UC Berkeley UC Berkeley Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title The Role of Folklore Study in the Rise of Russian Formalist and Czech Structuralist Literary Theory Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/00v0958b Author Merrill, Jessica Evans Publication Date 2012 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California The Role of Folklore Study in the Rise of Russian Formalist and Czech Structuralist Literary Theory by Jessica Evans Merrill A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Slavic Languages and Literatures in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Irina Paperno, Chair Professor Harsha Ram Professor Alan Timberlake Professor John Connelly Spring 2012 The Role of Folklore Study in the Rise of Russian Formalist and Czech Structuralist Literary Theory © 2012 by Jessica Evans Merrill Abstract The Role of Folklore Study in the Rise of Russian Formalist and Czech Structuralist Literary Theory by Jessica Evans Merrill Doctor of Philosophy in Slavic Languages and Literatures University of California, Berkeley Professor Irina Paperno, Chair Russian formalism and Czech structuralism are understood to have initiated the study of literature as a self-sufficient discipline by applying linguistic concepts to the analysis of literary texts. This dissertation seeks to enrich our understanding of this development by examining the transition from linguistics to literary theory from an intellectual-historical perspective. My thesis is that folklore study played a crucial role in the rise of formalist and structuralist literary theory by serving as a mediating field between language and “high” literature. Folkloristics, which traditionally approached its subject matter through linguistic theory, understood verbal art to behave like language—as an impersonal repertoire of poetic forms which adhere to regular laws governing their usage and evolution. This body of scholarly work provided early literary theorists with a model for theorizing literature or art as a law-abiding, “scientific” object of study akin to language. The transfer of ideas from the field of folkloristics to literary theory was the product of scholarly training, personal intellectual exchange, and institutional affiliations. In the first chapter I focus on Viktor Shklovsky’s use of A. N. Veselovsky’s writings to develop a universalist theory of narrative structure in his Theory of Prose. Drawing on Roman Jakobson’s The Newest Russian Poetry and his work on the Cyrillo-Methodian legacy, the second chapter illustrates parallels between Jakobson’s conceptions of literary value and literary evolution and the work of his teacher V. F. Miller. The last chapter argues that Jan Mukařovský’s Aesthetic Function, Norm and Value as Social Facts drew on P. G. Bogatyrev’s functional structural ethnography and compares their respective conceptions of the semiotic collective. By tracing these intersections, we can see how the emergence of theory intended to explain “high” literature was galvanized by moments of contact with folklore studies. Highlighting the role that folkloristics played in the work of these three pioneering literary theorists (Shklovsky, Jakobson and Mukařovský) allows us to better understand the emergence of twentieth-century literary theory as an autonomous discipline. 1 Table of Contents Acknowledgements………………………………………………………………………………ii Transliteration, Translations and Abbreviations……………………………………….…….iii Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………1 Chapter One Viktor Shklovsky’s Theory of Prose and the Folklorization of Literature………………………14 Chapter Two Roman Jakobson: Literary Value and the Epic Past…………………………………………….61 Chapter Three Petr Bogatyrev and Jan Mukařovský: Prague School Semiotics and the Concept of Collectivity………………………………..……105 Works Cited……………………………………………………………………………………134 i Acknowledgements In the course of working on this dissertation, I have had the good fortune to incur a great number of debts. First thanks go to my dissertation Chair, Irina Paperno, who consistently supplied the intellectual challenges and moral support that sustained my development as a graduate student. I am also sincerely grateful for her dedication to improving my work—for brainstorming ideas and for reading countless preliminary drafts and revisions. Likewise, I am very fortunate to have had the guidance of Harsha Ram, who, by encouraging me to write on Roman Jakobson planted the germ for this dissertation. He has taught me much about literary theory and the Russian avant-garde. The dissertation was also decisively shaped by Alan Timberlake, who was patient enough to listen to my ideas over the years and who so often provided incisive suggestions. Finally, I would like to thank John Connelly for taking an interest in a topic outside his field and for teaching me about Central European history. It is a pleasure to thank Victor Zhivov, who kindly provided me with the benefit of his expertise on the history of Russian philology. I am also indebted to him for arranging my affiliation at the Institute of Russian Language in Moscow, where he played an instrumental role in facilitating my access to the archives of the Moscow Linguistic Circle. In addition I would like to thank Ronelle Alexander for introducing me to folklore theory in her memorable course and to Amy Shuman for providing generous feedback on my work. Outside of Berkeley I have been fortunate to receive the expert advice of Peter Steiner, who continues to impress me with his willingness to read my graduate-student efforts and supply answers to my questions. I would also like to thank Galin Tihanov and Jindřich Toman for their encouragement and insightful suggestions. Other scholars who have been generous with their time and knowledge include Klaas-Hinrich Ehlers, Andrey Toporkov, and Svetlana Sorokina, all of whom greatly facilitated my research. I also would like to thank Rad Borislavov, Anne Dwyer, Boris Maslov, František Podhajský, Ondřej Sládek and Alyson Tapp for sharing their work on Slavic literary theory. It is a real pleasure to anticipate future collaboration with them. A generous grant from the Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Fellowship enabled me to spend the 2010-2011 academic year in Moscow and Prague conducting invaluable archival research. I would have been lost without the assistance of many helpful librarians and archivists. In particular I would like to thank Galina Barankova at the Institute of Russian Language who generously helped decipher difficult handwriting, Georgij Levinton who graciously invited me into his home to consult his personal archive, and Varvara Shklovskaia who granted access to Viktor Shklovsky’s archive in RGALI and who was kind enough to recount her memories of her father. My stay in Moscow was greatly enriched by the efforts of Aleksey Yudin, who provided many valuable introductions and, above all, by Alexandra Sviridova, who turned Moscow into a city full of interesting and kind friends. In Prague I am indebted to the eager and expert staff of the National Library of the Czech Republic and the Archive of the Academy of Sciences. I also sincerely thank the Plšek family for providing me with a home in Prague. Last and deepest thanks go to my friends and wonderful family, who have given me so much support throughout my years in graduate school and in the crucial stages of dissertation writing. ii Transliteration, Translations and Abbreviations Transliteration follows the Library of Congress system, except for last names ending in –ii which are written –y (e.g. Shklovsky, Veselovsky). Names follow the LOC system in the Works Cited section and footnotes. When available I have used published translations of primary sources. Unless otherwise noted all translations are my own. I use the following abbreviations in the text: AFNV Jan Mukařovský’s Aesthetic Function, Norm and Value as Social Facts [Estetická funkce, norma a hodnota jako sociální fakty] CFS Commission for Folklore Study [Komissiia po narodnoi slovesnosti] MDC Moscow Dialectological Commission [Moskovskaia dialektologicheskaia komissiia] MLC Moscow Linguistic Circle [Moskovskii lingvisticheskii kruzhok] NRP Roman Jakobson’s Newest Russian Poetry [Noveishaia russkaia poeziia] OLEAE Society of Lovers of Natural History, Anthropology and Ethnography [Obshchestvo liubitelei estestvoznaniia, antropologii i etnografii] OPOIaZ Society for the Study of Poetic Language [Obshchestvo izucheniia poeticheskogo iazyka] PLC Prague Linguistic Circle [Pražský lingvistický kroužek] iii Introduction The intellectual movement known as Russian formalism is widely understood to have laid the foundations for modern, twentieth-century literary theory. The formalists established a set of theoretical precepts and a methodological approach aimed at defining literature as a self- contained field of study.1 They sought to create a science of literature by approaching their subject matter as a special field of linguistic production within which they sought commonalities, patterns, and laws of development. In the spirit of the methodological development of linguistics and sociology, the formalists strove to treat literature as a social fact in the way that Ferdinand de Saussure approached language, or Émile Durkheim approached the collective consciousness. This meant, first and foremost, abandoning the understanding of the literary