THE
RUSSIAN FORMALIST MOVEMENT
285
passion-without having recourse to any figures of speech. The ef–
ficacy of this lyrical masterpiece rests solely on a successful manipula–
tion of grammatical oppositions and of phrase melody. Obviously,
insisted the Formalists, there
is
such a thing as a non-figurative poem,
as
well as a non-poetic image.
"The poet," wrote Shklovski, simplifying an otherwise valid
point, "does not create images; he finds them [in ordinary language,
that is] or recollects them." Consequently, it
is
not in the mere pres–
ence of imagery but in the use to which. it
is
being put that one
should seek the
differentia
of poetry.
This was the crucial and the most valuable phase of the Forma–
list argument. Shklovski and
J
akobson were fundamentally on safe
ground when they protested against equating poetic language with
imagery or with "thinking in images," even if in the heat of polemics
they went a bit too far in questioning the strategic importance of the
metaphor. But they undoubtedly scored their heaviest hits in postu–
lating a clear-cut functional distinction between the poetic and the
prosaic image.
Shklovski argued persuasively against the rationalistic notion of
the poetic image as an explanatory device, a mental shortcut. "The
theory," he wrote, "that the 'image' is always simpler than the notion
for which it
is
substituted is totally erroneous."
If,
in informative
prose, a metaphor aims to bring the subject close to the audience, to
drive the point home, in poetry it serves as a means of intensifying
the intended aesthetic effect. Rather than translating the unfamiliar
into terms of the familiar, the poet by means of images "makes
strange" the habitual by presenting
it
in a novel light, by placing
it in an unexpected context.
Shklovski's theory of "making strange" the object depicted
switched the emphasis from the poetic use of the image to the func–
tion of poetic art. The trope was seen here merely as one of the
devices at the poet's disposal, exemplifying the general tendency of
poetry, indeed of
all
art. The transfer of the object to the "sphere
of a new perception" was proclaimed as the principal aim, the
raison d'etre
of poetry.
"People living at the seashore," wrote Shklovski, "grow so ac–
customed to the murmur of the waves that they never hear it. By
the same token, we scarcely ever hear the words we utter.... We
