Knight's Move

by Viktor Shklovsky, Richard Sheldon (Translator)

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781564783851
Publisher:	Dalkey Archive Press
Publication date:	08/01/2005
Series:	Dalkey Archive Scholarly
Pages:	143
Product dimensions:	5.02(w) x 8.10(h) x 0.49(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Viktor Shklovsky (1893-1984) was a leading figure in the Russian Formalist movement of the 1920s and had a profound effect on twentieth-century Russian literature. Several of his books have been translated into English, including "Zoo, or Letters Not about Love, Third Factory, Theory of Prose, A Sentimental Journey, Energy of Delusion", and "Literature and Cinematography", and "Bowstring".

Table of Contents

	Translator's Introduction	vii
	Knight's Move
	First Preface	3
	Bundle
	Second Preface	5
	Setting the Frame
	Petersburg During the Blockade	9
	Regarding Art and Revolution
	"Ullya, Ullya, Martians"	21
	Pounding Nails with a Samovar	25
	Gooseberry Jam	28
	A Flag Is Snapping	31
	The Appeasers	34
	Drama and Mass Productions	36
	Papa-That's an Alarm Clock	39
	Collective Creativity	42
	In My Own Defense	46
	Regarding Psychological Footlights	48
	Speaking in a Loud Voice	51
	The Visual Arts
	Regarding "The Great Metalworker"	54
	Space in Painting and the Suprematists	58
	Regarding Texture and Counter-Reliefs	65
	The Monument to the Third International	69
	Ivan Puni	71
	The Law of Inequality
	Parallels in Tolstoy	73
	Contemporary Theater
	Embellished Tolstoy	79
	Folk Comedy and The First Distiller	83
	The Art of the Circus	86
	With Regard to Tastes	89
	Apropos of King Lear	92
	The Old and the New	96
	Regarding Merezhkovsky	98
	The Comic and the Tragic	101
	Shoeing a Flea	107
	Eating Fish by Cutting It with a Knife	111
	A Thousand Herrings	112
	Completing the Frame
	I and My Coat	115
	A Rock on a String
	Rollercoaster	120
	Coffins Back	122
	A Boxer Down for the Count	124
	A Free Port	126
	Afterword
	The Tsar's Kitchen	130
	Translator's Notes	133

Editorial Reviews

this masterful set of essays' -Publishers Weekly

Dalkey Archive Press

From the Publisher

Literary critic and theoretician Shklovsky (Theory of Prose) was a leading figure in the Russian Formalist movement during the 1920s. He had a profound effect on the writing of his time and on the future development of other schools of critical theory, which grew out of a reaction to (or a further development of) Formalism. This book gathers 37 of Shklovsky's short pieces, which first appeared in the newspaper Life of Art between 1919 and 1921. Most of the work centers on his often heated feelings about the nature of art and the need for independence in art. He also writes, in an evocative and harrowing manner, of revolution and the effects of war. For readers who lack context for Shklovsky's agenda or some understanding of the history of Russian literature and politics in the early 20th century, many of these pieces will read as disjointed sketches, a mix of rant and nightmare. However, for scholars and students of Shklovsky and his times, this translation provides wider access to the work of a pivotal figure in Russian literary theory and, as such, is recommended for academic libraries.-Neal Wyatt, Chesterfield Cty. P.L., VA Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

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