A different kind of noise: Literariness in the context of transcendentalism, pragmatism, and formalism

Revisiting Russian and Anglo-American formalism, this study refurbishes a conception of "literariness" in order to provide a corrective to the constructivism that is often taken for granted in contemporary literary theory.; I begin by tracing parallels between Emersonian transcendentalism and Victor Shklovsky's theory of perceptibility, with Emerson's trope of finding as forgetting anticipating the formalist conception of novelty. Emerson's practical procedures for effecting transcendence are read through William James's psychology of sensation and perception (which influenced Russian formalism), and a naturalistic paradigm is recovered-beneath the Romantic ontology of "Reason."; Developing the psychological model through behavioural linguistics, I trace similar conceptualizations of novelty in New Criticism, deconstruction, and Richard Rorty's theory of cultural-linguistic evolution. The cult of irrationalism characteristic of each is critiqued. Situating Rorty's theory of knowledge accretion within a formalist system writ large, I examine its commonalities with and divergences from the classic pragmatist model of inquiry. The New Critical organic argument and its deconstructionist critique are examined and their limitations identified. Applying information theory and recent work in the field of artificial life, I argue against irrationalism by positioning intelligibility within the extremes of meaning retention and innovation. A model of "liquid" dynamics based on organic systems is used to locate the point of maximal complexity within this range at which the "literary" phenomenon occurs.; Completing the theoretical argument, I examine the knowledge claim by which formalism validates literary experience. Drawing on Richard Shusterman's recent critique of "hermeneutic universalism," James's psychology, and research in the philosophy of mind and cognition, I discuss the problems with Rortian-Davidsonian epistemic coherentism and the possibilities of responding to the constructivist critique of "the Myth of the Given."; The study concludes with a practical examination of Dashiell Hammett's major novels. Placing Hammett's work in the context of classic American pragmatism, I correlate the methodology of Hammett's P.I. with the pragmatist's four-stage model of inquiry. Complemented by C. S. Peirce's fallibilism and the application of liquid dynamics to narrative construction, the discussion analyzes the means by which Hammett innovated the narrative conventions of detective fiction.