Readings in Russian Poetics

Investigating the conceptualisation of structure and form within literature, the Russian Formalists affected both the creation of art during the 1920s and 1930s and the development of literary theory as a scientific discipline. Crucial to the understanding of this theoretical movement, this collection of essays by and about the Russian Formalists features work by: - Boris M. Eichenbaum ("The Theory of the Formal Method") - Viktor Shklvosky ("The Mystery Novel: Dickens's Little Dorrit") - Roman Jakobson ("On Realism in Art") - Mikhail Bakhtin ("Discourse Typology in Prose") - Osip M. Brik ("Contributions to the Study of Verse Language") A new introduction by Gerald L. Bruns provides a context for understanding why these works remain as important and influential now as when they were first written.

Ladislav Matejka is Professor in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literature at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. The late Krystyna Pomorska, Roman Jacobson's widow, was Professor of Slavic, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Gerald L. Bruns is William P. and Hazel B. White Professor of English at the University of Notre Dame. His books include Hermeneutics Ancient and Modern and Heidegger's Estrangements: Language, Truth, and Poetry in the Later Writings.