STYLISTICS

Stylistics is the objective study of the devices in languages (such as rhetorical

figures and syntactical patterns) that are considered to produce expressive or literary
style. It examines the similarities and the differences between ordinary language use
and that of literary texts. Each text is examined for the effects it achieved and the
language it used to achieve this effect. Stylistic critics used specialized terms from
linguistics to define their findings. As a result stylistics was often seen as a
specialized, technical method of literary criticism. This quality can be seen in the
work of critics like Roman Jakobson (1896 – 1982).
Stylistic critics were of the opinion that texts could be objectively understood,
and that there would be only a single truth or a single interpretation out of it. The other
qualities or aesthetics of the text were not considered. However, although it claims the
contrary, stylistics did offer interpretations of texts rather than simply scientific
analyses. Although their judgement or analyses of the syllabic make-up of words was
objective, the purposes to which they put their judgements, such as in considering the
effect of writing upon its implied readers, were interpretive.
RUSSIAN FORMALISM
This was one of the most influential schools of critical thought in the twentieth
century, and had some relation with other literary critical developments such as
structuralist criticism and stylistics. Russian Formalism, as the name suggests,
emerged in Russia, and several critics including Roman Jakobson followed its critical
philosophy.
This school of criticism relied on elements of close reading. The key focus, as
with New Criticism, was given to the form of the literary work, and other issues such
as outside influences or events in the writer’s life were ignored. The Russian
Formalists disregarded psychology, history or culture as factors which contributed
towards the textual meaning. According to them language in a literary piece of writing
is literary because the material and the structural aspects of the work (sound, rhythm,
irony etc.) are prominent enough to claim attention.
The Russian Formalists focused on the words rather than on any philosophical
or ideological contexts. Once the text has been created, it exists from then on as an
autonomous form of discourse. There is a clear demarcation between art and non-art.
This idea was a reaction against the view in Russia during the earlier twentieth century
that texts were inevitable products of political and social history. The Russian
Formalists thought that “literature” was more “special” than that, and that the
language used in literary texts should be celebrated.
Poetic language was defined and was the sole object of study. The language of
poetry was considered to be distinct from all other forms of discourse. This difference
or literaturnost (literariness) was what gave the piece its ostraneniye
(defamiliarization) quality. Poetic language had the capability to defamiliarize the
reader, to show old things in new ways, to cast new perspectives on the world and on
human experiences. This quality of defamiliarization distinguished the work from
more ordinary forms of language.
Although the prime focus of Russian Formalism is on the text as such, it must
be pointed out that in reality, the actual meaning of a text is derived only with an
awareness of its contexts as is made clear through the following example: In
T.S.Eliot’s poem “The Wasteland” (1922), there is the colloquial refrain “Hurry up
please it’s time” which is highly literary and allusive (the words allude to or refer to
something). The simple words “Hurry up please it’s time” becomes literary because
of their contrast with the reference. This defamiliarization can be recognised by the
reader only if he/she is aware of the poem’s context. Poetic language became poetic
language only when the reader understood its reference/context. Art is understood and
appreciated as art only when one has an idea of what is not art. Thus, in Russian
Formalist Criticism the context was vital or essential to the appreciation of the text
itself.