CLT 389 Chapter Notes - Chapter 0: Moscow Linguistic Circle, Russian Formalism, New Criticism

• School: University of Rochester
• Department: Modern Languages & Cultures - Comparative Literature
• Course: CLT 389
• Professor: John Givens

Document Summary

Its members rejected the belief that a work of literature was the expression of the author"s worldview. These russian scholars declared the autonomy of literature and poetic language, advocating a scientific approach to literary interpretation. They believed literature should be investigated as its own discipline, not just as a platform for discussing other ideas. They defined poetics as an analysis of a work"s constituent parts, or its form. Each device (compositional feature) possesses properties that can be analyzed. Literariness is the language employed in the actual text. Defamiliarization: the process of making strange the familiar, of putting the old in a new light. Fabula is the raw material of the story and can be considered akin to the writer"s working outline, including the chronological series of events of the story. The syuzhet is the literary devices the writer uses to transform the fabula into plot. Formalists asserted that literature is a self-enclosed, law-governed system.