Popular Culture Review Vol. 2, No. 2, July 1991 | Page 9
A Peculiar Method of Literary
Transformation:
"Defamiliarization” in the
Cowboy-Novel Serial
Literary works turn the "old” into the "new" by offering a fresh
look at the available range of life experiences, or the available range
of literature dealing with those life experiences, fantasy literature
not excluded. Early in the present century a group of Russian writers
and artists became interested in the possibilities of renovating that
which was overly familiar, in life and art, so as to greatly enhance
literature's overall effect on the reader. These Russian Formalists, as
they came to be called, developed the idea of "defamiliarization"
(ostranenie)—breaking up the predictable format of plot, syntax, or
whatever, to bring about this renovation. This paper deals with an
American cowboy-western novel published in 1976, which is an
excellent example of this "defamiliarization" process in the
production of literary works.
It is a well-known fact that many literary works change the
"old" into the "new," offering the reader the equivalent of seasoned
wine in fresh bottles. Among the specific illustrative examples are
Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and Shakespeare's plays; among the
particular types are recycled myths, legends, and folktales ...
burlesques, satires, and travesties. Literature in fac t is grounded in
transformation-transformation of that which is predicated on
mimesis: imitation of life or of some vision produced by the human
imagination. Eventually the transformation that is the literary
rendering of a picture of life or an image in the imagination may itself
become transformed. How? By the author's "defamiliarization" (in
a sense) the very language, or more generally, the way of presenting
the rendition, so that the reader (observer), by "taking in" the new
mode of presentation, can get much of the benefit of "the same old
stuff" without having to deal with its aspect of staleness.
About seventy years ago a loosely affiliated group of writers,
thinkers, and artists-including Roman Jakobson, Viktor Shklovsky,
and Vladimir Propp—evinced particular interest in this general