Poetics, literary theory and theory of literature

The article - a foretaste of Teoria della letteratura. Saggi, forthcoming in the series "Moderna/Comparata" edited by Anna Dolfi (Firenze UP) - aims to foreground literary theory, looking back at its beginnings in the early post war period which coincided with the spread of Formalist theories. After its emergence in the mid- 20th century, Formalism can now revert to being the subject of investigation in a more aware, well established historical perspective. This gives rise to an exhaustive new look at Boris Tomasevskij's "Introduction" to his Teorija literatury (1925), an early handbook on this field of research, and the essay entitled " Quelques produits du 'Formalisme' russe" by Nina Gourfinkel and Philippe Van Tieghem, published in 1932 in Revue de Litterature compare.