Richard L. W.

Clarke LITS3304 Notes 05D

1

RO M AN JAKOBSON “THE DO M INANT” (1935)

Jakobson, Rom an. Poetry of Gram m ar and Gram m ar of Poetry. Vol. 3 of Selected
W ritings. 7 Vols. The Hague: Mouton, 1981. 751-756.

Here, with specific reference to poetry for the most part, Jakobson’s focus is on the “concept
of the dom inant” (751), what he defines as the “focusing com ponent of a work of art: it
rules, determ ines, and transforms the rem aining com ponents. It is the dom inant which
guarantees the integrity of the structure” (751). The dom inant “specifies the work” (751).
In poetry, for exam ple, the dom inant is that “elem ent which specifies a given variety
of language” (751) that “dom inates the entire structure and thus acts as its m andatory and
inalienable constituent dom inating all the rem aining all the rem aining elem ents and exerting
direct influence upon them ” (751). To put this another way, verse is a “system of values;
as with any value system , it possesses its own hierarchy of superior and inferior values and
one leading value, the dom inant, without which (within the fram ework of a given literary
period and a given artistic trend) verse cannot be conceived and evaluated as verse” (751).
Jakobson argues that one may seek a dominant “not only in the poetic work of an
individual artist and not only in the poetic canon, the set of norm s of a given poetic school,
but also in the art of a particular epoch, viewed as a particular whole” (752). For exam ple,
during the Renaissance, the “visual arts” were dom inant and accordingly shaped the poetry
of the period. Sim ilarly, “Rom antic poetry oriented itself toward m usic: its verse is
m usically focused; its verse intonation im itates musical melody” (752).
Moreover, Jakobson argues, the “definition of an artistic work as compared to other
sets of cultural values changes as soon as the concept of the dom inant becom es our point of
departure” (752). Equating a poem “with an aesthetic, or m ore precisely poetic function . . .
is characteristic of those epochs which proclaim self-sufficient, pure art, l’art pour l’art”
(752). The Formalists were guilty of adopting a “m onistic point of view (753), he argues, in
their attem pt to reduce poetry solely to the aesthetic or poetic function for it “has in addition
m any other functions. Actually, the intentions of a poetic work are often closely related to
philosophy, social didactics, etc.” (752). By the sam e token, just as a poem is
not exhausted by its aesthetic function, sim ilarly aesthetic function is not
lim ited to the poetic work; an orator’s address, everyday conversation,
newspaper articles, advertisements, a scientific treatise – all m ay em ploy
aesthetic considerations, give expression to aesthetic function, and often use
words in and for them selves. (752-753)
Opposed to the “one-sided” (753) m onistic point of view, Jakobson argues, is the
“m echanistic standpoint” (753) or what he term s “one-sided pluralism ” (753) which
“recognises the m ultiplicity of functions of a poetic work and judges that work . . . as a
m echanical agglom eration of functions” (753). For the adherents of this view, because a
poem also has a “referential function” (753), a poem is often reducible to a being a
“straightforward docum ent of cultural history, social relations, or biography” (753).
The Structuralist point of view on the work, by contrast to both these perspectives,
“combines an awareness of the multiple functions of a poetic work with a com prehension of
its integrity, that is to say, that function which unites and determ ines the poetic work”
(753). From this point of view, a poem is a work “fulfilling neither an exclusively aesthetic
function nor an aesthetic function along with other functions; rather, a poetic work is
defined as a verbal m essage whose aesthetic function is its dom inant” (753). The “marks”
(753) of the “im plem entation of the aesthetic function” (753) are “not unchangeable or
always uniform” (753) in that each “concrete poetic canon, every set of tem poral poetic
norm s . . . com prises indispensable, distinctive elem ents without which the work cannot be
identified as poetic” (753).
The equation of the aesthetic function with the dom inant of a poetic work allows one
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to “determ ine the hierarchy of diverse linguistic functions within the poetic work” (753). In
the “referential function, the sign has a m inim al internal connection with the designated
object, and therefore the sign in itself carries only a m inim al im portance” (753). However,
the “expressive function dem ands a m ore direct, intim ate relationship between the sign and
the object, and therefore a greater attention to the internal structure of the sign” (753). In
this regard, “em otive language, which primarily fulfills an expressive function, is as a rule
closer to poetic language (which is directed precisely toward the sign as such). Poetic and
em otive language often “overlap each other” (753) with the result that the “two varieties of
language are often quite erroneously identified” (753). If the aesthetic function is dom inant
in a given m essage, the message may use m any devices of expressive language but “they
are transform ed by its dom inant” (753), that is, they are “subject to the decisive function of
the work” (753).
The notion of the ‘dom inant’ has “im portant consequences for Form alist views of
literary evolution” (753): in the
evolution of poetic form it is not so m uch a question of the disappearance of
certain elem ents and the em ergence of others as it is the question of shifts in
the m utual relationship am ong the diverse com ponents of the system , in
other words, a question of the shifting dom inant. Within a given complex of
poetic norm s in general, or especially within the set of poetic norm s valid for a
given poetic genre, elem ents which were originally secondary becom e
essential and primary. On the other hand, the elem ents which were originally
the dom inant ones becom e subsidiary and optional. (754)
Moreover, there arose the “accurate conception of a poetic work as a structured system , a
regularly ordered hierarchical set of artistic devices. Poetic evolution is a shift in this
hierarchy” (754) which “changes within the fram ework of a given poetic genre” (754). This
change, m oreover, “affects the hierarchy of poetic genres, and, sim ultaneously, the
distribution of artistic devices am ong the individual genres” (754). The result is that genres
which were “originally secondary paths, subsidiary variants, now come to the fore, whereas
the canonical genres are pushed toward the rear” (754).
However, “problem s of evolution” (754) are not lim ited to literature per se.
Questions arise concerning “changes in the m utual relationship between individual arts”
(754) – hence the im portance of scrutinising “transitional regions” (754) between, for
exam ple, painting and poetry (e.g. the “illustration” [754]) or between m usic and poetry
(e.g. the “rom ance” [754]). Moreover, sim ilar questions arise concerning the changes in the
relationship between “literature and other kinds of verbal m essages” (654) which result in
the “instability of boundaries” (754), changes to the “content and extent of the individual
dom ains” (754). Again, “transitional genres” (755), such as
letters, diaries, notebooks, travelogues, etc.” (755) – becom e im portant in this regard:
som e such genres are “evaluated as extraliterary and extrapoetical, while in other periods
they m ay fulfill an im portant literary function because they com prise those elem ents which
are about to be em phasised by belles lettres, whereas the canonical literary form s are
deprived of these elem ents” (755). In other words,
continual shifts in the system of artistic values im ply continua shifts in the
evaluation of different phenom ena of art. That which, from the point of view
of the old system , was slighted or judged to be im perfect, dilettantish,
aberrant, or sim ply wrong or that which was considered heretical, decandet,
and worthless m ay appear, and from the perspective of a new system , be
adopted as a positive value. (755)
This “shifting, the transform ation, of the relationship between individual artistic com ponents
becam e the central issue in Form alist investigations” (755) with enorm ous significance for
“linguistic research in general” (755). In particular, it provided “im portant im pulses toward
overcom ing and bridging the gap between the diachronic historical m ethod and the
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synchronic m ethod of chronological cross section” (755-756). It showed that “shifting and
change are not only historical statem ents (first there was A, and then A 1 arose in place of A)
but that shift is also a directly experiences synchronic phenom enon, a relevant artistic
value” (756). It forces the reader to be aware of “two orders: the traditional canon and the
artistic novelty as a deviation from the canon. It is precisely against the background of that
tradition that innovation is conceived” (7556). Form alist research showed that “this
sim ultaneous preservation of tradition and breaking away from tradition form the essence of
every new work of art” (756).