Merleau-Ponty et la "défamiliarisation" des Formalistes russes

Patrick R. Flack

Université de Fribourg

pp. 235-254

in: Renaud Barbaras, John Russon (eds), Science et philosophie - Science and philosophy - Scienza e filosofia, Chiasmi International 8, 2006.

Abstract

This article purports to briefly examine the conceptual and historical links that unite Maurice Merleau-Ponty and the literary theories elaborated by the Russian Formalists (Viktor Šklovskij, Jurij Tynjanov, Roman Jakobson, Boris Eichenbaum). To be more precise, we wish to explore a specific hypothesis, which postulates that Merleau- Ponty’s phenomenological philosophy can provide – indeed, is among the only ones to provide - a coherent and fruitful epistemological and ontological framework to Russian Formalism’s fundamental concept, i.e. “defamiliarisation” or “estrangement” (“ostranenie” in Russian). We wish to highlight that defamiliarisation has implications that extend outside the purely literary scope for which it was initially conceived, but that these are not wholly accounted for, or only gradually so, by the Formalists themselves; defamiliarisation as a concept must therefore progressively evolve, up to its “mature” formulation, provided indirectly by Merleau-Ponty.

Cited authors

Jakobson Roman

Merleau-Ponty Maurice

Tynjanov Jurij Nikolaevič

Šklovskij Viktor