No More Paraphrase (Okay, We Have to Use It Sometimes)
“This is the fundamental principle of formal criticism, and it leads directly to the formalist’s famous distrust of the ‘Paraphrase’ on the grounds that too many readers are inclined to confuse the poem’s paraphrasable content with its ‘meaning’…”
-From Donald Keesey’s Contexts for Criticism, Chapter 2 “Formal Criticism: Poem as Context,” page 78
This idea stuck out right away as I was reading. I think it is so interesting that the Formalists do not value the paraphrase, when for the last seven or so years of my life, my teachers have been emphasizing the importance of using more paraphrase than direct quote. In fact, I think that my experiences in writing and reading have been decidedly anti-formalist in nature. My teachers and professors have always emphasized the importance of the author’s background and the historic time period. I understand why they did this because of this article: Formalism has not always been the most valued form of criticism in the literary world, and the history and biography are rather important, especially for young students who are just beginning to discuss literature. But it is nice to know that all of those times when I wanted to include short direct quotes into my papers, frustrated that I had already used my quota of three or so, I was actually on to something.
I also think that it is completely ironic that we are even
now learning about the history of Formalism. Would Formalists like this? Or are
we just doing historical and reader-response criticism on them?
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Erica, you bring up a really good point and I was struck by Keesey’s comment on paraphrasing as well. I have never likes having to summarize or paraphrase things. I always felt like I was living vital information out every time I was required to. I remember in high school being chided for being unable to summarize things in sentence or two. So to me, this seems like this idea of not paraphrasing things is a good idea. But like you, I also understand why we were taught to do these things.
I particularly like your question at the end of your blog about the formalists liking this or not, but then again just by you wondering whether they would like it or not, you’re wondering about their intentions in a sense, would they intend for us to be studying them? I think you wondering about that, further shows the inability to separate one school from another. Some of them just go together logically and by using more than one it can help strengthen one’s argument.