레이먼 셀던 - [현대문학이론] (Raman Selden, A Reader's Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory)

*Raman Selden, A Reader's Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory, Harvester Wheatsheaf, 2nd Ed.

<참고 도서>
1. Eagleton, Terry, Literary Theory: An Introduction (Blackwell, Oxford, 1983)
1-1. 이글턴, 문학이론입문, 김명환 외 옮김(창비)
 

#Chapter 1: Russian Formalism
*They [Russian Formalists] aimed rather to outline models and hypotheses (in a scientific spirit) to explain how aesthetic effects are produced by literary devices, and how the 'literary' is distinguished from and related to the 'extra-literary'. While the New Critics regarded literature as a form of human understanding, the Formalists thought of it as a special use of language. (7-8)
(문학적 기교에 의해 생성된 미학적 효과에 치중)

#The Historical Development of Formalism
#Art as Device
*The Formalists' technical focus led them to treat literature as a special use of language which achives its distinctness by deviating from and distorting 'practical' language. Practical language is used for acts of communication, while literary language has no practical function at all and simply makes us see differently. . . .
What distinguishes literature from 'practical' language is its constructed quality. Poetry was treated by the Formalists as the quintessentially literary use of language: it is 'speech organised in its entire phonic texture'. Its most important constuctive factor is rhythm. . . . Poetry exercises a controlled violence upon practical language, which is thereby deformed in order to compel our attention to its constructed nature. (9-10)
*Shklovsky called one of his most attractive concepts 'defamiliarisation' (ostranenie: 'making strange'). He argued that we can never retain the freshness of our perceptions of objects; the demands of 'normal' existence require that they must become to a great extent 'automatised'(a later term). (10-1)
*The purpose of art is to impart the sensation of things as they are perceived, and not as they are known. The technique of art is to make objects 'unfamiliar', to make forms difficult, to increase the difficulty and length of perception, because the process of perception is an aesthetic end in itself and must be prolonged. Art is a way of experiencing the artfulness of an object; the object is not important. (Shklovsky; Art as Technique, 11)
*'Defamiliarisation' and 'laying bare' [드러내기; the emphasis on the actual process of presentation] are notions which directly influenced Bertolt Brecht's famous 'alienation effect'. The classical ideal that art should conceal it own processes (ars celare artem) was directly challenged by the Formalists and by Brcht. For literature to present itself as a seamless unity of discourse and as a natural representation of reality would be deceitful and, for Brecht, politically regressive. (12)
*Writing in 1935, Jakobson regarded 'the dominant' as an important late Formalist concept, and defined it as 'the focusing component of a work of art: it rules, determines and transforms the remaining components' He rightly stresses the non-mechanistic aspect of this view of artistic structure. The dominant provides the work with its focus of crystallisation and facillitates its unity or gestalt (total order). The very notion of defamiliarisation implied change and historical development. (15)
*The Bakhtin School was not interested in abstract linguistics of the kind which later formed the basis of structuralism. They were concerned with language or discourse as a social phenomenon. Voloshinov's central insight was that 'words' are active, dynamic social signs, capable of taking on different social and historical situations. He attacked those linguistics (including Saussure) who treated language as a dead, neutral and static object of investigation. He rejected the whole notion of 'The isolated, finished, monologic utterance, divorced from its verbal and actual context and standing open not to any possible sort of active response but to passive understanding'. (17)
*'Heteroglossia' is a fundamental concept [of Bakhtin's]. . . . The term refers to the basic condition governing the production of meaning in all discourse. It asserts the way in which context defines the meaning of utterances, which are heteroglot in so far as they put in play a multiplicity of social voices and their individual ｅxpressions. (17)
*Bakhtin raises a number of themes developed by later theorists. Both Romantics and Formalists regarded texts as organic unities, as integrated structures in which all loose ends are finally gathered up into aesthetic untiy by the reader. Bakhtin's emphasis on Carnival breaks up this unquestioned organicism and promotes the idea that major literary works may be multi-levelled and resistant to unification. This leaves the author in a much less dominant position in relation to his writings. (19)

<요약>
러시아 형식주의자들이 문학에서 중요하게 생각한 것을 요약해 보자면 ‘문학적 기교에 의해 생성된 미학적 효과’라고 압축해 볼 수 있을 것이다. 그러면서 이들은 ‘낯설게 하기(defamiliarisation)'와 ’드러내기(laying bare)'라는 용어를 사용한다. 브레히트의 ‘소격 효과(alienation effect)'도 이들의 영향이 크다. 형식주의자들은 초기에 문학을 정적인 것으로 또 공시적인 것으로 보았으나, 자신들의 견해에 한계를 느끼고 문학에 역동성과 통시성을 강조하게 되었다. 야콥슨은 ’예술 작품의 중심적인 요소‘로 ’지배소(the dominant)' 개념을 내세웠는데, 이것은 예술적  구성에 대한 견해가 지니고 있는 비기계적인 측면을 설득력 있게 강조한 것이다.
형식주의의 후기에 들어서서는 바흐찐 학파가 형식주의와 마르크스주의를 효과적으로 결합시켰다. 바흐찐 학파는 후일 구조주의의 기본을 이루게 될 순수 언어학에 대해서는 관심이 없었고, 오히려 사회적 현상으로서의 언어나 언술에 관심이 있었다. 볼로쉬노프의 중심적인 이론에 의하면, ‘말’은 활동적이고 역동적인 사회적 기호로서, 서로 다른 사회적*역사적 상황에서 서로 다른 사회 계층에게 서로 다른 의미와 함축적 내용을 지닐 수 있다. 그는 언어를 생명력이 없고 중립적이며 정적인 탐구 대상으로 간주하는 언어학자들을 공격하였다. 

<참고>
1. Russian Formalism, [Princeton] (726-727)
*The formalists viewed literature as a distinct field of human endeavor, as verbal art rather than a reflection of society or battleground of ideas. They were more interested in the poetry than in the poet, in the actual works of literature than in their alleged roots or effects. Intent upon delimiting literary scholarship from contiguous disciplines such as psychology, sociology, or intellectual history, the formalist theoreticians focused on the "distinguishing features" of literature, on the artistic devices peculiar to imaginative writing. In Jakobson's words, "the subject of literary scholarship is not literature in its totality, but literariness, i. e., that which makes of a given work a work of literature. (726)
<번역: 형식주의가 논하는 문학의 사회의 반영물이거나 여러 사상의 각축장으로서의 문학이 아닌 언어예술로서의 문학이다. 그래서 시인보다는 시에, 문학에서 추정된 것이나 그에 의해 결과되는 것보다는 실제 문학 작품에 더 많은 관심을 두었다. 형식론자들은 문예학을 방게 학문인 심리학*사회학*지성사 등과 구별하기 위해 문학의 <특징적 양상>, 즉 상상력이 풍부한 글에서 뚜렷이 나타나는 예술적 장치에 중점을 두었다. 야콥슨에 의하면 “문예학의 주제는 문학의 총체가 아니라, 문학성, 즉 기술된 어떤 것을 문학작품이게 하는 것”이다>
([러시아 형식주의 문학이론], 청하, 3)

2. Roman Jacobson, "Closing Statements: Linguistics and Poetics" in T. A. Sebeok(ed.) Style in Language, 여기서는 김태옥이 <언어학과 시학>이라는 제목으로 번역한 글에서 발췌, [언어과학이란 무엇인가], 문지
*언어는 그 모든 다양한 기능에 관해서 연구되어야 한다. 또한 시적 기능을 논하기 앞서, 이 기능이 기타 제기능 사이에서 차지하는 자리를 규명해야 한다. 언어의 제(諸)기능에 대한 윤곽을 얻으려면 모든 발언 사상, 모든 언어전달행위를 이루는 구성요소들을 개관하지 않을 수 없다. 발신자 addresser는 수신자 addressee에게 전언 message을 보낸다. 하나의 메시지가 발동하려면 그 언급되는 바 관련상황 context이 필요하다(이는 <지시대상 referent>이라는 좀 애매한 술어로 불리우기도 한다). 이것은 수신자가 포착할 수 있는 것이라야 하고 언어라는 형식을 취하든지 아니면 언어화할 수 있는 것이라야 한다. 다음에 필요한 신호체계 code는 완전하게, 아니면 적어도 부분적으로나마 발신자와 수신자(다른 말로 표현하면 기호화자(記號化者)와 그 해독자)에게 공통된 것이라야 한다. 끝으로 필요한 것은 발수신자 간의 물리적 회로 및 심리적 연결이 되는 접촉 contact으로서 양자가 의사전달을 개시하여 이를 지속할 수 있게 하는 요소다. 언어전달에 불가결한 이 모든 요소들을 도식화하면 다음과 같다.

                       관련상황 context
                        전 언   message

발신자 Addresser------------------------수신자 Addressee
                      
                         접촉 contact
                         신호체계 code
                                            --p148--149
                       
*근대논리학에서는 언어를 두 계층으로 구별한다. 대상에 관해서 언급하는 <대상언어 object language>와 언어 자체에 대해서 언급하는 <메타언어 metalanguage>의 두 가지다. 그러나 메타언어는 논리학자나 언어학자만이 꼭 필요해 사용하는 과학적 도구가 아니라 우리 일상생활에서도 중요한 기능을 갖는다. (p152)
*(앞서 말했듯이) 언어의 시적 기능에 관한 연구는 시의 한계를 넘어서야 하는 한편 시의 언어학적 검토도 시적 기능에만 국한시킬 수 없다. 시의 다양한 장르가 각기 가지는 특질들은, 가장 지배적인 시적 기능과 아울러 기타 여러 언어기능들이 제가끔 상이한 위계로 참여하고 있음을 뜻한다. 서사시는 3인칭을 중심으로 해서 언어의 지시기능을 크게 활용하며 서정시는 1인칭을 지향해서 감정표시적 기능과 밀접한 관계를 갖는다. 2인칭 시는 능동적 기능이 작용되며 1인칭이 2인칭에 대해 종속적이냐, 아니냐에 따라 애원조가 되든지 권고조가 된다. (p155)
*운문이란 제1의적으로 회기적(回起的)인 <음의 문채 figures of sound>라는 것은 확실하다. 제1의적으로는 그러하나 전적으로 그렇다는 것은 아니다. 시각(詩脚)*두운*압운 등 시의 전통적 기법을 오로지 음성면에만 국한시키려 한다면 이는 경험적 합리성을 결하는 탁상공론에 불과하다. 등가의 원리를 배열에 투영한다는 것은 좀더 깊고 넓은 의미에서이다. <소리와 뜻 사이에서 주저하는 것>이 시라고 보는 발레리의 견해는 음성적 고립주의의 어떤 편견보다도 훨씬 현실적이며 과학적이다. (p168)
*시적 기능이 지시적 기능보다 우위를 차지한다 해도 지시성을 소실하는 것이 아니라 이를 모호하게 할 뿐이다. 2중적 메시지는 분열된 발신자, 분열된 수신자, 그리고 더욱 분열된 지시 관계에서 대응을 찾을 수 있으니 여러 민족들의 동화 머리말에 충분히 나타난 바와 같으며 (예를 들어 마졸카 섬의 야담가가 흔히 쓰는 머리말과 같다; 그렇기도 했고 그렇지도 않았다 Aixo era y no era) 등가의 원리를 배열에 적용해서 생기는 반복성은 시적 메시지의 구성소적 배열뿐 아니라 메시지 전체의 회기를 가능케 한다. (p173)
*Poe의 시 <Raven>에 대한 분석: 음성적으로 유사한 낱말을 의미적으로도 서로에게 이끌리게 한 예---(p173--5)
*시에 있어 음의 현저한 유사성은 모두 의미의 유사성과/이나 상이성과의 관련하에 평가된다. 그러나 포우프 Pope가 <음은 의미의 반향으로 들려야 한다 the sound must seem an Echo of the sense>라는 두운법을 스스로 쓴 시인에게 주는 교훈은 널리 적용될 수 있는 말이다. 지시적 언어에서는 기표 signans와 기의 signatum의 연결이 기호화된 인접성에 압도적으로 의존하며 이는 때로 <언어기호의 자의성 arbitrariness of verbal sign>이라는 혼동되기 쉬운 레테르가 붙는다. (p175)

3. Shklovsky, Victor, etc., Russian Formalist Criticism: Four Essays, Lemon and Reis, tr., (Bison)

*Following Wilhelm von Humboldt, Potebnya saw poetry and prose (aesthetic and nonaesthetic language) as distinct, as separate approaches to the understanding of reality linked by their dependence upon language. Like many British and American critics of the following century, he drew two basic conclusions from this insight: that the study of literature as literature must be primarily a study of language, and that the preliminary problem in such a study is to define the peculiarities of poetic language as opposed to prose or practical-scientific language. This initial problem was also the starting point for I. A. Richards in books like Principles of Literary Criticism and Science and Poetry. (xi)
*Positively. . . Potebnya had defined one approach to a purely literary study of literature. If the distinguishing characteristic of literature is the way it uses words, then the job of the student of literature is to study the way words are used. This was the earliest concern of the Formalism. (xi-xii)
*An example of the practical differences between the two groups might clarify matters. The Symbolists were much concerned with onomatopoeia because in the vast system of correspondence between word and physical reality, and between physical and spiritual reality that they conceived, onomatopoeia seemed a clear instance of a thing on one level (sound) corresponding with something on another level (physical or perhaps emotional reality). The Formalists disagreed, preferring to argue either that the effects of onomatopoeia were exaggerated or illusionary, or that the sound of poetry is interesting enough in itself to require no further justification. The Formalists also felt that before entering into such murky theoretical areas as the relationship between sound and meaning they should first determine the facts of literature--how do poets actually use rhyme, rhythm, the tonal properties of vowels and consonants, and so on? To answer these questions, they had to seal off their subject from ethics, sociology, philosophy, psychology, and what have you until they attained a precise and detailed knowledge of what actually happens within literary works. (xiii-xiv)

*러시아 형식주의의 등장과 발전의 배경에는 문학을 문학의 잣대로 파악해보고자 하는 순수성이 크게 자리하고 있음을 알 수 있다. Potebnya 같은 사람의 주장에도 문학의 특징이 언어를 사용하는 방식에 있다고 한다면, 그 언어를 어떻게 사용했는가를 살피는 것이 비평의 진정한 출발이 아닌가 하는 의견을 제시하고 있다.

 

#Victor Shklovsky, Art as Technique
(해설)
*Shklovsky's argument, briefly stated, is that the habitual way of thinking is to make the unfamiliar as easily digestible as possible. Normally our perceptions are "automatic," which is another way of saying that they are minimal. From this standpoint, learning is largely a matter of learning to ignore. We have not really learned to drive an automobile, for example, until we are able to react to the relevant stoplights, pedestrians, other motorists, road conditions, and so on, with a minimum of conscious effort. Eventually, we may even react properly without actually noticing what we are reacting to--we miss the pedestrian but fail to see what he looks like. When reading ordinary prose, we are likely to feel that something is wrong if we find ourselves noticing individual words as words. The purpose of art, according to Shklovsky, is to force us to notice. Since perception is usually too automatic, art develops a variety of techniques to impede perception or, at least, to call attention to themselves. Thus "Art is a way of experiencing the artfulness of an object; the object is not important.(Shklovsky)" The object is unimportant because as art the poem does not have to point to anything outside itself; the poem must "not mean/But be." (4)
*He(Shklovsky--quoter) prefers to argue, as does I. A. Richards, that perception is an end in itself, that the good life is the life of a man full aware of the world. Art, to paraphrase Richards and to summarize Shklovsky, is the record of and the occasion for that awareness. (5)
*Poetry is recogniaed not by the presence of a certain kind of content or of images, ambiguities, symbols, or whatever, but by its ability to make man look with an exceptionally high level of awareness. (5)

*The works of poets are classified or grouped according to the new techniques that poets discover and share, and according to their arrangement and development of the resources of language; poets are much more concerned with arranging images than with creating them. Images are given to poets; the ability to remember them is far more important than ability to create them. (7)
*By "works of art," in the narrow sense, we mean works created by special technique designed to make the works as obviously artistic as possible. (8)
*If we start to examine the general laws of perception, we see that as perception becomes habitual, it becomes automatic. Thus, for example, all out habits retreat into the area of the unconsciously automatic; if one remembers the sensations of holding a pen or of speaking in a foreign language for the first time and compares that with his feeling at performing the action for the ten thousandth time, he will agree with us. <ellipsis> The process of "algebrization," the overautomatization of an object, permits the greatest economy of perceptive effort. Either objects are assigned only one proper feature--a number, for example--or else they function as though by formula and do not even appear in cognition: <ellipsis> Habitualization devours works, clothes, furniture, one's wife, and the fear of war. "If the whole complex lives of many people go on unconsciously, then such lives are as if they had never been." And art exists that one may recover the sensation of life; it exists to make one feel things, to make the stone stony. The purpose of art is to impart the sensation of things as they are perceived and not as they are known. The technique of art is to make objects "unfamiliar," to make forms difficult, to increase the difficulty and length of perception because the process of perception is an aesthetic end in itself and must be prolonged. Art is a way of experiencing the artfulness of an object; the object is not important. (11-2)
*Tolstoy makes the familiar seem strange by not naming the familiar object. he describes an object as if he were seeing it for the first time, an event as if it were happening for the first time. In describing something he avoids the accepted names of its parts and instead names corresponding parts of other objects. For example, in "Shame" Tolstoy "defamiliarizes" the idea of flogging in this way: "to strip people who have broken the law, to hurl them to the floor, and to rap on their bottoms with switches," and, after a few lines, "to lash about on the naked buttocks." (13)
*An image is not a permanent referent for those mutable complexities of life which are revealed through it; its purpose is not to make us perceive meaning, but to create a special perception of the object--it creates a "vision" of the object instead of serving as a means for knowing it. (18)
*A work is created "artistically" so that its perception is impeded and the greatest possible effect is produced through the slowness of the perception. As a result of this lingering, the object is perceived not in its extension in space, but, so to speak, in its continuity. Thus "poetic language" gives satisfaction. (22)

<요약 및 평>
우리의 감각은 경제성을 추구하여 자동화한다. 예술의 목적은 대상을 우리가 알고 있는 것이 아니라 우리가 인지한 그대로 제시하는 것이다. 따라서 예술의 테크닉은 대상을 낯설게 하고, 형태를 어렵게 만들고, 인지의 어려움과 시간을 증가시키는 것이다. 인지(지각) 과정은 그 자체로 미학적 목적이고 지속되어야 하기 때문이다.

 The purpose of art is to impart the sensation of things as they are perceived and not as they are known. The technique of art is to make objects "unfamiliar," to make forms difficult, to increase the difficulty and length of perception because the process of perception is an aesthetic end in itself and must be prolonged. Art is a way of experiencing the artfulness of an object; the object is not important. (11-2)

이 말이 아마도 쉬클로프스키 논지의 요점이리라. 쉬클로프스키의 지각은 상당히 흥미롭고, 설득력이 있긴 하지만, 이미 다른 사람들이 누누히 지적한 대로 예술을 너무나 편협하고 보고 있다. 예술 혹은 문학은 많은 요소를 아우르고 있다. 따라서 “낯설게 하기”만을 내세우는 그의 태도는 부분으로 전체를 포괄하려는 무리가 따른다. 문득 이런 생각이 든다. 문학은 우리 인식의 자동화 과정의 폐해를 보여주기 위해서 그런 인식의 자동화를 그대로 제시할 수도 있는 것이라는.

3. Boris Tomashevsky, Thematics
*. . .Tomashevsky argues that we interest men by dealing with their interests; selection of a theme, consequently, is a crucial aesthetic problem. A work that does not in some way deal with our recurrent interests simply will not endure. (61)

1. Selection of Themes
*To be coherent, a verbal structure must have a unifying theme running through it. Consequently, both the selection and the development of the theme are important aesthetically. (63)
2. Story and Plot
*After reducing a work to its thematic elements, we come to parts that are irreducible, the smallest particles of thematic material: "evening comes," "Raskolnikov kills the old woman," "the hero dies," "the letter is received," and so on. The theme of an irreducible part of a work is called the motif; each sentence, in fact, has its own motif. (67)
*the story is "the action itself," the plot, "how the reader learns of the action." (67) [주]
*Mutually related motifs form the thematic bonds of the work. From this point of view, the story is the aggregate of motifs in their logical, casual-chronological order; the plot is the aggregate of those same motifs but having the relevance and the order which they had in the original work. The place in the work in which the reader learns of an event, whether the information is given by the author, or by a character, or by a series of indirect hints--all this is irrelevant to the story. But the aesthetic function of the plot is precisely this bringing of an arrangement of motifts to the attention of the reader. Real incidents, not fictionalized by an author, may make a story. A plot is wholly an artistic creation. (68)
*A story may be thought of as a journey from one situation to another. During the journey a new character may be introduced(complicating the situation), old characters eliminated(for example, by the death of rival), or the prevailing relationships changed. (70)
*Motifs which change the situation are dynamic motifs; those which do not are static. <...ellipsis...> Descriptions of nature, local color, furnishings, the character, their personalities, and so on--these are typically static motifs. The actions and behavior of the main characters are typically dynamic motifs.
Dynamic motifs are motifs which are central to the story and which keep it moving; in the plot, on the other hand, static motifs may predominate. (70)
*In the simplest system of dialectics relevant to the construction of a story, the climax is like the antithesis(the thesis is the exciting force, the antithesis the climax, and the synthesis the ending). (72)

3. Motivation
*. . . the use of a motifs results from a compromise between realistic illusion and the demands of the artistic structure. (84-5)
*I consider the device of defamiliarization to be a special instance of artistic motivation. The introduction of nonliterary material into a work, if is to be aesthetic, must be justified by a new and individual interpretation of the material. The old and habitual must be spoken of as if it were new and unusual. one must speak of the ordinary as if it were unfamiliar.
Techniques of defamiliarizing ordinary things are usually justified because the objects are distorted through the mental processes of a character who is not familiar with them. (85)
*Swift uses these methods of defamiliarization extensively in Gulliver's Travels in order to present a satirical picture of the European social-political order. Gulliver, arriving in the land of the Houyhnhnms (horses endowed with reason), tells his master (a horse) about the customs of the ruling class in human society. Compelled to tell everything with the utmost accuracy, he removes the shell of euphemistic phrases and fictitious traditions which justify such things as war, class strife, parliamentary intrigue, and so on. Stripped of their verbal justification and thereby defamiliarized, these topics emerge in all their horror. Thus criticism of the political system--nonliterary material--is artistically motivated and fully involved in the narrative. (86)

4. The Hero
*A character is recognized by his characteristics. By characteristics we mean a system of motifs intimately related to a given person. More narrowly, characteristics are the motifs which define the psychology of the person, his "character." (88)
*Two basic kinds of character may be distinguished (the static character, who remains exactly the same throughout the development of the story; and the dynamic character, whose characteristics change throughout the course of the story. In the latter the elements of characterization enter intimately into the story, and the crisis of the character (often a repentance scene) marks a change in the situation in the story. (89)

5. The Vitality of Plot Devices

<요약 및 감상>
쉬클로프스키와는 달리 문학의 주제가 갖는 중요성에 주목을 하고 있는 토마세프스키의 이 글은 역자의 지적대로 아리스토텔레스의 [시학]이 방대한 부분을 다루고 있는 것처럼, 방대한 요소를 다루고 있다. 그래서인지 특이하다기보다는 다른 문학 원론들처럼 일반적인 이야기로 흐르고 있다. 그럼에도 자신의 독특한 용어를 창조하려는 시도는 돋보인다. (그것이 비록 기왕에 존재해 온 용어를 바꾼 것에 지나지 않는 지는 모르겠지만.)
우선 지적해야 할 점은 문학 작품이 어떤 주제를 중심으로 전개해 나갈 것인가 하는 점이 중요한 요소라고 보고 있다는 점이다. 사말적인 이야기를 가지고도 많은 분량을 적어나갈 수는 있겠지만, 그 주제가 일반 독자가 보편적으로 관심을 갖는 것이 아니라면, 주목을 끌기는 힘들다는 것은 분명하다. 모티프(작품의 더 이상 줄일 수 없는 부분의 주제), 동기부여(motivation), story와 plot의 구분 등에 대한 그의 견해는 기발하다고는 할 수 없겠지만, 꼼꼼하다.
토마세프스키의 글은 특히 형식주의적이라고는 할 수 없을 듯하다. 이 논문의 전부를 구해서 읽어볼 기회가 오기를 기다린다.