2.3 Research Methodology
2.3.5 Evaluation of MSP’s Literariness / Poeticness
One of the research questions this study responds to relates to the literariness or poeticness of modern Sesotho poetry. In this endeavour, the study employs the literary assessment tool as proposed by Formalists in Formalism. According to Abrams (1999:102), the origins of Formalism as a literary theory can be traced to Moscow and St. Petersburg around the early 1920s. Its fathers, among others, include Boris Eichenbaum, Victor Shkolosky, Jan Mukarovsky and Roman Jakobson.
The theory was linguistic and formal (concerned with the structures of language) in nature, but the Formalists adopted and used it to study literature, especially the analysis of the literary content, Naser al-Hujelan (2004:6).
64 | P a g e The proponents of this movement had “formal patterns and technical devices of literature to the exclusion of its subject matter and social values” Abrams (ibid).
Naser al-Hujelan (2004:11) states that the formalists regard literature as a way of refreshing life in order to make it more enjoyable. As a result Formalists distinguish between literature and non-literature through Shklovsky’s concept of defamiliarization, which at the same time states the purpose of literature (Shklovsky, 1965: 4). According to this concept, the purpose of art and so of poetry, “is to force us to notice” by attracting and holding our attention through the process of defamiliarization “making the familiar seem strange” (Shklovsky, 1965: 5).
According to Shklovsky (ibid) a work of art reaches its full potential as literature by not only bearing meaning but also possessing a compelling power of awareness of its meaning upon its reader. This, he argues, is because literature is able to present the world and give it a new face before its citizens or in Abrams’ (1999: 103) words,
“to estrange or defamiliarize” that which has grown monotonous because we have gotten used to it. Estranging the world, according to Abrams, (ibid) is achieved through changing the usual style of linguistic discourse as literature “makes strange”
the world of everyday perception and renews the reader’s lost capacity for fresh sensation.”
In 1921, there was a shift from perceiving literature as a reflection of the world, and giving it its distinctive status while at the same time creating a mode of entertainment and beauty to literariness. Naser al-Hujelan (2004:12) describes literariness as that which differentiates a literary work in particular poetry from other genres. That is, that which makes it literary. According to Naser, while practical criticism and the New Criticism were concerned about the stable meaning communicated by individual texts, Formalism focussed on finding out laws by which literature is made scientifically specific. Eventually, Formalists came to agree that ‘literariness’ is inherent in poetry where the normal and ordinary day to day language is estranged.
It is this poetic ability of linguistic defamiliarization that, according to Formalism, determines and defines the ‘literariness’ or poeticness of poetry.
65 | P a g e As Shklovsky (1965: 5) observes, poetry appears to be the perfect genre of study for defamiliarization since it uses a wide range of linguistic techniques such as forms of repetition that one does not find in day to day language like rhyme, and others like metaphors and symbols in its own special way that rises well above situations where the same devices are used in non-poetic language.
As it does this, poetry proclaims an impressive level of ambiguity that captures beauty through carefully chosen words. This is one way where poetry differs from other writings. This poetic language defamiliarizes itself from other types of language by using these different artistic and linguistic tools which may be familiar to some but as they are utilized in poetry, they generate a language that is not normally spoken in everyday life (Naser, 2004: 13).
In as far as modern Sesotho poetry is concerned; the impressive level of ambiguity captures the poetic beauty through the myriad textual borrowings in the form of allusions, host of cultural and oral discourse as well as other pre-existent texts. On the other hand, showing how poetic language realises the notion of defamiliarization, Mukarovsky (1976:11) posits that it boasts of its own poetic means called
‘poeticisms’ which in most cases are lexical items but at other times are morphological and syntactic. Most of the time, as Mukarovsky (ibids) observes, poetic language borrows from the linguistic corpus provided for by other levels of language, only very particularised means of expression, which in ordinary usage are restricted to one level. In this way, poetry elevates the ordinary language usage from a single level to multi-level poetic linguistic function. This also draws a line of demarcation between poetic language and other ordinary linguistic levels. This is realised where and when a poetic reference is not only perceived as operating at different levels in a text but also communicating multiple notions besides the surface one that is always associated with the literary language.
Therefore, modern Sesotho poetry is evaluated for its poeticness and to determine how estranged or defamiliarized it is as a result of the otherness in it.
The evaluation considers the poetic estrangement as manifested in poetic features identified as intertexts from lithoko, traditional and Christian cultures as well as English poetry in the form of formative structures, content and poetic devices.
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