The book has been on my reading list for some time due to semi-professional reasons (it inspired the late Egyptian scholar Naṣr Ḥāmid Abū Zayd, who infamously was divorced from his wife due to his unorthodox views on the Qurʾān considered as apostasy).
But the book is in itself a challenging and rewarding read in which Lotman sets out to clarify what makes a text artistic. In the discussion on the origins of artistic/ literary language as opposed to natural language Lotman argues that lyrics is the original form, not artificial prose. As the main characteristic of poetic language he points out that formal element like verse, meter, assonances and the like establish a synonymic or antonymic relation between words does not exists in natural language. Artificial prose as opposed to that gains its artificial character by imitating natural language without being language and by differing from lyrics as well.
Lotman elaborates his thesis on the basis of Russian poetry (Pushkin in particular). In accordance with the author the German translators/ editors have replaced a handful of examples with German poems. I do not know Russian, nonetheless I was amazed by Lotman’s ability to analyze the semantic function of the chosen form in the many examples he discusses. And I think that will read poetry with a keener eye in the future.
In section 8 Lotman discusses narrative and dramatic literature as well, and even film. In this context he emphasizes that spatial relations are established which add to the chosen words a semantic aspect they do not have in natural language (or which the filmed objects do not have as such).
in section 9 he returns to a discussion which he already touched upon in the beginning. The variables between determining the author intention concerning the artistic character of a text and the actual reception: Artistic/ artistic, non-artistic/ artistic, artistic/ non-artistic, non-artistic/ non-artistic. He actually only discusses the first to relations with regard to social change, because in the course of time the aesthetic understanding changes as a consequence of intellectual change, and texts which even were not intended to be artistic can in later periods be read under this angle, as in the case of medieval literature which was written for religious and didactic purposes.* He points out the differences between literature that basically adapts to the expectations of readers and such which creates its own system to which the readers are supposed to adapt.
Finally he argues that literary analysis is a hard science that analyses the information content of utterances.
What astonishes me how far away the work of Lotman and other Soviet formalists with the emphasis on the text as system is from the Marxist superstructure-reflects-socioeconomic basis understanding of culture. Their approach was apparently tolerated, but it seems to me as if it was for the relevant theoreticians as well a way to keep aloof from dogmatic thought as much as possible (see also Lotman’s praise for art as a defining aspect of humanity, not a derivative, on the first pages). Perhaps someone who reads this knows good literature on the historical background.**
* This aspect was relevant for Abū Zayd who argued that the Qurʾān should at present not under the premises of the time of its revelation but according to the contemporary intellectual horizon.
** At least in the beginning the only official task of Lotman a Tartu University was to teach Estonians Russian, not scholarly work.
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P.S.: I someone who reads this is a librarian, would you be so kind to add the page count (470)? I tried to get this done via the Librarians’ Group to no avail.
Thank you