Jakobson's approach to literary analysis synthesized his linguistic expertise with his formalist commitments, producing what remains one of the most influential theories of poetic language. His famous formulation—that the poetic function involves "the projection of the principle of equivalence from the axis of selection into the axis of combination"—requires unpacking. In ordinary language, we select words from paradigmatic sets (synonyms, related terms) and combine them syntagmatically into sequences governed by grammar. Roman Jakobson argued that poetic language reverses this logic.
In poetry, equivalence—similarity and contrast—becomes the principle governing how words are combined. Rhyme, meter, alliteration, parallelism, and other formal devices all establish patterns of equivalence that override or supplement grammatical organization. This makes the linguistic message itself perceptible, drawing attention to its material and formal properties rather than merely its referential content. A phrase like "I like Ike" operates poetically because the phonetic similarity organizes the utterance, making sound echo meaning. This principle applies not only to sound but to grammatical and semantic structures: poetic parallelism creates equivalence at multiple linguistic levels simultaneously.
Structural Analysis in Practice
Jakobson demonstrated his method through detailed analyses of poems ranging from Shakespeare's sonnets to Baudelaire's "Les Chats," which he famously analyzed with Claude Lévi-Strauss. These readings traced intricate patterns of phonetic, grammatical, and semantic equivalence, revealing architectonic structures that underlay the poem's aesthetic effects. Critics sometimes accused Jakobson of mechanical formalism, of reducing poetry to patterns while ignoring meaning and affect.
But Jakobson insisted that form and meaning were inseparable—that the patterns he identified were precisely the mechanisms through which poetic meaning emerged. His approach influenced New Criticism, structuralism, and stylistics, establishing close reading as a rigorous, empirically grounded practice. Beyond poetry, Jakobson extended structural analysis to folklore, myth, and cinema, arguing that all aesthetic communication involves patterned equivalences that merit systematic study. His conviction that literary texts possess discoverable structures accessible to scientific analysis helped establish literary theory as an academic discipline with its own methodologies. While subsequent movements like deconstruction challenged structuralist assumptions, Jakobson's fundamental insight—that literary language exhibits distinctive formal organization—remains foundational to literary studies.
