oj exjurzenczng ':.I' k d f m ttie 1 sensory to the needles, squeeze the hands or tlw fr<'l in a vis,·, or anytl,ing- lik<' th.it:'
• ( t' t' ) wor exten s ro
The ran!?;Cof poetic ar ts tc c ti concrete to the abstract:
.. 1· etry to prose irom ic I If I apologize for this harsl1 example, l>11tit is typic,d of'Tolstoy's w.iy
cog111t1vc, rorn po . ' I I t' 1d poor nobleman, ia of pricking the conscience. The familiar act of flogging is made
, D 1 nuixote-se 10 as 1c a1
from Cervantes or ',<; . . . . I rt of the duke-to the
• his hum1hatton m t 1e cou unfamiliar both by the description and by the proposal to change its
conscious IY b earmg . f 'f . from Charlemagne to form without changing its nature. Tolstoy uses this technique of
t D m Quixote o urgenev' 1
broad but emp Y c. . "Ch I s" and "king" obvious y "defamiliarization" constantly. The narrator of "Kholstomer," for
"k' " [m Russian are
the name mg k l] The meaning of a work broadens
derive from the same root, oro • f l.rchm.r 011 th, '/ h,orv of
23. Alexander Potebnya, h. /,kt~y /1/1 t,mii Jl1J11ts110Jti
Language] (Kharkov, 1914).
21. Jakubinsky, Sborniki, I ( 1916), 1897. [The date is transcribed
24. Victor Shklovsky, Voskrtsheniyeslova [ Tht Resurrution of the Word] (Petersburg,
22. Lro Tolstoy's [)iary, entry dated February 29 ' 1914).
.
1ncorrcc
·tty·, ,·t sh,mld read March I, 1897.]
-
14 RUSSIAN FORMALIST CRITICISM
VICTOR SIIKLOVSKY
example, is a horse, and it is the horse's point of view (rather than a The 15
re are people who call a tract of land th .
person's) that makes the content of the story seem unfamiliar. Here set eyes on it and never take a stroll . Tl e1r own, but they never
is how the horse regards the institution of private property: others their own, yet nev<·r s. ti on II\. iere arc people who call
b cc iem. I ncl the wl 10 I I .
et ween them is that the so-C'all I " ,, ,. n· at 1011ship
I understood well what they said about whipping and Christianity. 'I'h e< owners tr, ..u th. 0 ti .
But then I was absolutely in the dark. What's the meaning of "his ere are people who call . • ' H-rs llllJustl y.
} . women t 11e1r own or ti 1 11 • .. •
t 1e1rwomen live with oth ' e • w11·,·s," but
own," "his colt"? From these phrases I saw that people thought there • er men. And people str· r
was some sort of connection between me and the stable. At the time I life, but for goods they can call their own. • ive not or the good in
simply could not understand the connection. Only much later, when I am now convinced that th. • h .
people and ourselves. And ti I~ is t e essential clilTcrencc between
they separated me from the other horses, did I begin to understand. iere,01c not even . ·o .
·But even then I simply could not see what it meant when they called ways in which we are sup • . h ' . . consi enng the other
cnoi, ut cons1clermg jt t ti •
me "man's property." The words "my horse" referred to me, a living can bravely claim to stand hi her th . ts llS one virtue, we
creatures. The actions of . g I an Ill< n on the ladder of living
hor.-<",and seemed as strange to me as the words "my land," "my air," mui, at east those witl 1 I10 '
4
'tny ""'ah·r."
d ealings, arc guided by d \,· m 1 have had
wor s--ours, by deeds.
But the words made a strong impression on me. I thought about
The ho~se is_killed before the end of the stor·y
them constantly, and only after the most diverse experiences with t I1e na t b1tt the ma1111cr of'
people did I understand, finally, what they meant. They meant this: rra ive, Its technique, does not change: '
In life people arc guided by words, not by deeds. It's not so much that Much later they put Scrpukhovsk •'s b,){I . . . . . .
they love the possibility of doing or not doing something as it is the world, which had eaten and I _i k . ) • "hu h h,1d ,·.,1><T1<·11n·d t II<'
<1t111,mtoth('"' l 'l'l
possibility of speaking with words, agreed on among themselves, about pro fillably send neither I • 1II·c1 . ,.,,nun,· H')' could
• lls c, nor l11sfksh m 11• I115 • I
various topics. Such are the words "my" and "min-:," which they But since his dead bo 1 . • Jones anywhere.
( Y, w 111c1I had !{one •ib t • 1
apply to different things, creatures, objects, and even to land, people, twenty years was a great b ·d • • ou in t i,· world for
' ui en to everyone it l • I
and horses. They agree that only one may say "mine" about this, that, superfluous embarras r h , s Jllt'la was only a
sment ,or t e people For I .
or the other thing. And the one who says "mine" about the greatest needed him. for a long tim . I I I . • a ong tune no one had
' · c ie la< been a liur I· II
number of things is, according to the game which they've agreed to t h eless, the dead who hur· I ti I . ! 'n on a , But never-
IC( IC < ead found it n ...
among themselves, the one they consider the most happy. I don't know bloated body which · . I cussary to dress this
' immcc 1iatc y bcg·111lo rot 111 •
the point of all this, but it's true. For a long time I tried to explain it to good boots· to lay it in d • ' a good 11niforrn and
' a goo new coffin with I
myself in terms of some kind of real gain, but I had to reject that_ corners, then to place thi's ffi . new tasse s at the four
new co m m a not I fI d
explanation because it was wrong. Moscow; there to exhume . . b ier o ea and ship it to
Many of those, for instance, who called me their own never rode on this putrefying body swar ancient_ hones and at just that spot, to hide
' mmg w!l maggots • I·1
mc--although others did. And so with those who fed me. Then again, clean boots and to . • • • m s new uniform and
• cover Jt over completely with dirt.
the coa{·hman, the veterinarians, and the outsiders in general treated
me kindly, yet those who called me their own did not. In due time, Thus we see that at the end of the stor T .
technique even though th . . y o~stoy contmues to use the
having widened the scope of my observations, I satisfied myself that the . e mottvat1011 for it (ti .
1s gone. 25 le reason for I ts use J
notion "my," not only in relation to us horses, has no other basis than a
narrow human instinct which is called a sense of or right to private In War and Peace Tolstoy uses the sam .. .
property. A man says "this house is mine" and never lives in it; he only whole battles as if battl . e technique Ill describing
es were someth111g new Tl d . . ,
worries about its construction and upkeep. A merchant says "my shop," are too long to quote. it b , • iese escnpt1ons
. ,. 1 1
' wou c e necessary to extract a considerable
"my dry goods shop," for instance, and does not even wear clothes made
2:.i. See below, pp. 85-86 , r,or a discussion of t lie
from the better doth he keeps in his own shop. defamiliarization. Ed. note. motivational aspt'cts of
16 RUSSIAN FORMALIST CRmCISM
VJCTOR SHKLOVSKY
part of the four-volume novel. But Tolstoy uses the same method in h' h 17
is ands, until the boards were moved out from under him and 1
describing the drawing room and the theater: d ropped down." 26 1e
The middle of the stage consisted of flat boards; by the sides stood In ResurrectionTolstoy describes the city and ti . I
way. h . . 1e court 111 t 1 e same
painted pictures representing trees, and at the back a linen cloth was d '. e uses a s1m1lar technique in "Kreutzer Sonata" wl I
stretched down to the floor boards. Maidens in red bodices and white escnbes marriage-"Why, if people have an affinit . icn ie
skirts sat on the middle of the stage. One, very fat, in a white silk dress, they sleep together?" But he did not defamiliarize m;lyoft~~~!s~l:~~1s t
sat apart on a narrow bench to which a green pasteboard box was glued h e sneered at: gs
from behind. They were all singing something. Whey they had finished,
the maiden in white approached the prompter's box. A man in silk with Pierre stood up from his new comrades and made h.
the campfires to the other side of the road whe . is way between
tight-fitting pants on his fat legs approached her with a plume and
soldiers were held. He wanted to talk wi h ~e, It ~eemed, the captive
began to sing and spread his arms in dismay. The man in the tight sto ed h' t I em. fhe French sentry
pants finisht'd his song alone; then the girl sang. After that both re- PP Im on the road and ordered him to return Pierre di I b
111aincdsilent as the music resounded; and the man, obviously waiting not to the campfire, not to his comrades but to a. c so, ut
to begin singing his part with her again, began to run his fingers over harnessed carriage. On th<: ground, near ;he whrcl ~f :::~ndo~ed, u,n-
sat cross-le g d • 1 T . . . 1 carriage, ir
the hand of the girl in the white dress. They finished their song together, . g e m t ie ui·k1sh fashion, and lowered his head 1-1 .
motionless for at • h • k' ' • r sat
and everyone in the theater began to clap and shout. But the men and disturb d h' Song time, t 111lllg. More than an hour passed. No one
women on stage, who represented lovers, started to bow, smiling and nature; I im. uddenly he burst out laughing with his robust good
raising their hands. . d aug~-so l~udly that the men near him looked a:ound
In the second act there were pictures representing monuments and su~~nse at his conspicuously strange laughter. '
openings in the linen cloth representing the moonlight, and they raised Ha ha ha " laughr I p· . . /\ d I
soldier ;lid'• '11 ' c I<r re. n 1<' began to talk to hinisrlf. "'I 'he
lamp shades on a frame. As the musicians started to play the bass horn . n ta ow Ille to pass. They caught me, barred n1t·. !\le ll .
my immortal soul Ha I I . ,. 1 1 _ H
and counter-bass, a large number of people in black mantles poured
eyes. • ' rn, la, ic aughed with tea~s startirw
' ,., i11 I11s
,
onto the stage from right and left. The people, with something like
daggers in their hands, started to wave their arms. Then still more Pierre glanced at the sky, into the depths of the de1)arti11g I· .
stars "And II th' • • , P aymg
people camt' running out and began to drag away the maiden who had . • a is is mme, all this is in me and all this is I " ti I
P 1erre "And all thi th ' , ioug lt
been wearing a white dress but who now wore one of sky blue. They H - ·., I d 1
s ey caug 11 and put in a plankrd cndosun- "
did not drag her off immediately, but sang with her for a long time e smr cc an went off to his comradt's lo lie down to sleep.27 •
before dragging her away. Three times they struck on something
metallic behind the side scenes, and everyone got down on his knees
in ~{?::;tHh~ knowls Tdolsftoycan find several hundred such passages
• I • is .met .10 o seeing thing sou t O f tI1eir
• normal context
and began to chant a prayer. Several times all of this activity was
Is a so apparent m his last works. Tolsto d - 'b I
interrnptrd by enthusiastic shouts li·om the spectators. rituals he attacked . •r
. c I ti .is
_ . Y_. escn cc the dogmas and
icy wnc 11nla1111lra1·,s11bstit11ti11g cvcr)·ihy
Inea11111gsror the custo . ·1 1· • '
The third act is described: . nun y re tg1ous meaninas of the w . l.
common 111 d . I .• I r-. 01 t s
they consider:~ui~ lb~ltua. Many persons were painfully wounded;
... But suddenly a storm blew up. Chromatic scales and chords of wh t t asphemy to present as strange and monstrous
diminished sevenths were heard in the orchestra. Everyone ran about a hey accepted as sacred. Their reaction was due chiefly to the
and again they dragged one of the bystanders behind the scenes as the
26. The Tolstoy and Gogol translations, .
curtain lt·ll. Part 8, Chap. 9 of the edition of W d ~;e ours. 1 he passag<'occurs in Vol. I I,
Estes Co. in 1904-1912 Ed '" an tact published in Boston by the Dana
In the fourth act, "There was some sort of devil who sang, waving . . nott.
27. Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace IV p I
' ' ar 13. Chap. 14. Ed. tlOlt.
18 RUSSIAN FORMALIST CRITICISM
VICTOR SHKLOVSKY
i
technique through which Tolstoy perceived and reported his Erot1c
• su b'~ects may also be presented fi . . 19 I
environment. And after turning to what he had long avoided,
purpose of leading us a r: h .
way 1rom t e1r "re
guratively with the obvious
• • ,, 1
I
Tolstoy found that his perceptions had unsettled his faith.
organs are referred to in terms of lock and ~~gyn~:1011.'ii ~nee sexual
The technique of defamiliarization is not Tolstoy's alone. I cited or bow and arrow or rin . . , or CJlll t111g tools,29
Stavyor in which ; ma . gdsand dmarlmsp1kes, as in the legend of
Tolstoy because his work is generally known. ' rne man oes not r • I• •
Now, having explained the nature of this technique, let us try to disguised as a warrior Sh . ccogn1ze 11swife, who is
• e proposes a riddle:
determine the approximate limits of its application. I personally feel "R emember, Stavyor, do you recall
that defamiliarization is found almost everywhere form is found.
How we little ones walked to and f • I .
In other words, the difference between Potebnya's point of view and You and I , •. ro in t le street?
Y I I togtther
·1 sometimes 1,la)'ed with ·1 111•-1· .k,.
• .. , 111sp1
ours is this: An image is not a permanent referent for those mutabl] ou lac a s1 ver marlinspike,
complexities of life which are revealed through it; its purpose is not But l had a gilded ring?
to make us perceive meaning, but to create a special perception of I found myself at it just now and then
the object-it creates a "vision" of the object instead of serving as a means But you foll in with it ever and always'"
for knowing it. Says Stavyor, son of Godinovich •
The purpose of imagery in erotic art can be studied even more "What I l didn't I •I '
., • .. Pay Wit 1 you at marlinspikes!"
accurately; an erotic object is usually presented as if it were seen for I hen Vas1hsa Mikulichri·i, •· "S, o I1e says.
the first time. Gogol, in "Christmas Eve," provides the following Do you remember, Stavyor, do you recall,
example: Now must you know, you and I together learned to
. read and write;
Here he approached her more closely, coughed, smiled at her, Mme was an ink-well of silver
touched her plump, bare arm with his fingers, and expressed himself And yours a pen of gold ? '
in a way that showed both his cunning and his conceit. But I just moistened it a little now and then
"And what is this you have, magnificent Solokha ?" and having And I·Just moistened
• · ever and always."J0 '
It
said this, he jumped back a little.
"What? An arm, Osip Nikiforovich!" she answered. In a different version of the legend we find k I .
a ey tot 1e nddle:
"Hmm, an arm! He, he, he!" said the secretary cordially, satisfied
He:e the formidable envoy Vasilyushka
with his beginning. He wandered about the room.
-Raised her skirts to the very navel
"And what is this you have, dearest Solokha ?" he said in the same
And
R then
. the young
. Sta vyor, son o'f C',od1nov1ch,
. .
way, having approached her again and grasped her lightly by the neck,
ccogrnzed her gtlded ring ... _JI
and in the very same way he jumped back.
"As if you don't see, Osip Nikiforovich !" answered Solokha, "a neck, But defamiliarization • t I .
and on my neck a necklace."
a t I . f i_sno on ya technique of the erotic riddle-
ec mique o euphemrsm-·t • l .
"Hmm! On the neck a necklace! He, he, he!" and the secretary again riddles Eve. ·'ddl I is a so the bastS and point of all
wandered about the room, rubbing his hands. •.. iy 11 e pretends to show its subject either by words
"And what is this you have, incomparable Solokha ?" ... It is not . 28. [DnnrtryJ Savodnikov, -?_agadki
russko,,onaroda[R I . .
(St. Petersburg, 1901), Nos. IOZ-IO?. uldtJ ~/ the Rurnan Pto/1/e]
known to what the secretary would stretch his long fingers now.
29. Ibid., Nos. 588-591.
And Knut Hamsun has the following in "Hunger": "Two white 30AEG •
• • • ruzrnsky, Pf IJ N R h
ed., Pes11i,sobrn1111)'t
prodigies appeared from beneath her blouse." by P. N. Ryb11iko11J(Moscow, 1909-1910) .N 3;' • •Y mko,ym [SongsCo/luted
0
3 I. Ibid., No. 17I. ' • •
.--
VICTOR SHKLOVSKY 21
RUSSIAN FORMALIST CRITICISM
20
went to the tree where the bear and the magpie were. There all three
which specify or describe it but which, d~ring th~ tel~ing, do not sat.
seem applicable (the type: "black and white and red -~e~d-all The peasant's wife came to bring his dinner to the field. The man and
over) or by means of odd but imitative sounds (" 'Twas bnlhg, and his wife finished their dinner in the fresh air, and he began to wrestle
the slithy toves/Did gyre and g1m • t I1_ewa b e ") •32
• bl e m . . ·. with her on the ground.
Even erotic images not intended as nddles are defam1hanze~ The bear saw this and said to the magpie and the fly, "Holy priests!
The peasant wants to piebald someone again."
( "b 00 1Hes,
·, " "tarts"
' ,
"piece"
'
etc.). In popular imagery there 1s
. " d
generally something equivalent to "trampling the_ ?r~ss . an_ The magpie said, "No, he wants to break someone's legs."
'.'breaking the guelder-rose." The technique of d_efam1ha~1zat1on 1s The fly said, "No, he wants to shove a stick up someone's rump." 34
absolutely clear in the wide-spread im_age-a motif of erot'.c aff:ct~- The similarity of technique here and in Tolstoy's "Kholstomer," is,
tion .. in which a IJc-ar and otlier wild beasts (or a devil, w1tl1 a I think, obvious.
33
different reason for nonrecognition) do not recogniz: a ma_n. Quite often in literature the sexual act itself is defamiliarized; for
The lack of recognition in the following tale is quite typical: example, the Decameronrefers to "scraping out a barrel," "catching
A peasant was plowing a field with a piebald . mare. A_ bear nightingales," "gay wool-beating work," ( the last is not developed
approac hed h ·m
1 and asked , "Uncle , what's made this mare piebald in the plot). Defamiliarization is often used in describing the sexual
for you?" organs.
"I <lid the piebalding myself." A whole series of plots is based on such a lack of recognition; for
"But how?" example, in Afanasyev's Intimate Tales the entire story of "The Shy
"Let me, and I'll do the same for you." . Mistress" is based on the fact that an object is not called by its
The bear agreed. The peasant tied his feet together with a rope,
proper name-or, in other words, on a game of nonrecognition. So
took the ploughshare from the two-wheeled plough, heated it on t~e fir~,
too in Onchukov's "Spotted Petticoats," tale no. 525, and also in
and applied it to his flanks. He made the bear piebald by scorc~mg his
"The Bear and the Hare" from Intimate Tales, in which the bear
fur down to the hide with the hot ploughshare. The man untied the
and the hare make a "wound."
bear, which went off and lay down under a tree. . .
A magpie flew at the peasant to pick at the meat on his slurt. ~e Such constructions as "the pestle and the mortar," or "Old Nick
caught her and broke one of her legs. The magpie flew off to perch _m and the infernal regions" (Decameron), are also examples of the
the same tree under which the bear was lying. Then, after the magpie, technique of defamiliarization. And in my article on plot construc-
fl landed on the mare sat down, and began to bite. The peasant tion I write about defamiliarization in psychological parallelism.
a horse Y ' d I • Th fly
caught the fly, took a stick, shoved it up its rear, an et it go. e Here, then, I repeat that the perception of disharmony in a har-
monious context is important in parallelism. The purpose of
We have supplied familiar English examples in place of Shk~ovsky's_word-
32 parallelism, like the general purpose of imagery, is to transfer the
play.·Shklovskyis saying that we create words wi'.h no referents or with amb_1g~~us
referents in order to force attention to the obJects represented by '.he s1m1_ar- usual perception of an object into the sphere of a new perception-
. d By making the reader go through the extra step of mterpretmg that is, to make a unique semantic modification.
sound mg wor s. d· d
the nonsense word, the writer prevents an automatic respo?se. A toa ts a toa ' In studying poetic speech in its phonetic and lexical structure as
but "tove" forces one to pause and think about the bea~t. Ed. Mte. . . well as in its characteristic distribution of words and in the char-
:n F R Romanov "Bcsstrashny barin," VelikoruHktyt skazki (Zapisk1Irnp~r-
k • ~~sskovo Geogr~ficheskovo0bschestva, XLI I, No. 52). Belorusskysborntk, acteristic thought structures compounded from the words, we find
s Sovo di' Id t" ["The Intrepid Gentleman," Great RuHian Tales (Notes of 34. D[mitry] S. Zelenin, Velikorusskiy ska::ki Ptrnuko_y gubernii [Grtal Russian
" pravya ivy so a . . II N 52) White Russian
the I rnperial Russian Gcograplucal Society, XL , o. • Tales of the Permian Province (St. Petersburg, 1913)], No. 70.
Anthology, "The Upright Soldier" (1886-1912)}.
22 RUSSIAN FORMALIST CRITICISM VICTOR S1tKLOVSKY 23
everywhere the artistic trademark-that is, we find material obviously Just now a still more characteristic phenomenon is under way.
created to remove the automatism of perception; the author's Russian literary language, which was originally forcig11 to Russia,
purpose is to create the vision which results from that deautomatized has so permeated the language of the people that it has blended with
perception. A work is created "artistically" so that its perception is their conversation. On the other hand, literature has now begun to
impeded and the greatest possible effect is produced through the show a tendency towards the use of dialects (Remizov, Klyuyev,
slowness of the perception. As a result of this lingering, the object is Essenin, and others, 36 so unequal in talent and so alike in language,
perceived not in its extension in space, but, so to speak, in its are intentionally provincial) and of barbarisms (which gave rise to
continuity. Thus "poetic language" gives satisfaction. According to tl'.e S_ev:ryanin group 37 ) •. And currently Maxim Cork y is changing
Aristotle, poetic language must appear strange and wonderful; and, his d1ct1on from the old literary language to the new literary collo-
in fact, it is often actually foreign: the Sumerian used by the quialism of Leskov. 38 Ordinary speech and literary language have
Assyrians, the Latin of Europe during the Middle Ages, the Arabisms thereby changed places (see the work of Vyacheslav l vanov and
of the Pe1·sia11s,the Old Bulgarian of Russian literature, or the many others). And finally, a strong tendency, led by Khlebnikov, to
elevated, almost literary language of folk songs. The common create a new and properly poetic language has emerged. In the light
archaisms of poetic language, the intricacy of the sweet new style of these developments we can define poetry as ailenuated, tortuous
Ldolce stil nuovo],3 5 the obscure style of the language of Arnaut speech. Poetic speech is formed speech. Prose is ordinary speech-
Daniel with the "roughened" [harte] forms which make pronunciation economical, easy, proper, the goddess of prose [deaprosae] is a goddess
dijfirult-these arc used in much the same way. Leo Jakubinsky has of the accurate, facile type, of the "direct" expression of a child. I
demonstrated the principle of phonetic "roughening" of poetic shall discuss roughened form and retardation as the general law of
language in the particular case of the repetition of identical sounds. art at greater length in an article on plot construction. J9
The language of poetry is, then, a difficult, roughened, impeded Nevertheless, the position of those who urge the idea of the
language. In a few special instances the language of poetry approxi- economy of artistic energy as something which exists in and even
mates the language of prose, but this does not violate the principle distinguishes poetic language seems, at first glance, tenable for the
of "roughened" form. problem of rhythm. Spencer's description of rhythm would seem to
Her sister was called Tatyana. be absolutely incontestable:
For the first time we shall
Just as the body in receiving a series of varying concussions, must keep
Wilfully brighten the delicate
the muscles ready to meet the most violent of them, as not knowing
Pages of a novel with such a name.
when such may come: so, the mind in receiving unarrangcd articula-
wrote Pushkin. The usual poetic language for Pushkin's contem- tions, must keep its pt'l'spcctives active ,·nough to recognize the kast
poraries was the elegant style ofDerzhavin; but Pushkin's style, be-
36. AlexyRemizov(1877-1957) is best knownas a novelistand satirist; Nicholas
cause it seemed trivial then, was unexpectedly difficult for them. We Klyuyev(1885-1937) and Sergcy Essenin(189:,--192:,) w,-r,."p,·asant poets." All
should remember the consternation of Pushkin's contemporaries three were noted for their faithit,Ireproductionof Russiandialcns and colloquial
over the vulgarity of his expressions. He used the popular language language.Ed. 110/e.
as a special device for prolonging attention,just as his contemporaries 37. A group noted for its opulent and sensuousverse style. Ed. 1101,.
generally used Russian words in their usually French speech (see 38. ~icholas Leskov ( I83 I-1895), novelist and short story writer, helped
popularize the skaz., or yarn, and hence, because of the part dialect peculiarities
Tolstoy's examples in War and Peace). play in the skaz., also altered Russian literary language. Ed. 110/t.
35. Dante, Purgatorio, 24:56. Dante refers to the new lyric style of his con- 39. Shklovskyis probably referring to his R11z1,yor/;•1,a11[)'e
~1•udu111 [Plot Dtt•tlop-
temporaries.Ed. 110/e. mtnl] (Petrograd, 1921). Ed. no/t.
 •
. ..
24 RUSSIAN FORMALIST CRITICISM

easily caught sounds. And as, if the concussions recur in definite order,
the body may husband its forces by adjusting the resistance needful for
each concussion; so, if the syllables be rhythmically arranged, the mind
j
may economize its energies by anticipating the attention required for
each syllable,40 Sterne's Tris/ram Shandy:
This apparently conclusive observation suffers from the common Stylistic Commentary
fallacy, the con fusion of the laws of poetic and prosaic language. In
The Philosophy of Style Spencer failed utterly to distinguish between
them. But rhythm may have two functions. The rhythm of prose, or To a certain e:de11t,Shklovsky's essay 011 Tristram Shandy 1 is an
ofa work song like "Dubinushka," permits the members of the work application of the pri11cij1lesstated in "Art as Technique," but with material
crew to do their necessary "groaning together" and also eases the added by the developme11tof the Formalist melhodolol',ybetween J:) 17 and
work by making it automatic. And, in fact, it is easier to march with 1921. Shklovsky's basic assum/1lio11, announced in the earlier essay, is that
music than without it, and to march during an animated conversa- the business of litera~y criticism is lo discuJS the literariness of li1irat11n,to
tion is even easier, for the walking is done unconsciously. Thus the discuss that which makes literaturt di//erml jrom other l.imh a/ diirnunt.
rhythm of prose is an important automatizing element; the rhythm In the case 1if the 11011el,
this quickly led the Formalists Iv dist111J~U1sh between
of poetry is not. There is "order" in art, yet not a single column of a story and plot. Although Tomashevsky's "Thematics" (seepp. 66--78) 5 /iows
Greek temple stands exactly in its proper order; poetic rhythm is the distinction clearly, a few words about it are in order here.
similarly disordered rhythm. Attempts to systematize the irregu- Story is essentially the lt!m/1oral-ra11sal sequence of narrated ez,mt.1.l!J
larities have been made, and such attempts are part of the current formula, capable of irifmite extension, is always "because ,!f ,l, thm Ji."
problem in the theory of rhythm. It is obvious that the systematiza- Because Raskolnikov is ml impove1ished i11tel/ec/11al, he kill rd . .. ; bl'Cause
tion will not work, for in reality the problem is not one of Pip fed a convict, .... Such is the pattern of the Slo(J', each event coming in
complicating the rhythm but of disordering the rhythm-a dis- the order in which it would occurin real life and the events bound each to rnch
ordering which cannot be predicted. Should the disordering of i11a cause-and-effectrelationship. This, lo return lo the 11olio11 of de.familiar-
rhythm become a convention, it would be ineffective as a device for i::ation, is thefamiliar way of telling something; but praisely becauseit is
the roughening of language. But I will not discuss rhythm in more thefamiliar way, it is not the artistic W<~)'. Artist,y, for ShklousAy, requires
detail since I intend to write a book about it. 41 both de.familiarization and an obvious diJj1la_yof the devias b)' 1uhfrh the
familiar is made strange. •
Victor Shklovsky, "Iskusstvo, kak priyom," Sborniki, II (1917). bi these terms, /ilot becomesthe story as di.1/orll'dor dejr1111ilimi:-.Nf 111tlw
40. Spencer, (p. 169. Again the Russian text is shortened from Spencer's process of telling. Hue11a 1wut! 11.1 .111/mj11 ia/(1• .11111/J/1, i11 11111.1/rw tion a.,
original]. Hawthorne's The Scadet Letter distorts both lem/1oraland cause-ej/ecl
41. We have been unable to discover the book Shklovsky promised. Ed. note. relations by,for example, begi1111i11g i11 the middle, ajier the adultery that

properly hegins the main action. Or such a seemin,i;{yorthodox ,u;z,el as

I. The title of the monograph is Tristram Sha11dy Stana i teoriya rommw [St,r 11,'s
Tristram Shandy and lht Tl,eorJ• ~/'Jiu No11e/J (l'<'trograd, l<J:11).'l'hc title givrn on
the first page of the lexl is Tristram Shandy Ster11a: Stilislichtsk_v !.,1111111mtan., the
title we have used. The monograph was reprinted in Shklovsky's O teorii /lfU::.J'
1011the Tllf/1~)' nfl'rostl (Moscow, l'l'.l:, and l'J2'l). We have used the 1921 text.
25