Discuss how "foregrounding” is a major stylistic device amongst creative writers.Please provide examples where possible.

The concept of href="http://www.sil.org/acpub/repository/31879.pdf">foregrounding is an
interesting one that emerged from the critical school of Russian Formalism, the
proponents of which relocated to Prague when Stalin determined Formalism to be a
literary "heresy." In reaction to the literary theories that preceded, which lacked
rigorous standards and guidelines, Russian Formalism undertook a scientific examination
and description of the literary devices that comprise literary language and make it
distinct from non-literary language. An important component of this literariness
associated with literary language is the concept of foregrounding. title="Linguistic Formalists. John Holcombe. TextEtc.com"
href="http://www.textetc.com/theory/formalists.html"/>

title="Linguistic Formalists. John Holcombe. TextEtc.com"
href="http://www.textetc.com/theory/formalists.html">Foregrounding is the
use of devices, most notably patterning (e.g., repetition), ambiguity, diction,
metaphor, tone, parallelism, along with theme, character and plot, to create
defamiliarization through linguistic dislocation, a concept that opposes the preceding
theoretic position that literature reflects the world. In other words, the formalist
concept of foregrounding, further developed by Jan Mukařovský, asserts literary language
creates a "making strange" that puts the world in a new perspective that opposes a
theory of a reflected perspective. Mukařovský's concept of
aktualisace, translated as foregrounding,
focused on the use of devices to emphasize what Formalism considers nonreflective
features, elements, or concepts associated with literary
language.

Having thus laid the groundwork, it is clear to
see how foregrounding, though the concept and its notions were unknown to early writers,
is an important stylistic element for creative writers going back even to Homer. In
Homer's Iliad patterning is a prime device as he repeats passages
and descriptions that are of paramount importance to understanding the lives of the
characters, for example, "strong greaves," and "greatest kindness." Diction is a
paramount element to both Edmund Spenser and Shakespeare. In addition Spenser produced a
brilliant example of patterning in his Epithalamion. Metaphor wis
an inseparable part of literariness in literary language for the Romantics and continues
so today.

Foregrounding, this major component of creative
writing, this linguistic technique that dislocates language into defamiliarization, is
and has been a major stylistic device through all ages--which incidentally corroborates
the validity of the approach of Russian Formalism.