A: A formalist approach to literature seeks out meaning from a work by giving attention to the form or structure of a work and literary devices operating in it. While other approaches might be interested in how the literary work connects to social, cultural, or political realities outside of the text, “Formalism” examines the exclusively literary aspects of the work, focusing on the internal workings of the text rather than its external influences. Formalist critics like Roman Jakobson and Viktor Shklovsky highlighted the importance of form in their critique of literary works and aimed for an objective analysis of the “literariness” of the text. “New Criticism,” a school of American literary criticism that emerged in the 1930s and 1940s, adopted the formalist emphasis on form and objectivity. For New Critics, the goal was to separate the literary work from any historical context and view the work as a world unto itself. This approach to the text opposes other approaches that emerged later, such as Marxist theory, New Historicism, and cultural materialism. Unlike Formalism, these theories approached the text with an eye for the impact