Theory of Prose

Fülszöveg

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 materials 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... Tovább

Fülszöveg

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 materials 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.
Viktor Shklovsky (1893-1984) was an originator and leading theoreticism of the Formalist school, but also was active in films and children's literature. Several of his books have been translated into English: Sentimental Journey (1970), Letters Not about Love (1971), Third Factory {1977), and a biography of Tolstoi (1978).
Benjamin Sher was born in Poland In 1947, reared in Israel, and moved to the United States in 1959. He was educated at the University of New Orleans and is proficient in half a dozen languages. Among his translations from the Russian are works by Vladimir Vysotsky, Sasha Sokolov, Nadezhda Kozhevnikova, and by the Shargorodsky Brothers. Vissza