ENGL 316 Ch 3

Who were some of the members of the Moscow Linguistic Circle?

Roman Jakobson, Jan Mukarovsky, Peter Bogatyrev, and G.O. Vinokur.

Why were the opponents of Russian Formalism in favor of the term “Russian Formalism”?

They wanted to deprecate Russian Formalism’s supposedly strict methodological approach to literary interpretations. 

Who was Ferdinand de Saussure?

A French linguist and founder of modern linguistics.

What was Saussure’s contribution to Russian Formalism?

The Russian formalists framed their first theory of the autonomous nature of literature on his work.

Who was Viktor Shklovsky?

A Russian Formalist who coined the term defamiliarization, a key component of poetry according to the Russian Formalists. 

How do Russian Formalists define text?

A unified collection of various literary devices and conventions that can be objectively analyzed. It is not the vision of an author the authorial intent.

How do you describe the mandate of the Prague Linguistic Circle?

To carry on the ideas of the Russian Formalists, who were suppressed and disbanded by the Soviet Union, in Czechoslovakia.

Who was Vladimir Propp?

A Russian folktale scholar who also helped to continue the influence of the Russian Formalists in Czechoslovakia.

Explain the relationship between Russian Formalism and New Criticism.

They were developed in different places and no direct relationship exists between them. However, they share similar terminology, and are both identified as types of Formalism. In 1940 two leading Russian formalists came to the U.S. and participated in the scholarly discussions of New Critics. 

What is meant by “close readers of texts”?

A term used by the New Critics for the kind of a reader or critic who applies the principles of New Criticism to a text to arrive at an interpretation. Implied in the term is a closer and detailed reading, and analysis of the text itself to derive its meaning without historical, authorial, or cultural input. 

Who was John Crowe Ransom?

Author of The New Criticism which contained Ransom’s personal analysis of several of his contemporary theorists and critics. The term New Criticism became popular to describe the theory because of his work. 

What is meant by “ontological critic”?

One who will recognize that a poem is a concrete entity, as is Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa or the score of concrete objects, a poem can be analysed to discover its true or correct meaning independent of its author’s intention or of the emotional state, values, or beliefs of either its author or its reader.

What are some of the other names by which New Criticism is known?

Modernism, Formalism, aesthetic criticism, textual criticism, or ontological criticism. 

What is meant by “extrinsic analysis”?

Examining elements outside the text to uncover the text’s meaning. 

What are “impressionistic critics”?

Critics who believe that how we feel and what we personally see in a work of art are what really matter

What is the “expressive school”?

Disavowing rhetorical or objective theories of art, this school of though emphasize the subjective experience of sharing emotions. Wordsworth and other nineteenth century Romantics are prime examples of this school of thought

Name some of the New Critics.

John Crowe Ransom, René Wellek, William K. Wimsatt, Monro Beardley, Cleanth Brooks. 

How does T. S. Eliot define poetry?

Not a freeing of a poet’s emotions, but an escape from them.

What is meant by “objective correlative”?

A term coined by T.S. Elliot refers to a set of objects, a situation, a chain of events, or reactions that can serve to awaken in the reader the emotional response that the author desires without being a direct statement of that emotion.

What is meant by “organic unity”?

The concept of organic unity of a work of art declares that each part of a text reflects and helps support the text’s central idea or chief paradox. No part of a text is superfluous, but similar to a living organism, like a plant

How do you describe “Heresy of Paraphrase”?

A term used by New Critics to suggest that a work of art is not equal to its paraphrase. A poem, for example, is the not same as its paraphrased version because the paraphrased version will miss the poem’s uniqueness, with its many connotations and various complexities of thought.

How does Saussure describe the word?

A verbal sign having two sides, an acoustic image or sound pattern and a concept. 

How does Saussure distinguish between language and speech?

Language itself is not a function of the speaker. It is the product passively registered by the individual. Speech is an individual act of the will and the intelligence in which one must distinguish

How does Saussure describe language?

Language is a repository of sound patterns and writing in their tangible form. It is a system of signs expressing ideas. 

According to Roman Jakobson, what are the constitutive factors in any act of communication?

The addresser, a message, an addressee, a context (or referent), a code, and a contact

Briefly describe what Jakobson means by the metaphoric and metonymic poles in his discussion of aphasia (language disorder).

Metaphor is based on similarity, analogy, and substitution, where one term replaces another because the speaker sees a resemblance, e.g. the substitution of keel for ship or sea for deep. Where metonymy is based on contiguity or association, where one term refers to another through spatial temporal, or causal closeness, e.g. the White House for US administration or Hollywood for the American Film Industry. He believed that linguistic expression moved between the two poles. Poetry is mostly metaphoric and prose is mostly metonymic.