Theory of prose

Translation of: O teorii prozy;Includes bibliographical references (pages 211-213) and index;Art as Device -- The Relationship between Devices of Plot Construction and General Devices of Style -- The Structure of Fiction -- The Making of Don Quixote -- Sherlock Holmes and the Mystery Story -- Dickens and the Mystery Novel -- The Novel as Parody: Sterne's Tristram Shandy -- Bely and Ornamental Prose -- Literature without a Plot: Rozanov -- Essay and Anecdote;"Viktor Shklovsky's 1925 book Theory of Prose might have become the most important work of literary criticism in the twentieth century had not two obstacles barred its way: the crackdown by the Soviet dictatorship on Shklovsky and other Russian Formalists in the 1930s, and the unavailability of an English translation. Now translated in its entirety for the first time, Theory of Prose not only anticipates structuralism and post-structuralism, but poses questions about the nature of fiction that are as provocative today as they were in the 1920s. Arguing that writers structure their material according to artistic principles rather than from attempts to imitate "reality," Shklovsky uses Cervantes, Tolstoi, Sterne, Dickens, Bely, and Rozanov to give us a new way of thinking about fiction and, in his most impassioned moments, about the world. Benjamin Sher's lucid translation will allow Shklovsky's Theory of Prose to fulfill its destiny as a major theoretical work of the twentieth century." from back cover

Includes bibliographical references (pages 211-213) and index

Art as Device -- The Relationship between Devices of Plot Construction and General Devices of Style -- The Structure of Fiction -- The Making of Don Quixote -- Sherlock Holmes and the Mystery Story -- Dickens and the Mystery Novel -- The Novel as Parody: Sterne's Tristram Shandy -- Bely and Ornamental Prose -- Literature without a Plot: Rozanov -- Essay and Anecdote

"Viktor Shklovsky's 1925 book Theory of Prose might have become the most important work of literary criticism in the twentieth century had not two obstacles barred its way: the crackdown by the Soviet dictatorship on Shklovsky and other Russian Formalists in the 1930s, and the unavailability of an English translation. Now translated in its entirety for the first time, Theory of Prose not only anticipates structuralism and post-structuralism, but poses questions about the nature of fiction that are as provocative today as they were in the 1920s. Arguing that writers structure their material according to artistic principles rather than from attempts to imitate "reality," Shklovsky uses Cervantes, Tolstoi, Sterne, Dickens, Bely, and Rozanov to give us a new way of thinking about fiction and, in his most impassioned moments, about the world. Benjamin Sher's lucid translation will allow Shklovsky's Theory of Prose to fulfill its destiny as a major theoretical work of the twentieth century." from back cover