Victor Shklovsky

Selected Quotations: Potebnya and his numerous disciples consider poetry a special kind of thinking - thinking by means of images; they feel that the purpose of imagery is to help channel various objects and activities into groups and to clarify the unknown by means of the known. (717) poets are much more concerned with arranging images than with creating them. Images are given to poets; the ability to remember them is far more important than the …

…the first time. In describing something he avoids the accepted names of its parts and instead names corresponding parts of other objects. (721) An image is not a permanent referent for those mutable complexities of life which are revealed through it; its purpose is not to make us perceive meaning, but to create a special perception of the object - it creates a "vision" of the object instead of serving as a means for knowing it. (723)