In formalist literary criticism, the important thing is
the process by which the work is created. href="http://home.earthlink.net/~potterama/Michele/projects/hyper/formalism.html">Formalism
doesn't engage in evaluating the work in terms of truth or morality. On the other hand,
one of the goals of formalism is to evaluate the structure of the text. Formalist critic
href="http://home.earthlink.net/~potterama/Michele/projects/hyper/formalism.html">Viktor
Schlovsky said that a work, like a poem, is "equal to the sum of processes
used in it." Therefore, fomal criticism is an objective examination of literary style
and technique in order to explain as well as evaluate the text's
structure.
In William's "Spring and All," two very
prominent structural elements, which can be related to a discussion of subject and
theme, are his use of enjambment and closely related line-end punctuation. Enjambment is
used by a poet to carry an idea or expression of a thought from one live to the next.
Williams has only scattered instances in which he does not use enjambment in "Spring and
All," thereby making enjambment a primary structural
element.
There are also no end-stops (periods) in the poem,
not even one on the last line, though there is one line-end comma in "They enter the new
world naked,". A striking stylistic technique in punctuation is Williams' use of dashes.
Often dashes in poems indicate a pause longer than a period, thus they are often related
to rhythm instead of to meaning, whereas in prose, dashes are used to interject
explanatory information that is closely related to meaning. A question can be raised as
to how Williams is using the dashes: Are they rhytmic or integral to meaning? These
examinations are examples of that which will lead to explanations and evaluations of the
structure of "Spring and All" and that can be further related to subject and
meaning.
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