Art as Technique

(1917)

Viktor Shklovsky
 Viktor Borisovich Shklovsky
Declaration: Subject – English
This PPT, prepared by me,
is without plagiarism. • Class - MA
Name of the teacher – • Year -
Dr Kavita Arya, • Name of the paper -
Designation - - Assistant • Topic- Art as Technique
Professor,
• Key words –
Department of English, MG
Kashi Vidyapith, Varanasi.
defamiliarization,
imagistic thought,
E mail –
kvtarya@gmail.com
automatism of
perception.
 Life
• He worked for some time as a driving
trainer in army and later, participated in
the revolution of 1917.
• In 1922, he fled to Germany as he was
threatened with execution for his
political activities.
• He died in Moscow in 1984.
 Viktor Borisovich Shklovsky
24 Jan. 1893 – 6 Dec. 1984
• Shklovsky is one of
the most important
literary and cultural
theorists of the
twentieth century.
• He was a Russian
writer associated with
formalism.
 What is Formalism
• Formalism is a theory that considers form as
the most important element in poetry.
• Russian Formalism originated in 1920s and
was suppressed after 10 years.
• Formalism attacked conventional approaches
to literature and proposed scientific method
to study poetry.
• They believed poetry was a special use of
language.
 Formalists believe
• Formalists believe in scientific study
of text - the use of words, syntax,
sounds and figures of speech etc.
• They oppose symbolism and
subjectivism. In their view, there is
difference between art and ordinary
life.
 Different approach
• They advocated -
exclusion of social, psychological and
historical approaches to literature
and stressed upon the use of artistic
devices in writing.
Aesthetic effect of text is the product of
the literary devices.
Formalist view of Literary Language
• Literary language is created by distorting
ordinary language.
• Not only literary writing but all Art is a
matter of technique.
• The Formalist differentiation between
poetic and practical language helped in
evolving a scientific basis for the study of
literature.
 Aristotle’s view
• According to Aristotle, poetic
language must appear strange and
wonderful; the obscure style of the
language which makes pronunciation
difficult, is used in the same way and
for the same purpose.
 Perception is impeded : Viktor
• A work is created "artistically" so that
its perception is impeded and the
greatest possible effect is produced
through the slowness of the perception.
• As a result of this lingering, the object is
perceived not in its extension in space,
but, so to speak, in its continuity. - -
Aristotle and Viktor
 Traditional concept of poetry
• Before Viktor Shklovsky, it was generally
believed that poetry is all about imagery
and that in order to write a poem one
needs a special way of thinking.
• Viktor Shklovsky asserted that such ideas
have led to far-fetched interpretations
of individual works of art.
 Technique is different
• Viktor says that the works of different
poets are grouped according to their new
techniques and not because they use
different images. They have not
discovered new images.
• Poets are more concerned with
arranging images than with creating
them.
 Two aspects of imagery
• In his view there are two aspects of
imagery –
a. Imagery as a means of thinking,
b. Imagery as a means of reinforcing
an impression.
 Images are the same
• He says that images used by different
poets in different ages are generally the
same.
• Images come from a common pool and
there is no major change in them.
• If you understand an age, then you
understand the commonness of those
images.
 Imagery not essential
• He claims that ..
• …Images are given to poets; the
ability to remember them is far
more important than the ability to
create them.
• A change in imagery is not essential
to the development of poetry.
 Imagistic thought
• According to Viktor, Attempts have
been made to evaluate even music,
architecture, and lyric poetry as
imagistic thought.
• Therefore the history of Art should
have been the history of changes in
imagery. But it is not so.
 Artistry in perception
• In Viktors view, neither imagery nor
expression is essential to poetry.
• …the artistry attributed to a given work
results from the way we perceive it.
• He claims that the art in a thing is not so
much intrinsic to the thing but it is rather
dependent upon how we perceive it.
 Art as a Technique
• Shklovsky’s famous essay, “Art as a Technique”
has two parts.
• The first explains defamiliarization. According
to this concept, experience of understanding
an object is important. The object is not so
important.
• In the second part, he discusses different
natures of poetic and ordinary languages.
 Defamiliarisation
• Shklovsky is known for his concept of
defamiliarization in literature.
• “Art is a way of experiencing the
artfulness of an object: the object is not
important.” (Shklovsky)

• For your convenience I have quoted

from Viktor Shklovsky in bold letters.
 Defamiliarizing the familiar
• Viktor argued, Art is a technique that helps
recover the sensation of life through
defamiliarizing the familiar.
• It gives a new perception about the familiar
and habitual.
• His basic premise is that poetic language is
different from the ordinary use of language.
 Automation and habit
• He thinks that as perception becomes
habitual, it becomes automatic.
• Everything that we see around us, gradually
become a part of our habit and then we
become so habituated to them that we do not
even notice them.
• He refers to the situation as unconsciously
automatic;
 Habit kills everything
• In such a situation when we do not even
notice things around us and go on doing things
automatically, then in fact we stop living in the
fullest sense of the term. If people go on
unconsciously, then such lives are as if they
had never been. And so life is reckoned as
nothing. Making life a habit kills everything.
And that according to Viktor is not Art.
 Sensation of life
• In his view, Art exists that one may
recover the sensation of life; it
exists to make one feel things…
• The purpose of art is to impart the
sensation of things as they are
perceived and not as they are
known.
 Language of poetry and prose
• Viktor claims, there is difference
between languages of poetry and
that of prose.
• If we compare between the
languages of poetry and prose, then
we find that the language of prose is
more direct and economical.
 Poetic language
• According to Viktor, Poetic imagery
is just one of the devices of poetic
language.
• In other words it is just a method to
create an abstraction about the idea
of a known thing or situation.
 Poetic Language
• Shklovsky says, -
• poetic language is a defamiliarised language.
• The language of poetry and the practical
language have different functions.
• Practical language is used for communication.
But the language of poetry intends to
defamiliarise and by doing so it gives a new
perception about the familiar object.
 Poetic language
• So the language deviates from syntax
and phonetic structures.
• According to Viktor, Poetic imagery is
just one of the devices of poetic
language.
• In other words it is just a method to
create an abstraction about the idea of
a known thing or situation.
 Poetic speech
• Then Viktor defines poetry as
attenuated, tortuous speech.
• Poetic speech is formed speech.
• Prose is ordinary speech -
economical, easy, proper.
• It is like the "direct" expression of a
child.
 Different meaning of same words
• He clarifies his argument with example of a
child who is eating bread and butter and
shows how the same word carries two
different meanings in two different situations.
• He opposed traditional theories of literary
criticism and advocated formal analysis of
literature.
 Poetic imagery
• Viktor feels, Poetic imagery is a means
of creating strongest impression.
• In other words, poetry is a technique to
create a new or strong impression about
a thing or a situation.
• But the method of poetry is through
using a new technique.
 Familiar as unfamiliar
• Viktor says that Art converts a familiar thing
into something unfamiliar.
• This process renders the perception difficult.
• He goes on to elaborate that through Art we
experience an object but even then the object
is not important.
• It is the way of seeing and understanding it
that is important. … we know about it, but we
do not see it.
 Automatism of perception.
• The process of seeing things as a
habit, is described by Viktor as
automatism of perception.
• He, in support of his arguments,
quotes extensively and gives
examples from the writings of Leo
Tolstoy.
 Technique of Tolstoy
• Tolstoy makes the familiar seem
strange by not naming the familiar
object.
• He describes an object as if he were
seeing it for the first time, an event
as if it were happening for the first
time.
 Defamiliarising in Tolstoy
• In describing something Tolstoy
avoids the accepted names.
• In Tolstoy, the familiar act offlogging
is made unfamiliar both by the
description and by the proposal to
change its form without changing its
nature.
 Horse’s story from Tolstoy
• Viktor says that Tolstoy uses this technique of
"defamiliarization" that is making the common
things look like uncommon and unknown. To
show it, he uses the horse’s story from Tolstoy.
In this story the Horse describes some
features of mankind. These features are well
known to all humans but coming from the
mouth of a horse, they become unfamiliar and
poetic.
 War And Peace
• In War and Peace Tolstoy uses the same
technique in describing whole battles as
if battles were something new.
• There are hundreds of examples of such
passages in the work of Tolstoy.
• After explaining the nature of his
technique, Viktor discusses the scope of
its application.
 Questions
• Summarise the contribution of Viktor Shklovsky
to literary criticism.
• What do you understand by defamiliarization?
What is technique of Art?
• Define and discuss Formalism.
• What are the basic tenets of Viktor Shklovsky’s
theory of Art as a technique?
• Art exists that one may recover the sensation of
life; it exists to make one feel things. – Discuss.
Thank you !

Dr Kavita Arya