ABSTRACT
Formalism, simply as a preoccupation with the form of a work of art, exists in three domains. Artists can be preoccupied with form; aesthetic experience can be located in relation to the experience of form. For artists not negligent of form, content and form may be experienced as antagonistic: the content refuses to fit the form, the form alters the content. In teaching, the idea that art involves a mechanical union of form and content is frequently reinforced by the tasks set: 'Write a poem about such-and-such using alliteration', and not even 'Find a subject for a poem which cries out for use of alliteration'. The Russian formalists had many more ideas to contribute besides the idea of form as focus of aesthetic interest and of a contrast between poetic and prosaic language. Shklovsky in his 1917 essay, 'Art as Technique', offers the function of art, and a sketch of the dynamics of historical change in artistic styles and genres.
