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3 The Formalist S. Baluchatyj characterized his method as a “techno­logical literary discipline” (Baluchatyj 1927, p. 7). G. Vinokur des­cribed stylistics as “a kind of ‘linguistic technology’” (Vinokur 1929, p. 9). B. Èjchenbaum summed up the early phase of Formalism as fol­lows: “In recent years, students of liter­ature and critics have paid atten­tion above all to questions of literary ‘techno­logy’” (Èjchenbaum 1929, p. 50).

4 My translation of byt as “everyday life” is a rather inadequate ren­dition of a highly evocative Russian term. According to Roman Jakob­son, byt is “the tendency toward stabilizing the immutable present and the gradual accretion of the stagnant slime to it, the stifling of life by tight and petrified molds,” the antithesis of “the creative impulse toward the transformed future... It is cu­rious,” Jakobson continues, “that while in the Russian language and literature this word and its derivatives play quite a significant role... European languages lack any corresponding nomenclature” (Jakobson 1931, p. 13). For this reason, I have retained byt in all quotations from Formalist texts. In my own prose I alternate byt with “life.” If, however, the word “life” appears in quotation marks it is a translation of the Russian žizn‘. The adjective bytovoj is rendered as “extra-artistic” or “extra-literary” depending on the context.

5 Šklovskij was far from consistent in his arguments, and though his position in general was that form determines material, sometimes he was willing to argue precisely the opposite. It is interesting for this study that his concessions to material were also couched in a simile from the realm of technology: “If a mechanic wished to substitute a steel part of a machine for a bronze or an aluminium one, this new part cannot be a copy of the old one. A new material requires a new form” (Šklovskij 1923b, p. 18).

6 Propp wrote, “Professor Lévi-Strauss knows my book only in the En­glish translation. But its translator allowed himself an impermissible liberty. Not understanding the function of the epigraphs which at first glance do not seem to be explicitly connected with the text, he con­sidered them useless ornaments and barbarously omitted them… all these epigraphs… had the purpose of ex­pressing what was left unsaid in the text of my book...” (Propp 1976, p. 135). Lévi-Strauss’s “L’Analyse morphologique des contes russes,” (1960) reviews the first English edition of Propp’s Morphology of the Folktale(1958).

7 The epigraphs of other chapters of Propp’s book are from the following writings of Goethe: “Introduction” (ibid., sec. 2, vol. 6, pp. 298-9); “1stchapter (ibid., vol. 8, pp. 221-22): “2ndchapter” (ibid., sec. 1, vol. 35, p. 16); “9thchapter” (ibid., sec. 4, vol. 8, pp. 232-33). It is noteworthy that Skaftymov too uses a quotation from Goethe as the epi­graph for his essay on Dostoevskij’s Idiot (see Skaftymov 1924b, p. 135). However, in contrast to Petrovskij and Propp he does not quote from Goethe’s scientific works or diaries but from Faust and the two lines used, “Willst du dich am Ganzen erquicken,/ So musst du das Ganze im Kleinsten erblicken” (“If you want to enjoy the whole / You must learn to see the whole in the smallest part”), do not pertain to transformation but to the relationship of the parts and wholes.

8 “Le Retour” is published under the title “A French Enoch Arden” (Mau­passant 1903, p. 137).

9 Propp explained, “For the sake of brevity and a lively presentation we were forced to omit many things that a specialist would like to keep. In addition to those parts appearing below, the original draft of the work contained a study of the rich sphere of the acting character’s attributes… it deals in detail with the questions of metamorphosis, i.e., of the transformations of the tale” (Propp 1928a, pp. 6-7).

10 Unfortunately, the adjective “systemic” that I use for this Formalist model carries certain biological connotations (relating to the body as a system) that I do not intend. Its only possible replacement, “syste­matic,” is even less felici­tous, however, because of its primary meaning of “methodical” or “thorough.” I have chosen “systemic” therefore, in its sense of “relating to a system,” and hope that the reader will not be distracted by the specifically medical or biolo­gical usage of the term.

11 Koffka’s work seems to have been well known in the teens in Russia: the Formalists certainly were aware of it. It was the topic of Professor Georgij Čelpanov’s seminar held at the Moscow University in 1915/1916. Roman Jakob­son participated in this seminar (See Holenstein 1975, p. 62).

12 The Formalists made a few references to Cassirer’s book. Èjchen­baum cites it in his diary in January 1919 as one of the books to be consulted on issues of methodology (see M. O. Čudakova’s com­mentary in Tynjanov 1977, p. 455). A passage from Cassirer’s work is quoted by Sergej Karcevskij (1927, pp. 13-14). This passage is sub­sequently quoted by V. Vinogradov in his critique of Tynjanov’s method (1930, p. 59).

13 More recently, Frederic Jameson has asserted that “Tynjanov retains Saus­sure’s basic model of change, in which the essential mechanisms at work are the ulti­mate abstractions of Identity and Difference” (Jameson 1972, p. 96).

14 The three-level scheme that I outline here simplifies Tynjanov’s actual thought somewhat. The middle, infra-literary level in particular comprises several subsystems—genres, literary schools and styles. Tynjanov did not pro­vide any clear-cut picture of this level of system, however.

15 Apparently Tynjanov was not very happy about this term. He complained to Grigorij Vinokur in a letter of November 7, 1924: “My term ‘deformation’ is infelicitous; it should have been ‘transformation’—then everything would be in its place.” (Tynjanov 1977, p. 517).

16 That is, it is a mistake from the point of view of the system, not from that of the creating subject. As I argue later in this chapter, the systemic Formalists considered the author’s intentions irrelevant to literary change and claimed that it is an author’s unconscious slips rather than conscious efforts that give birth to a new principle of construction.

17 The concept of the “auto-function” discussed earlier, as a language link between literature and extra-literary phenomena, thus can be seen as one aspect of the overall “speech function” of literature.