P. N. MEDVEDEV THE FORMAL METHOD IN LITERARY SCHOLARSHIP: "LITERATURE AS AN IDEOLOGICAL FORM" 
(SYNOPSIS BY ROBERT SCHMID)

Medvedev begins by stating that "literary scholarship is one branch of the study of ideologies" (124). He explains that although Marxism has defined ideological superstructures as well as their relationship to their base, they have not addressed the distinctive features and qualitative individuality of each of the branches of ideological creation" (24). He feels that it is "precisely a developed sociological doctrine of the distinctive features of the material forms and purposes of each which is lacking" (24).

Medvedev states that Marxism recognizes the specificity of each of these forms and their own individual languages. (See quote A) He expresses that this is problematic for Marxist interpretation, as the methods employed up that point for a Marxist analysis of literature weren’t yet in place, and lacked a suitable precedent. He states that former methods of attempting to understand various forms of ideologies are reduced to "pure ideas and values" and are "therefore rendered completely helpless before the concrete ideological phenomenon which is always material and historical" (125). Here, Medvedev is placing himself in the Marxist camp despite his misgivings about the, then current, approaches to the study of literary scholarship. He re-iterates the Marxist ideas that products of ideological creation are embodied in material things and actions (See quote B). Outside of this, he states, there is no ideology. (See quote C)

Medvedev then sets up an opposition between the bourgeois conception of ideological meaning and the Marxist conception. For Medvedev, the bourgeois conception of meaning and consciousness is too concerned with individual consciousness and meaning, thereby excluding "concrete ideological reality"(126). He claims that following that route ignores the social context from which meaning is truly derived and shared. (See quote D)

Medvedev feels that the Marxist method of the study of ideology is superior because of its objective viewpoint which "exists completely in the external objective works and is completely accessible to a unified and essentially objective method of cognition and study" (126).

He continues this argument by saying that the material presence of ideological phenomenon is "not a completely natural presence...and the individual should not be set against it" (126). (See quote E) He then presents a dialogistic viewpoint and attacks Formalism. (See quote F) Medvedev details his views of the nature of semiotic material from a socioeconomic perspective which criticizes Marxism for its lack of understanding of the "concrete unity, variety and importance of the ideological environment" (127). At the same time he criticizes the structuralist approach which similarly fails to see the continuity of works in the ideological world. From here Medvedev moves on to discuss the "differentiation within the unity of Marxist sociological perspective" which he states allows for scholarship in order to "master all of the details of the specific structures of ideological phenomena" (128).

This scholastic approach to the study of the ideology of literature leads one to the understanding that literature occupies a special place in the field of social ideologies. He makes his point that literature differs from other surrounding ideologies because although it refracts the socioeconomic realities of its environs just as other ideological realities do, it also reflects and refracts on itself. Here the author’s style differs and becomes very prosaic. He extolls the virtues of the "artist" and attempts to save him from relegation to obscurity by conjoining the artist with his work, as opposed to separating the two. He states that the writer, or "artist," shares man’s inner world with society, and in so doing the work becomes part of the ideology which the writer is reflecting and refracting. Here Medvedev again sides with the artist, note the use of the word "we" when describing authors’ works.

He states that the content of literary works both reflect the ideological purview of a society (external to themselves) and at the same time are a "unique and valuable phenomena of the ideological environment" in and of themselves (130). It is for this reason that he states that "their role cannot be reduced to a merely auxiliary one reflecting other ideogemes" (products of ideology) (130).

Medvedev then posits that when speaking of refraction it is necessary to divide reflection into two separate entities. (See quote I) From here Medvedev levels his criticism toward Russian literary criticism and history. He states essentially that literature was reduced to fit the formalist mode of understanding; thereby ignoring the artistic structure of the work, a mistake that he calls "fatal" (130). He furthermore states that the formalist method was also inadequate, in that by making it fit the mold of formalism it isolated the work from its place in the "concrete unity" of the ideological horizon. Here Medvedev illustrates his point by referring to a work by Turgenev, and specifically the ideogeme of a raznochinet. The main point that Medvedev is making here is summarized on page 132 . (See quote J) He illustrates how literature becomes part of the concrete ideological material of a society while at the same time reflecting and refracting pre-established ideologies of that society. (See quote K)

He states that Russian formalism neglected the importance of the fact that the author’s work is a reflection or refraction of reality and not reality itself, and that European formalism neglected the importance of that reflection in the structural role of the work. Next Medvedev extols the virtues of Marxist methodology in understanding literature as an ideological form. He states this because he feels Marxism "co-ordinates the specific reality of literature with its ideological horizon reflected in its content" (132). Despite the apparent endorsement of Marxism, I see a conflict here with earlier statements made regarding Marxist interpretations (see bottom pp 127 128 top) (This could be for political reasons).

Next, he criticizes the structuralist views again by countering them with a Marxist, historical view. (See quote L) At the same time he advances the notion of the dialogical nature of literature and also advances a more expanded version of the interrelationship of literature in a sociological environment, which takes a decidedly Marxist spin in regards to its relationship to the socio-economic environment of a given group. (See quote M) Next, he critiques the structuralists in regard to their lack of connection diachronistically. (See quote N) He then critiques the Marxist perspective much in the same way that he did earlier (see pp 127-128) saying that one cannot view a literary work solely from a socio-economic stand point, one must instead view it in the whole ideological purview of a group in order to grasp its entire significance. (See quote O) The complexity of literary history, he explains, requires that new approaches be taken to examine it. He stresses the interdependence of literary history "with the history of other ideologies and with socio-economic history" (134).

For Medvedev, there is no incompatibility between his methodology and Marxist ideology. As far as he is concerned, he is merely advancing it one step further in the correct direction. (See quote P) He concludes by stressing the importance of understanding the inter-relation, or "interpenetration" between literature and other literature, as well as other ideological phenomena, thus promoting a dialectical approach to literary scholarship.

Relevant Quotes from Bakhtin and Medvedev’s The Formal Method in Literary Scholarship

On the basis of Marxism itself a specific sociological method should be developed which could be adapted to the characteristics of the different ideological areas in order to provide access to all the details and subtleties of ideological structure (125).

All the products of ideological creation - works of art, scientific works, religious symbols and rites, etc. - are material things, part of the practical reality that surrounds man. It is true that these are things of a special nature, having significance, meaning, inner value. But these meanings and values are embodied in material things and actions. They cannot be realized outside of some developed material (125).

Each individual act in the creation of ideology is an inseparable part of social intercourse, one of its dependent components, and therefore cannot be studied apart from the whole social process that give it its meaning (126).

We are most inclined to imagine ideological creations as some inner process of understanding, comprehension, and perceptions, and do not notice that it in fact unfolds externally, for the eye, the ear, the hand. It is not within us, but between us (126).

Whatever a word’s meaning, it establishes a relationship between individuals of a more or less wide social environment, a relationship which is objectively expressed in the combined reactions of people: reactions in words, gestures, acts, organizations and so on.

There is no meaning outside the social communication of understanding, i.e., outside the united and mutually coordinated reactions of people to a given sign. Social intercourse is the medium in which the ideological phenomenon first acquires its specific existence, its ideological meaning, its semiotic nature (127).

All ideological things are objects of social intercourse, not objects of individual use, contemplation, emotional experience, or hedonistic pleasure. For this reason subjective psychology cannot approach the meaning of the ideological object. Nor can physiology or biology...(127)

That is, in its content, literature reflects the whole of the ideological horizon of which it is itself a part (128).

Their role cannot be reduced to the merely auxiliary one of reflecting other ideologemes (130).

(1) the reflection of the ideological environment in the content of literature; (2) the reflection of the economic base that is common to all ideologies. Literature, like the other independent superstructures, reflects the base (130).

So, social meaning which enters the content of a novel or other work, while distanced from reality in one way, compensates by becoming part of social reality in another way, in a different social category. And one must not lose sight of the social reality of the novel due to the reflected and distanced reality of the elements it contains (132).

The reality of a novel, its contact with actuality, and its role in social life cannot be reduced to the mere reflection of reality in its content. It is part of social life and active in it precisely as an novel and, as such, sometimes has an extremely important place in social reality, a place sometimes no less important than that of the social phenomena it reflects (132).

It would be absurd to think that a work which occupies a place in the literary environment could avoid its direct influence or be an exception to its unity and regularity (133).

And this last unity, whether taken as a whole or as separate elements, cannot be studied outside the unified socioeconomic laws of development

Thus, in order to reveal and define the literary physiognomy of a ... work, one must at the same time reveal its general ideological physiognomy...one does not exist without the other. And, in revealing the latter, we cannot help revealing its socioeconomic nature as well (133).

Not one of the links of this complete chain in the conception of the ideological phenomenon can be omitted, there can be no stopping at one link without going on to the next. It is completely inadmissible to study the literary work directly and exclusively as an element of the ideological environment, as if it were the only example of literature instead of an immediate element of the literary world in all its variety. Without understanding the place of the work in literature and its direct dependence of literature, it its impossible to understand its place in the ideological environment (133).

It is still more inadmissible to omit two links and attempt to understand...work immediately in the socioeconomic environment, as if it were the only example of ideological creation, instead of being primarily oriented in the socioeconomic environment as an inseparable element of the whole of literature and the whole ideological purview (133).

It cannot, and, of course, should not disturb the Marxist literary historian that the literary work is primarily and most directly determined by literature itself. Marxism fully grants the determining influence of other ideologies on literature. What is more, it assumes the return influence of ideologies on the base itself. Consequently, there is all the more reason why it can and should grant the effect of literature on literature.... (134)