(P/B) THE FORMAL METHOD IN LITERARY SCHOLARSHIP

Παρουσίαση

Interest in Russian formalists continues to grow. The literary theories put forward by this group have lost none of their power to stimulate the critical imagination. Because of formalism's vital connections to structuralism and because of its historical parallels with such movements as Anglo-American new criticism, The Formal Method in Literary Scholarship will appeal to a wide audience. M. M. Bakhtin and P. N. Medvedev combine a detailed critique of formalist theory with an introduction to sociological poetics which lays the groundwork for a Marxist semiotics of literature. In his introduction, Albert J. Wehrle relates the book to the other works produced by the Bakhtin circle and discusses the authorship controversy in textual, biographical, and historical contexts. The translation is annotated, and references to formalist texts are correlated with French and German translations. (From the publisher)

"The Formal Method in Literary Scholarship directs its critique against the 'good opponent,' formalism, rather than the 'poor ally,' Marxist literary and social criticism, but its goal is to undermine the opposition limiting each and to force the two approaches to confront each other in some other form than that of simple, 'abstract' opposition." [David Carroll, Diacritics]

"First published in 1928 under the name of P. N. Medvedev, it has of late been attributed to no less a figure than the distinguished literary scholar and theorist M. M. Bakhtin. This alleged dual authorship may account for the incisiveness and philosophical sophistication of The Formal Method." [Victor Erlich, Slavic Review]

Περιεχόμενα

Introduction
PART ONE: THE OBJECT AND TASKS OF MARXIST LITERARY SCHOLARSHIP
CHAPTER ONE: The Study of Ideologies and Its Immediate Tasks
Specification as the Basic Problem of the Study of Ideologies
The Crises of the Idealist "Philosophy of Culture"
[Kulturphilosophie] and Humanistic Positivism
The Problem of Synthesizing Philosophical World View and
the Concreteness and Objectivity of Historical Study
The Concreteness and Materiality of the Ideological World
Two Sets of Immediate Problems in the Study of Ideologies
The Problem of Organized Ideological Material
Meaning and Material: The Problem of Their Interrelationship
The Problem of the Forms and Types of Ideological Intercourse
The Concept of the Ideological Environment and Its Meaning
CHAPTER TWO: The Immediate Tasks of Literary Scholarship
The Reflection of the Ideological Environment in the "Content" of the Literary Work
The Three Basic Methodological Errors of Russian Criticism and Literary History
Literary Criticism and "Content"
The Tasks of Literary History with Regard to "Content"
The Reflection of the Ideological Horizon and Artistic Structure in the Literary Work
The "Content" of Literature as a Problem of Esthetics and Poetics [...]
PART TWO: A CONTRIBUTION TO THE HISTORY OF THE FORMAL METHOD
CHAPTER THREE: The Formal Method in European Art Scholarship [Kunstwissenschaft]
CHAPTER FOUR: The Formal Method in Russia
PART THREE: THE FORMAL METHOD IN POETICS
CHAPTER FIVE: Poetic Language as the Object of Poetics
CHAPTER SIX: Material and Device as Components of the Poetic Construction
CHAPTER SEVEN: The Elements of the Artistic Construction
PART FOUR: THE FORMAL METHOD IN LITERARY HISTORY
CHAPTER EIGHT: The Work of Art as a Datum External to Consciousness
CHAPTER NINE: The Formalist Theory of the Historical Development of Literature