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February 11, 2007
EL312: The Greater Whole, defined by its parts
Getting at the job description of the formalist, Keesey provides a unique way to understand what formalists do for readers with their critiques:
...the goal is to send the reader back to the play better equipped to see all the elements working together to create a verbal structure at once richly complex and highly coherent. Readers whose vision is thus armed will see that how a poem means is the same thing as what a poem means. (78)
I think the old saying "the whole is greater than the sum of the parts" applies here. The formalists don't imply that looking at form is the only way to understand a poem (or other work), but Keesey tells us that we can see the greater meaning in the whole once each of the parts has been explained.
Beautiful. I'm excited to try out formalism.
Keesey, Ch 2 (Introduction) -- Jerz EL312 (Literary Criticism)
Posted by KarissaKilgore at February 11, 2007 6:25 AM
Comments
I was going to blog on the exact quote.
Hah.
Here we go with the coherence, again.
I think formalists make the readers job a little easier when trying to interpret the poem.
They look at the different methods used in the work whether it includes metaphors, semicolons, similies, allusions and so on.
They figure out what the words mean in order to interpret the work. Like you said, "Keesey tells us that we can see the greater meaning in the whole once each of the parts has been explained."
Posted by: Denamarie at February 14, 2007 2:00 PM