شفيعي كدكني و شكل گرايي

Shafeʹee Kadkani & Formalism

Formalism, as an approach in literary criticism, was introduced in the early twentieth century under the influence of Italian futurism and the contribution of young Russian linguists. Later on, it was spread in Europe and America and gradually found advocates in almost all countries of the world. Iranian literary critics and scholars also embraced this new literary school and incorporated a formalistic approach in their literary criticism. Among modern Iranian literary critics, Shafeʹee Kadkani was the strongest advocate of this new critical trend and adopted a formalistic approach as well as a linguistic approach in his writings. He has tried to discover the secret of literariness of a work of art and illustrate aspects of defamiliarization of discourse from peopleʹs everyday language in the literary works of the earlier and modern scholars. He believes, in line with formalists, that "poetry is an event that occurs only in language" and asserts that linguistics tries to find out "the miracle of words" and show the underlying reasons and causes of the beauty of literary discourse. In his view, literature is a type of language use which departs from everyday language through deviations from the "practical language" and deconstructing language norms. The effects of formalism on Shafeʹeeʹs works could be discerned in his poems to a great extent.