The State Academy of Artistic Sciences vs. Petrograd Formalism: Verse studies. 1. On Boris Ėjchenbaum’s «Melodika stixa»

Abstract

At the State Academy of Artistic Sciences in Moscow, there was a systematic critique of the Petrograd «formal school». It was conducted from various perspectives by representatives of traditional literary history (N. K. Piksanov, P. N. Sakulin), exact literary studies (B. I. Yarkho), and philosophers and philologists within the circle of G. G. Špet (M. M. Königsberg, B. V. Gornung, N. I. Zhinkin, N. N. Volkov). The latter formed the Commission for the Study of Artistic Form. At one of the early meetings of the Commission, linguist Sadi Yakovlevich Masé exposed his views upon «The Melodics of the Russian Lyric Verse» by B. M. Ėjchenbaum. The article analyzes the discussion following Masé’s speach, traces the logic in the responses of Špet, Volkov, Zhinkin, and the presenter himself. It reconstructs Masé’s opinions on the melodics of verse and the logic of the analysis of poetic form proposed by Špet. In the appendix, the minutes of the discussion of S. Y. Masé’s report are published for the first time, accompanied by a commentary.