Книга посвящена вопросам поэтики стиха и поэтической речи, проблемам, находящимся в пограничных сферах литературоведения и лингвистики. Значение книги Ю.Тынянова, впервые изданной в 1924 году, выходит далеко за пределы специального научного.
Yury Nikolaevich (Nasonovich) Tynyanov (Russian: Юрий Николаевич (Насонович) Тынянов; October 18, 1894 - December 20, 1943) was a famous Soviet/Russian writer, literary critic, translator, scholar and screenwriter. Yury Tynyanov was born in Rezhitsa, present day Rēzekne, Latvia, Russian Empire. He was a brother-in-law of Veniamin Kaverin, another well-known Russian author. He graduated from Petrograd University in 1918 and published his first works in 1921. Tynyanov was an authority on Pushkin and an important member of the Russian Formalist school. In 1928, together with the linguist Roman Jakobson, he published a famous work titled Theses on Language, a predecessor to structuralism (but see Ferdinand de Saussure).