Literature I / Literariness
Practice question · Multiple choice

Why does Shklovsky say art makes forms difficult?

Hints
  1. His term is habitualisation, the way repetition makes us stop noticing.
  2. The difficulty is a means to an end, and the end is seeing the stone as stony.
Show the answer

B. Because habit stops us perceiving, and obstruction restores perception

Why

Because habitualisation makes us stop seeing what we see every day. Slowing the reader down restores the perception that habit has automated. Nothing in the argument says complex art is inherently better or that ordinary readers should be excluded; an obstruction that yields no renewed perception is just an obstruction.

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