Peter Steiner: Russian Formalism: A Metapoetics (1984)

“Thirty years after its first publication, Peter Steiner’s erudite, thoughtful book remains a classic study of Russian Formalism. His “metapoetic” analysis offers a simple, clear schema for apprehending the unity of action and dynamic configuration of the Russian formalists’s program, while fully respecting the diversity of the cluster of theories they put forward. As such, it also serves as one of the best introductions to a movement that still exerts considerable influence on literary study.”

Publisher Cornell University Press, 1984
Digital edition by sdvig press, Geneva/Lausanne, 2014
Formalisms series, 1
Open access
ISBN 9782970082934
245 pages

Reviews: Richard F. Gustafson (Slavic Review, 1985), Rene Wellek (Poetics Today, 1986), Milton Ehre (Comparative Literature, 1986).

WorldCat

HTML
PDF (updated on 2018-6-23)
multiple formats (Internet Archive, added on 2018-6-23)
PDFs (added on 2018-9-23)

Roman Jakobson: My Futurist Years (1992/1997)

“Born in Moscow in 1896, Roman Jakobson was a founder of and a key figure in two influential schools of 20th century literary thought: Russian formalism, and later, during his years in Prague, structuralism. Forced to flee the invading Nazis, Jakobson spent time in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, before coming to the United States in 1941. During his long and illustrious academic career in the U.S., Jakobson was a professor of literature and linguistics at Columbia, Harvard and MIT. Up to his death in 1982, he published 500 monographs and articles on linguistics, Slavic studies, poetics, and semiotics.

Vital as the extraordinary innovative and turbulent period that spawned these writings, My Futurist Years is one of the most important reflections on the Russian Futurist movement and a cornerstone in the career of one of the century’s greatest linguistic and literary thinkers.

Jakobson’s rare sensibility in his explorations in language and art are no more evident than in this volume, detailing the formative moment in his public and personal life. Along with the quite moving recollections of his friendships with such Modernist figures as Mayakovsky, Khlebnikov, and Malevich, the book includes Jakobson’s letters to other Futurists active in the scene and to his close friend Elsa Brik, later to gain notoriety as the French writer Elsa Triolet and wife of the poet Louis Aragon.” (from the back cover)

First published in Russian as Jakobson-budetljanin: sbornik materialov, Almqvist & Wiksell International, Stockholm, 1992.

Compiled and Edited by Bengt Jangfeldt
Translated and with an Introduction by Stephen Rudy
Publisher Marsilio, New York, 1997
ISBN 0941419797
371 pages
in the Unlimited Edition

Review: Avril Pyman (Slavonic & East European Review, 1993).

WorldCat

PDF (21 MB, updated on 2019-9-27)

L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E, 1–13 (1978–1981)

“L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E was an avant-garde poetry magazine edited by Charles Bernstein and Bruce Andrews that ran thirteen issues from 1978 to 1981. Along with This it is the magazine most often referenced as the breeding ground for the group of writers who became known as the Language poets.” (from Wikipedia)

GIF pages and PDFs (on Eclipse)
Index (on Eclipse)
The L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E Book (1983, added on 2022-1-11)

See also:
L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E Distributing Service, PDF catalog and commentary on Jacket2
The Poetics of L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E, a talk by Bruce Andrews, 2005, on UbuWeb
Andrews in EPC Digital Library
Bernstein in EPC Digital Library