The Dream Of A Science: Redemption And Nirvana

The dissertation is a systemic study of literary theory of Russian Formalism. On the one hand, it is a comparatively complete introduction to the fundamentals of literary theory of Russian Formalism, and on the other hand, it tries to throw some new light on the topic: to appraise its success and failure in an impersonal and dialectic way, and use its some reasonable items for the Chinese poetics.The Russian Formalists were sponsors of a revolution in poetics. They wanted to make the study of literature independent, self-sufficient and systemic, that is to say, to establish a reliable science of literature. They needed a definite critical formula that would define the difference between literature and non-literature more precisely and more generally than had been done, and that would at the same time state the purpose of literature. Either concept of "literariness" or concept of "defamiliarization" did both. Literariness means defamiliarization; it's the object of literature study. The Formalists hoped to use this concept to reveal the intrinsic rule of literature and partly succeeded. But they had immanent divergence and were confronted with the attack from many opponents, especially the Marxists. As a result, the campaign of Russian Formalism had to be announced to end. But some of its fundamentals and terms had been reserved and carved out a new way for the development of poetics in the twentieth century.