Tynianov as Sociologist of Literature

Abstract

SEER,Vol.79, No. 3,fuly 200I Tynianov as Sociologist of Literature STEPHEN LOVELL To speak of the sociological import of the work of Shklovskii, Eikhenbaumand Tynianov is not as controversialas mightbe assumed from the position those writers tend to occupy in survey histories of literary theory. In more specialized studies, Russian Formalism has long been recognized as a diverseand (above all) dynamic intellectual movementwhose initialpolemicalpositionwasquitesoon reformulated as a responseto pressuresboth internaland external.' The focus here will be on Tynianov, which both complicates and simplifiesmatters. On the one hand, the 'socialturn'in the writingsof Shklovskii and Eikhenbaum was effected much more openly and obviously than in Tynianov's;their style of theoretical exposition and programmaticpronouncement was, moreover, ratherless compressed and ellipticalthan his. Yet, on the other hand, Tynianov's ceuvre -as both historicalscholar and theoristof literature -has a wholeness, a gradualismand a subtletythat are sometimes conspicuouslylackingin the workof his OPOIaZ colleagues. As a result,I will argue below, he was able to askquestions -and to some extent suggestanswers that mustbe centralto any sophisticatedsociology of literature. As with sociology itself,the sociology of literaturecannot be reduced to a single researchagenda or a single set of methods. It includes study of the production, dissemination and consumption of literature (the workingsof the book trade, copyrightlaw, readershipsurveys,and so on), yet it is also concerned with much less quantifiablequestions(the emergence, transmission and erosion of literary norms; the social Stephen Lovell is aJunior Research Fellow at StJohn's College, Oxford. I Thus, for example, Aage A. Hansen-Love's extremely detailed account stresses precisely the fluid (yet intellectually coherent) development of Russian Formalism, dividing its history into three main stages: (i) a 'paradigmatic' emphasis on the dynamic relationship between 'device' and 'material', on the mechanisms of parody, and on ustanovka; (ii) a 'syntagmatic' interest in the functioning of siuzhet,in narrative more generally, and in verse and film theorv; (iii) a 'pragmatic' model of the structure of diachronic processes in literature, of literature's relationship to its 'apperceptive background' and of literary bytin all its many aspects. (See Der russische Formalismus. Methodologische Rekonstruktion seinerEntwicklung aus dem Prinzip der Verfremdung, Vienna, 1978.) For an account of the political persecution of the Formalists in the late I920S, see Victor Erlich's classic study Russian Formalism.History, Doctrine, New Haven, 1955, chapter 7. 416 TYNIANOV AS SOCIOLOGIST OF LITERATURE meanings embedded in particularworksor genres).Empiricist,hermeneutic and structural approaches once again, as with sociology proper have to operatein combination, and often in tension.2 Although the sociology of literature has many branches and offshoots , there is one broad question to which it will tend to return:the relationship of literature to the extra-literaryinstitutions, practices, forms and values which it reflects, reproduces and creates. Or, to elaborate further:how is this relationship constituted? What are its mechanisms?How 'determined' is it? If we think in these terms, it is legitimate to see Tynianov and his colleagues as sourcesof inspiration both practical and theoretical;for, despite their triumphantdenial of the influence of 'life' on literaturein their early years, the Formalists became increasinglyexercisedby the relationshipbetween literaryand extra-literary'series'.And, crucially,by borrowing a metaphor and a method from linguistics, they were able to take a self-consciously 'scientific'approach to the study of literature to create a paradigm for modern literarystudies.The historyof RussianFormalismwas to a large extent driven by the complex interaction of two contrasting principlesof inquiry:on the one hand, a commitment to close reading and rigoroushistoricalscholarship;on the other, a quest for structures both synchronic and diachronic, both intratextual and intertextual (and even, as we shallsee, extratextual).This methodological aspect of the Formalists'intellectual legacy deserves to be examined especially closely by sociologistsof literature,whose taskit is to bringtogetheran object of study (literature)that is, due to its many-sidedinvestment in subjectivity, extremely inviting to particularist hermeneutic approaches,with a discipline(sociology)that has often been associated with system-buildingand with 'objectifying'structures.3I will argue that the Formalists,despite theirasocial reputation,have more to offer on this score than the politicized positivistsof the preceding era, who, by contrast,achieved no more than literarysociologism -that is, the 2 The breadth of this subdiscipline is richly...