In terms of literature, what is the Formalist theory?

Formalism,
with is often associated with Russian literary theory of the 1920s, but also with the New
Criticism being developed in Cambridge in the same period, focuses on the text (the words
themselves) of a work of literature. It does not look at the biography of the author, the
history of the times in which the text was composed, or at the sources which influenced a text.
These types of literary criticism, known respectively as biographical criticism, historical
criticism, and source study, were believed to interfere with an encounter with the text as
text.

Formalism focuses on what elements make a work literary, and what
differentiateswhat is addedthat makes a literary text different, say, from a scientific paper.
Formalists focus on language, symbol, and so onand such elements as ambiguity, , , and unity
within a text.

The formalist method of focusing on the text itself solved
problems such as a tendency to read a work of literature too much through the...