Viktor Shklovsky - Ostranenie / Estrangement / Defamiliarization
Victor Shklovsky
Russian Formalism ( literary criticism movement )
In Theory of Prose
➜ distinguish between “recognition” and “seeing.”
⬥ Ordinary perception falls into the former category: we don’t see objects so much as
recognize them according to pre-existing patterns of thought
➜ Art as Device
⬥ art is oppositional and insurrectionary, and literature an authorial conspiracy to
overthrow anachronistic modes of thought
⬥ “Art, if it can be compared to a window at all, is only a sketched window.”
● Its point is not to accurately reflect this same old cruddy, shrink-wrapped world, but to steal us new sets of eyes, to forge new and unimagined senses.
Ostranenie / Estrangement / Defamiliarization
A technique which forces the audience to see common things in a strange unfamiliar manner in order to enhance perception of the familiar
The artist creates a shift in the normal, anticipated form of perception and by so doing reveals the world anew.
The technique is meant to challenge the reader's (or viewer's) expectations and jar their sensibilities
Shklovsky, V. (1991) “Art as Device”. Theory Of Prose. Kalkey Archive Press, Available at:
(scanned vers) https://doubleoperative.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/art-as-device.pdf
(typed vers) https://engl375sp2016.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/shklovsky-art-as-device.pdf
(translated by Berlina, A) https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/english/currentstudents/undergraduate/modules/fulllist/first/en122/lecturelist2017-18/art_as_device_2015.pdf
Shklovsky, V. (Art as Technique) http://www.paradise.caltech.edu/ist4/lectures/Viktor_Sklovski_Art_as_Technique.pdf
Defamiliarization. https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Defamiliarization
Ehrenreich, B. (2013) ‘Making Strange: On Victor Shklovsky’, The Nation, February 5. Available at: https://www.thenation.com/article/making-strange-victor-shklovsky/
Things Made Strange: On the Concept of "Estrangement" in Science Fiction Theory
What does estrangement do/ provoke?
Estrangement = a stylistic device that describes how fiction is being communicated
Spiegel, S. (2008). ‘Things Made Strange: On the Concept of "Estrangement" in Science Fiction Theory’, Science Fiction Studies, 35(3), 369-385. Available at: https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/25
Bertolt Brecht - Alienation effect
➜ a-effect or distancing effect
➜ use of techniques designed to distance the audience from emotional involvement in the play through jolting reminders of the artificiality of the theatrical performance
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. (n.d.) ‘Alienation effect’, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Available at: https://www.britannica.com/art/alienation-effect
Why Reality Is Stranger Than Fiction
Victor Shklovsky
Art as a device
artists strive to complicate the things we take for granted and engage our perception and cognition beyond automatic processing
Alva Noë
Strange Tools: Art and Human Nature
artworks as strange tools that have been stripped of their function in order to uncover the way in which we live our lives.
Technology organizes us, whereas art and philosophy estrange this organization, as they are the “perversion of technology,” and therefore serve as weird implements that let us encounter ourselves
Shopin, P. (2019) ‘Why Reality Is Stranger Than Fiction’, Areo, March 28. Available at: https://areomagazine.com/2019/03/28/why-reality-is-stranger-than-fiction/?fbclid=IwAR3WQ4vRS0dxjHEZi_HY7KXmIRFyJRguFWsZZq99wPh1I12-gBWAq6MIy7U
Reference List
Zamora, L. (1983). ‘Clichés and Defamiliarization in the Fiction of Manuel Puig and Luis Rafael Sánchez’, The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 41(4), 421-436. doi:10.2307/429876 Available at: https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/429876.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3A2db8866fa0111b8d45e2cfb7759450a7
Jestrovic, S. (2002). ‘Theatricality as Estrangement of Art and Life in the Russian Avant-Garde’, SubStance, 31(2/3), 42-56. doi:10.2307/3685477. Available at: https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/3685477.pdf?
Bartling, S. (2015) ‘Beyond Language: Viktor Shklovsky, Estrangement, and the Search for Meaning in Art ’, Stanford University, March. Available at: https://stacks.stanford.edu/file/druid:wk536ws4497/
Romanow, E. R. (2013) ‘Aesthetics of Defamiliarization in Heidegger, Duchamp, and Ponge’, Stanford University, December. Available at: https://stacks.stanford.edu/file/druid:cj591yd1063/eDiss-augmented.pdf
Jestrovic, S. (2002) ‘Theatricality as Estrangement of Art and Life In the Russian Avant-gard’, The Johns Hopkins University Press, Available at: https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/3685477.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3A4efbe2b2a2f9304572ba2b9a27a71adf
Bogad, L.M. ‘Alienation Effect’, Beautiful Trouble, Available at: https://beautifultrouble.org/theory/
Geng, R. and Wei, J. (2016) ‘Application of the Concept of Defamiliarization in Translation Studies: Case Studies of the Translation of Film Titles’, ISSN 1798-4769 Journal of Language Teaching and Research, Vol. 7, No. 1, pp. 192-197, January. Available at: https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/
Lodge, D. (1992) ‘The Art of Fiction: Defamiliarization’, The Washington Post, May 17. Available at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/entertainment/books/1992/05/17/the-art-of-fiction-
Berlina, A. (2016) ‘Viktor Shklovsky A Reader’, Bloomsbury Academic, Available at: https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/viktor-shklovsky-9781501310379/
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