The history of verse studies and formalism
... fundamental idea of formalism, explaining poetic facts in terms of poetics itself, rather than through economic, sociological, or psychological means. This is precisely the approach taken by Mikhail Gasparov in his article on the history of Russian rhyme, where, without resorting to reductionism, he constructs his concept of cultural history as a sequence of crises and their resolutions. Maxim Shapir, in his well-known work on the evolution of the Russian iambic tetrameter, specifically highlights ...
