The So-Called 'Formal Method' Lef, Vol I.

This article discusses Opoyaz or the Society for Studying Poetic Language in Russia and its so-called formal method. Opoyaz maintains that there are no poets and writers--there are just poetry and writing. It demarcates its work from the work of adjacent scientific disciplines in order to establish and expand a series of the most vital problems of man's literary activity in the neatest way possible. It also studies the laws of poetic production. The contributions of Opoyaz to the proletarian construction of culture are outlined.