• Formalism, in all its various manifestations, looks to a text as precisely that: a text.

Not as a cultural
artifact, nor a piece of autobiography, nor an expression of one's cultural, ethnic, or racial identity— a
text. A piece of written work which should be approached entirely on its own terms. When we read a
poem we examine the technical elements that make it recognizable as a poem: cadences, rhyme,
structure, meter, and so on. Outside elements such as the cultural context in which the text was written
can indeed be used, but never as an end in themselves but only as a means to illuminate the work as a
structural whole.

• Critical Approaches to Literature , Formalist Criticism: This approach regards literature as “a unique
form of human knowledge that needs to be examined on its own terms.” All the elements necessary for
understanding the work are contained within the work itself. Of particular interest to the formalist critic
are the elements of form—style, structure, tone, imagery, etc.—that are found within the text. A primary
goal for formalist critics is to determine how such elements work together with the text’s content to
shape its effects upon readers.

Formalism may be defined as a critical approach in which the text under discussion is considered
primarily as a structure of words. That is, the main focus is on the arrangement of language, rather than
on the implications of the words, or on the biographical and historical relevance of the work in question.
A strictly formalist critic would, for example, approach The Great Gatsbyas a structure of words, ignoring
the details of Fitzgerald’s life and the social and historical contexts of the novel. However, formalism, or
the concept of strict literary formalism, has often been attacked by individual literary critics or schools of
criticism on the grounds that it reduces the text to nothing more than a series of words, thereby limiting
its meaning and power. It is true that the Russian Formalists in the early years of the century attempted
to examine the text in this way, but Western formalist approaches have tended to be much less
theoretical. In practice, such critics have been very responsible to the meaning and themes of the work
in question, rather than adopting a linguistic approach. For example, from the 1930s onwards, a
movement in Britain and America, loosely called the ‘New Criticism’ began to dominate critical activity
and teaching methods.

• What is Formalistic Approach?

"Form alone takes, and holds and preserves, substance - saves it from the welter of helpless verbiage
that we swim in as in a sea of tasteless tepid pudding." - A Handbook of Critical Approached to
Literature

The formalistic approach to literature examines a text by its "organic form" - its setting, theme, scene,
narrative, image and symbol. It is often referred as "a scientific approach to literature," because it
advocates methodical and systematic readings of texts. Excluding any external elements or outside
information (i.e author's personal life or the social, historic background of the time the text was written
or the reader's bias) in criticism, the formalistic approach aims to analyze merely the text itself.
Therefore, all interpretations must be supported by evidences found in the text.

The two bullet points below summarize the essential concepts of the formalistic approach:
Intentional fallacy: Formalistic practitioners believe the intentional fallacy, which states that an author's
intention (plan or purpose) in creating a work of literature, is irrelevant in analyzing or evaluating a work
of literature because the meaning and value of a literary work must reside in the text itself, independent
of authorial intent.

Effective fallacy: Formalistic practitioners believe the effective fallacy, which states that the meaning or
value of a work may be determined by its effect on the audience, is irrelevant; they think evaluation of a
piece of literature cannot be based solely on its emotional impacts. Literary criticism must concentrate
on the qualities of the work itself that produce such effects.

Formalism is an early twentieth century mode of criticism that has its roots in Russian Formalism or
the work of linguists such as Roman Osipovich Jakobson, and a group of linguists and critics who formed
the society Opuyaz or the Society for the Study of Poetical Language in 1915. This group studied the
theoretical and philosophical problems involved in language and its relation to the object described, or
referent. The Society wanted to organize a ‘purer’ approach to examining the text and avoid borrowing
from other disciplines such as philosophy, sociology and increasingly psychology. The germs of formalism
are also traceable in the ‘art for art’s sake’ theories that originated in France, and were propounded
most ardently in England by Walter Pater and later Oscar Wilde. Both Pater and Wilde claimed that a
work of art should be dictated by its own formula of creation, rather than extrinsic factors. Pater and
Wilde’s creative approach to the study of the art-object was a response to the overwhelmingly
biographical and historical literary criticism of their day.

Formalism is also known as the ‘New Criticism’. This critical approach examines a literary text or art work
through its aesthetic composition such as form, language, technique and style. Formalists believe that
the art-object can be isolated from social, cultural and historical influences and examined as an
autonomous whole. Proponents of formal analysis believe that universal statements or laws about the
work under observation can be gauged through an analysis of its internal structures and language. The
formalist approach considers the form, structure or shape of the text, as well as technical features, more
important than the content and context. Today, however, a ‘formalist’ approach does not exist as a
singular, ‘pure’ critical method. Across English departments university students are taught to use
concrete examples from the text to illustrate and validate their interpretations. The exercise of close
reading or focussing on a text’s composition and artistry is widely accepted as the most valuable way of
approaching the art object. In English studies, other critical methodologies are best incorporated after an
examination of the primary text.

The focus of any formalist analysis will centre on grammatical, rhetorical, and logical connections within
texts. A formalist approach will evoke technical vocabulary to examine a piece of work. The form, tone,
language, characterization, figures of speech, point of view, setting and theme of a text constitute a
universe of ideas within an internal order. Formalists will examine the sound and syntax of poetic
language, rhyme, stanza forms, and repetitive imagery or word pictures. Formalists are conscious of the
text or art-object as a construction manipulated to evoke particular responses although reader response
is beyond the control of any artist. Formalists prioritize the medium over the content. As implicated in
the term ‘formalism’, ‘form’ is considered synonymous to content. The literary text is thought to exist
independently as a separate and distinct imagined world where its principles and values are deduced
through an almost empirical analysis. By foregrounding the utterance, formalists argue that readers and
analysts alike are more likely to experience fresh sensations. These ‘fresh sensations’ are derived from
the creative patterns and literary devices consciously, or unconsciously woven into the text by the artist
to symbolize and signify meaning; meaning ultimately created by each individual. Victor Shklovsky
developed the concept of ‘estrangement’ in his 1917 essay Art as Technique. He highlighted how existing
concepts or approaches to criticism create a ‘blind spot’ whereby critics become accustomed to
examining a text by applying the methods, styles or terminology of an established methodology,
structure or order. These structures, argued Shklovsky, in turn create hierarchies leading to canonization
and also inhibit critical sense-perception resulting in stale or clichéd criticism. Shklovsky encouraged
atypical narrative strategies through ‘defamiliarization’. This process of ‘estrangement’ could foster an
awareness of how techniques could crystallize or frame a text and would allow the critical eye to
meander into new streams of thought.

Vladimir Propp’s Morphology of the Folktale (1928) encapsulates the rigour and stringency advocated by
formalists in its numeration of the folktale’s form and function. Interpretation remains the result of an
analysis of structure, form and language. The art-object is rigorously analysed through a variety of
analytical tools from the fields of structural linguistics, and semiotics. The insistence on examining the
text in this forensic way shows how the reading experience for formalists is primarily an empirical one.
The eye of the critic or the act of interpretation is privileged and trusted to yield a subtle, lucid,
perceptive and inclusive account of the ‘meaning’, or uncover the ontology of the world created by the
artist. Formalists draw attention to how the word itself is not the actual ‘thing’ but a verbal
representation or gesture describing the ‘thing’. In this sense, formalist criticism raises philosophical
questions about broader issues with serious social implications about the methods of communicating
knowledge, and the value of expression, as well as the need for precision in approaching the literary text
or the study of ‘English’.

To some extent, formalism is the science of intuition. Value is placed on the functionality of a text’s
formal attributes. Formalists comprehend literary interpretation as a pluralistic, multidimensional
endeavour governed by the observation and analysis of objective linguistic structures. These structures
in themselves hold autonomous values. Formalists observe the ‘grammar of design’. For example,
metaphor, rhetoric, or metonymy are extrinsic qualities manipulated by the artist to achieve a particular
aesthetic affect. Other priorities on the formalist agenda include the notion of order; whether a text is
chronologically ordered or, ‘synchronic’ in its approach to time and events, or a product of a
simultaneous, collective order, or ‘diachronic’. Readers examining the composition of a text should be
conscious of patterns of uniformity, as well as clarity and contrast. New vocabulary deriving from
formalist theory has certainly enriched the study of English.

Criticism of this approach tends to centre on formalism’s exclusion of subject matter, context and social
values. Formalists are also criticized for not observing the dangers of focussing on language and
semiotics alone to the exclusion of the complex process of creation and publication, as well as reader
response. Inevitably, critics of formalism contend that the text cannot exist in isolation from the
audience for which it was conceived, nor can the text be constructed outside the social energies that
indirectly shape form, or inspire the selection of one form, genre or medium over another. The practice
of interpretation, which relies heavily on intuition, could not, argue critics of formalism, be reduced into
a scientific endeavour or an empirical practice. Lastly, formalist criticism is itself a contradiction because
it depends on verbiage, often philosophical and complex, to denote the ‘thing’ that is under analysis as
all of human civilization depends on symbol-systems.

• Unlike several other trends in literary theory and analysis that have emerged within the last century,
formalism has remained one of the most steadfast and frequently-employed forms of literary criticism
and analysis—partly because unlike feminist, postmodern, and other forms, it is less prone to changes in
ideology

As a mode of examining literature, formalism appeared rather early. Formalism emerged after the 1917
Revolution in Russia (Bennett 3). Bennett writes that formalism could hardly have been considered a
movement, given that the founding “members" of this school were simply a group of like-minded
colleagues who met regularly to talk about literature and their particular approach to reading and
interpreting texts (16). In other words, they did not necessarily intend to change the way that other
people read, though this did, in fact, occur as a consequence of their theoretical production. Unlike some
other more modern and contemporary movements in literature and criticism, the formalists did not even
name their own movement; it was named by a critic who disagreed with formalism’s aims and
arguments (Bennett 16).

The key figures of the formalist movement included Roman Jakobson, Viktor Shklovsky, and Juri
Tiniyanov; these core group members promoted an approach to literature that was ordered and
scientific (Bennett 18). Literature, they argued, should be approached only on its own terms; there
should be no external influences or considerations, such as the author’s personal characteristics or the
sociopolitical and historical conditions under which the text had been written (Bennett 17). In short, it
was a very formal and non-historical or author-specific way of considering works of literature that would
not involve the personal history of the author, the consequences of the time period the subject matter
was written in, nor the given tastes of the reading public or any other such external influences. With
such a way of examining texts, it is worth mentioning that it obviously was a controversial form of
criticism, especially since critics up until that point often considered the author and his or her historical
and social positioning when offering insights on works. The name of their movement, formalism, was apt
because their way of approaching texts was highly structured and formal. The formalists contended that
it was possible to devise a methodology that could be applied to any text, and they worked to develop
such a method, both individually and as a collective.

• What is formalism? Any introductory study into formalism relies on looking at the historical and social
movements that were shaping such an emergent mode of criticism. Though considering the historical
context of the birth of formalism seems contrary to the movement itself, it is important to signal that
formalism was a reaction to and against Marxist literary theory. Marxist theory, consistent with Marxist
political thought, was preoccupied with the roles of society in the text and the text in society (Bennett
16). Prior to formalism, literature had often been viewed as a product of political or social origins, a
product which was always attached to its creator. Formalism departed from the Marxist perspective
completely. The formalists did not wish to apply any other theoretical constructs—sociological, historical,
psychoanalytic—to the reading of a text; rather, the text should, in their view, stand alone and be able to
be understood on its own terms. To this end, the formalists proposed a method for reading a text in such
a way; literary works became machines that could be tinkered with and understood if the component
parts and their respective functions were known (Shklovsky 5).

In fact, Shklovsky, one of the most central figures of the formalist movement, likened this
methodological approach to an algebraic formula (5). Shklovsky even considered an algebraic
methodology to be an “ideal expression" of the practice of literary analysis (5). To understand a text on
its own terms, it was important to understand words. In turn, in order to understand words, the
formalists believed that it was crucial to understand the relationship between the symbol and the object,
experience, or emotion being signified. A sentence could be parsed into its respective words in order to
arrive at meaning; in this way, an entire text could be understood (Bennett 17). Again, the question, what
is formalism? Interestingly, the formalists were also deeply interested in the poetic properties of
language. While this might seem contradictory, given their mechanical tendencies, the formalists argued
that the use of poetic words and images could, if deployed effectively, cause the reader to see a familiar
object or experience from a completely new perspective. In this way, language had the power to disrupt
common perceptions or images taken for granted by replacing them with fresh associations. Bennett
offers the following example to illustrate this point: “Take, as a brief example, the following sentence… ‘It
was a sunny day and the sky was like a new sheet of blotting paper with the blue ink tipped into the
middle of it’" (17). What Bennett explains is that the reader has a fixed assumption about and
association with the sky being blue. Yet, written in this creative, poetic way, the reader is forced to stop
and reconsider the quality of that blue, and link the color to other, fresher associations. In this way, the
formalists achieved the identification of “devices through which the total structure of given works of
literature might be said to defamiliarize, make strange or challenge certain dominant conceptions [and]
ideologies

The image, then—the symbol, the metaphor, the simile—is important, but so too is the very unit of
language itself, the word (Bennett 36). In this respect, formalists were deeply interested in the subjects
of semantics and linguistics, aspects of form more than content. While the formalist movement only
lasted for approximately thirty years, their arguments and areas of interest eventually became the
principal features of the theorists known as structuralists, who followed the formalists in the
development of a mechanistic literary theory. The formalists also influenced a group of literary theorists
who are subsumed under the title of “New Criticism," which also separated the author from the text and
privileged the content of the work as the only worthwhile area for interpretative focus (Dawson 75).

Ultimately, the formalists addressed all of the questions that are of interest to all literary theorists,
though there are obviously those who reject the formalists’ particular set of arguments and approaches.
Nonetheless, and despite the brevity of their movement, the formalists’ questioning of some of the basic
and most fundamental assumptions of literary theory had a lasting impact on literary studies in general.
With respect to literary production, the formalists introduced the notion of art for art’s sake, as opposed
to art as a political, social, or cultural tool with specifically articulated goals. With regards to literary
interpretation and theory, the formalists offered a framework for decoding and understanding texts
based on the information that they contained. Various schools of literary theory continue to debate
whether the formalists were justified, so to speak, in their assertions; however, the fact that these two
aspects of literary theory continue to be points of unresolved contention signifies that the formalists
identified fundamental literary concerns that will continue to be examined and debated for some time to
come.