De l'art autonome du texte à la parole d'autrui: Boris Éjxenbaum et la rhétorique

In the article devoted to the style of Lenin's speeches, ("Lef", 1924), Eikhenbaum's analysis withdraws from the territory canonically pertaining to the domain of poetic language, to explore its suburbs: A hybrid zone of expressive strategies and practical needs, of historical impulses and creative urgencies. Through the stylistic analysis of Lenin's discourse, Eikhenbaum circumscribes the sphere of persuasive words, the field of rhetoric, where multiple purposes, rooted in the hie et nunc and a profusion of proceedings, intonations, syntactic architectures, rhythmic patterns intersect each other and coexist. The problem of present and past relationships between literature and society, of that border area that the essay on Lenin has shown as dense of theoretical and methodological stimuli, will therefore occupy more and more the time and the interests of Eikhenbaum and of the other formalists, and will often touch issues concerning the persuasive public speech, problems that constitutionally go beyond the imperative of the textual immanence.