"Some of the most important literary theory of this century."--College English Russian formalists emerged from the Russian Revolution with ideas about the independence of literature. They enjoyed that independence until Stalin shut them down. By then they had produced essays that remain among the best defenses ever written for both literature and its theory. Included here are four essays representing key points in the formalists' short history. Victor Scklovsky's pathbreaking "Art as Technique" (1917) vindicates disorder in literary style. His 1921 essay on Tristram Shandy makes that eccentric novel the centerpiece for a theory of narrative. A section from Tomashevsky's "Thematics" (1925) inventories the elements of stories. In "The Theory of the 'Formal Method'" (1927) Boris Eichenbaum defends Russian formalism from many attacks. An able champion, he describes formalism's evolution, notes its major workers and works, clears away decayed axioms, and rescues literature from "primitive historicism" and other dangers. These essays set a course for literary studies that led to Prague structuralism, French semiotics, and postmodern poetics. Russian Formalist Criticism has been honored as a Choice Outstanding Academic Book of the Year by the American Library Association.

In this essay, a leading figure of the Russian Formalist movement of the 1910s and 1920s enunciates the function of the arts: what they are and, more importantly, what they are not. His views of the other arts lead him into speculations about cinematography, which was just emerging at the time of writing, 1923.

Russian Formalism, one of the twentieth century's most important movements in literary criticism, has received far less attention than most of its rivals. Examining Formalism in light of more recent developments in literary theory, Peter Steiner here offers the most comprehensive critique of Formalism to date. Steiner studies the work of the Formalists in terms of the major tropes that characterized their thought. He first considers those theorists who viewed a literary work as a mechanism, an organism, or a system. He then turns to those who sought to reduce literature to its most basic element—language—and who consequently replaced poetics with linguistics. Throughout, Steiner elucidates the basic principles of the Formalists and explores their contributions to the study of poetics, literary history, the theory of literary genre, and prosody. Russian Formalism is an authoritative introduction to the movement that was a major precursor of contemporary critical thought.

This vintage book contains two pioneering volumes on the subject of film making by V.I. Pudovkin. Considered two of the most valuable manuals of the practice and theory of film making ever written, these texts will prove invaluable for the student or film enthusiast, and are not to be missed by discerning collectors of such literature. The chapters of this volume include: 'The Film Scenario and Its Theory', 'Film Director and Film Material', 'Types Instead of Actors', 'Close-Ups in Time', 'Asynchronism as a Principle of Sound Film', 'Rhythmic Problems in my First Sound Film', 'Notes and Appendices', 'Film Acting', et cetera. Vsevolod Illarionovich Pudovkin (1893 – 1953) was a Russian film director, screenwriter, and actor, famous for developing influential theories of montage. This volume is being republished now complete with a new prefatory biography of the author.