Эпоха «остранения». Русский формализм и современное гуманитарное знание

Individual views on the relationship (or on the category of continuity) between Russian Formalism and Czech Structuralism might be perceived as a certain figure of the double movement realized in the process of human reception. Individual interpretations intersect, as already indicated, other important debates such as discussions about (1) poetic language and the culture of language, (2) poetry or the art of literature respectively and the way how we can study both, and finally about (3) the form and character of literary history. The source of inspiration here was probably the Gestalt psychology, on the one hand, and traditional aesthetics of perception, on the other, which both coincidentally became a source for the concept, proposed by Jan Mukařovský, of mental processes of a perceiving subject in the context of the unifying principle of artistic creation [Schmid, 2011: 23–47]. The relationship of Russian Formalism and Czech Structuralism, previously suggested, becomes a secondary synecdoche of the larger controversy between representatives of structural thinking and their – speaking awkwardly – ideological opponents. The double movement lies in the application of the two-phase model to the empirical process of human perception, in which the base is the assumption that human consciousness accesses to external stimuli actively, which are the objects of perception; that means individual perceptions are actively reflected by the human consciousness. Leaving aside the historical and theoretical context of that account, the first phase is described as a particular isolation of the shaped outline in the context of other objects. The second concentration phase is focused on the already isolated scheme of shapes that is progressively re-instigated in different material variations by the consciousness, or is eventually corrected if any defect types are detected within the isolated scheme. The model of reception of the human consciousness is likely to become a model not only for Mukařovský in his consideration of rhythmic structuring of a work of art in the process of its perception but also for adjudicators in terms of the relationship between Russian Formalism and Czech Structuralism.

The unified principle plays here a triple role: I. as the methodological approach to the perception of a work of art (represented by Jan Mukařovský [1948 (1928), 1982 (1929)]); II. as the method of interpretation and explication of (a) the historical relationship of Russian Formalism and Czech Structuralism,[92] and of (b) basic intellectual concepts of Czech Structuralism that are related to basic questions i. on poetic as well as ii. standard/written language, and finally iii. on the basic concepts of the whole intellectual formation (terms such as function, structure, purpose); last but not least, III. as the model for the interpretation of the historical development of Czech Structuralism which obtained appearance of the two-phase model [Schmid, 2011: 23]. In the base of such two-phase model there is an idea as follows: during the first phase the Czech Structuralism tried to isolate (1) its own relationship to the tradition of Czech Aesthetics that contains various elements (an example might be René Wellek’s different opinion on the role of Russian Formalism in the context of the development of the Czech Structuralism), as well as (2) the basic concepts of its approach to various questions about language, art, and literature respectively. By the process of isolation a certain space of the structuralist formation was allocated and then it was often modulated (concentrated) in a dialogue about basic procedures and concepts that were isolated and described during the first phase.

3.2 Form/Content Analysis

Certainly, we can agree with Zdeněk Mathauser [Mathauser, 2006: 75–77] that the basic model of the relationship of two concepts (form/content) that is central to the initial polemics, is retained well in their extreme positions: on the one hand, it appears a form [A] of the relationship containing a pair of relations: the active form (essentially Aristotelian form[93]) and the passive content (waiting to be filled), on the other hand, we find a form [B] of the relationship as a pair of the active content (imbued with the idea of aesthetics) and the passive form, whose main function is to promote the richness of the content. This model in its various embodiments includes the criterion of ‘permeability’, that means to what extent both mutual poles are/are not complementary to each other. Finally, in different historical realizations each pole is attributed to a certain norm bearing in itself a criterion of evaluation. The axiological structure of art is so firmly rooted in the ‘form/content’ relationship, therefore it cannot be substantially affected by the process of reception. The model can then be as follows: