THE
RUSSIAN FORMALIST MOVEMENT
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novelty and freshness" as one of the earmarks of true poetry. To a
Surrealist theoretician, art is fundamentally "a renascence of won–
der," "an act of renewal."
It is essential to keep in mind that Shklovski's improvised phil–
osophy of art was as much a plug for the Russian Futurist movement
as it was a contribution to the theory of literature. It was this un–
equivocal aesthetic commitment-more pronounced
in
Shklovski than
in other Formalist spokesmen-which accounts for the tenor of his
spirited essay, its rather unexpected preoccupation with the use of
poetry, with the therapeutic value of creative deformation. Each
school of poetry, no matter how unconcerned it professes to be with
"life," feels compelled,
in
its bid for an audience, to claim for
it–
self-and for poetic art-a singularly effective mode of dealing with
reality.
II
Shklovski's able apologia for poetry had a considerable in–
fluence on subsequent Formalist theorizing. His key terms, e.g., "mak–
ing it strange," "automatization," "perceptibility," received wide cur–
rency
in
the writings of the Russian Formalists. But, on the whole,
Shklovski's argument was more typical of Formalism as a rationale
for the poetic experimentation of the Russian Futurist movement
than as a systematic methodology of literary scholarship. The For–
malists' attempt to solve the fundamental problems of literary theory
in close alliance with modern linguistics and semiotics found its most
succinct expression in the studies of Roman J akobson.
"The function of poetry," wrote Jakobson in 1933, "is to point
out that the sign is not identical with its referent." Why do we need
this
reminder? "Because," continued Jakobson, "along with the
awareness of the identity of the sign and the referent
(A
is
Al)
we
need the consciousness of the inadequacy of this identity (A is not
Al);
this antinomy is essential, since without it the connection be–
tween the sign and the object becomes automatized and the percep–
tion of reality withers away."
Jakobson's tersely abstract description of the poetic quality par–
alleled
in
several respects Shklovski's eulogy of the creative act. Both
critics credited poetry with enhancing our mental health by counter-
