1

Ghonwa Hammod

Dr. Ahmad Taha

Literary Criticism

25/04/2021

Main Concepts in the School of Russian Formalism

Viktor Shklovsky is one of the most important leading figures in Russian

Formalism, which started in 1914, and ended in 1930. Then, it was rediscovered in the

1970s. Critics of this theory are called formalists, although they call themselves specifiers

because they believe that literature has its own specificity. In this respect, Shklovsky

coined the concept of defamiliarization. It is a process in which an author makes his

words and techniques seem strange and unique to the reader. Thus, formalists only study

literature to specify its literariness, which is defamiliarization and devices.

Since Specificity is one of the most important terms in this theory, formalists came

up with many other words for it like decalcification, dealgebrisation, defossilisation,

dehabitualisation, deautomatisation, alienation, estrangement, Verfremdungseffekt ( or v-

effect ), and finally as it is called in Russian, Ostranenie. All these words serve the same

meaning; making the familiar unfamiliar, the ordinary extraordinary.

Shklovsky illustrates that words are dead because of familiarisation; everything

has become mechanical. Therefore, he suggests in his article “ The Resurrection of the

Word, ” that art is there to resurrect words by an excessive use of devices. In other words,

formalists believe that there in only one journey, from life to death, from poetry to prose.
 2
The artist’s main duty is to reverse this journey, from the second moment to the virgin

moment.

Formalists also spoke of rhythm and syntax in poetry. Here, they coined another

term, roughening language. Poetry for them is a roughening of language. Meaning, in

order to draw readers’ attention to sound and rhythm, you have to make language rough

and tough to read; you have to impede the language. However, they say that the rhythm is

a sabotage against syntax.

2