formalizmem

Formalizm (often anglicized as formalism) is a family of theories that privilege form, structure, and the technical means by which a work is made over its subject matter, meaning, or historical context. It treats a work as an autonomous artifact in which meaning arises from internal organization—such as syntax, meter and rhyme, narrative technique, visual composition, or symbolic rules—rather than from external factors like the author’s intentions or social setting.

In literary studies, formalism focuses on how a text’s formal features generate meaning. The Russian Formalist movement (circa 1910s–1920s) distinguished literariness as the quality that makes a text literary, emphasizing devices that disrupt ordinary perception and renew attention to form. Key figures include Viktor Shklovsky, who developed the idea of ostranenie (defamiliarization), along with Roman Jakobson, Boris Eikhenbaum, and Yuri Tynianov. The approach influenced later Western criticism and contributed to close-reading practices that prioritize textual features.

In mathematics and logic, formalism is the view that mathematical truths are statements about symbol systems governed by rules. David Hilbert argued that mathematics could be reduced to formal axioms and derivations, with consistency and proof as primary goals, rather than any inherent interpretation of the symbols themselves. This stance played a central role in foundational debates alongside logicism and intuitionism.

In art and music, formalism emphasizes the properties of form—composition, line, color, harmony, or structure—as the main locus of meaning, to varying degrees abstracting from context or biography. Formalism has faced criticism for neglecting social, political, or historical dimensions, prompting later approaches that stress context, ideology, or function, such as New Criticism, structuralism, and post-structuralism.