By: Jim, Matt, Max, and Nick

 Formalism:

Noun

Strict adherence to, or observance of, prescribed or traditional forms , as in music, poetry, and art.

     Formalists look at specific words and elements to critique in a given piece.

Focus on grammatical, rhetorical, and mechanical structures of written pieces.

Focus on the patterns literary devices establish.

Special attention is paid to any repetition of images and symbols.

Formalists believe that richer vocabulary and vivid descriptions make a good book.

   Formalism began in 1920-1930 and flourished in the 1940s.-1950s.

New Criticism flourished in 1941 and got its name from John Crowe Ransom’s novel The New Criticism. Still widely used today.

   This approach can be performed without much research.

It emphasizes the value of literature apart from its context (in effect makes literature timeless).

Virtually all critical approaches must begin here with formalism.

    The text is seen in isolation.

Formalism ignores the context of work.

It cannot account for illusions.

It tends to reduce literature to little more than a collection of rhetorical, stylistic devices.

   We read ‘My Father and the Fig Tree’ by Naomi Shihab Nye.

We were asked to read this poem with a formalist approach.

This is what we came up with…

    In the second stanza, the author uses imagery to describe the ‘ideal’ fig.

In the first stanza, the author talks about Joha who is a trickster figure in Palestinian folktales.

In the second stanza, the author talks about Allah, Islamic god, and how a fig needs to be so good it would be fit for a god.

The fig tree is a symbol representing the father's love for his home country

   Middle Eastern Literature Packet.

Murfin, Ross, and Supryia M Ray. The Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms. N.p.: n.p., 1988. Bedfor St. Martins. Web. 30 Apr. 2012. .

"Formalism." Dictionary.com. Dictionary.com. Web. 01 May 2012. .