Knight's Move

by Victor Shklovsky, Richard Sheldon (Translator)

First published in 1923, Knight's Move is a collection of articles and short critical pieces that Viktor Shklovsky, no doubt the most original literary critic and theoretician of the twentieth century, wrote for the newspaper The Life of Art between 1919 and 1921. With his usual epigrammatic, acerbic wit and genius, Shklovsky pillories the bad writers, artists, and critics of his time, especially those who used art as a political or social tool. And at no time is Shklovsky better than when he insists with indignation and outrage that "Art has always been free of life. Its flag has never reflected the color of the flag that flies over the city fortress." As fresh and revolutionary today as they were when written nearly a century ago, these pieces promise to infuriate an English-speaking readership as much as the Russian one of the 1920s.

Genres: Russia, Writing

143 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1923

About the author

Viktor Borisovich Shklovsky (Russian: Виктор Борисович Шкловский) was a Soviet literary theorist, critic, writer, and pamphleteer.

Reviews

[Katrinka]

A mix of really fantastic articles and others that might be fantastic for those who have some knowledge about inner-circle artistic debates of the time and place.

[A Ojala]

"I'm even writing with a full stomach, but I remember the hunger, the hunger that stands watch over us on all sides."

[Kate]

esp King Lear article..