Herbert Marcuse’s and Viktor Shklovksy’s concepts of the aesthetic form: A comparative study

The goal of this research is to formulate and compare Herbert Marcuse’s and Viktor Shklovksy’s concepts of the aesthetic form and to demonstrate their advantages and limitations. The following aspects are considered: thoughts of two thinkers on the concept of the artistic estrangement, their views on relations between aesthetic form and content and how they figured creation and evolution of the form. It is also explained, why Shklovsky has reconsidered his theory of estrangement. The scientific novelty of this research lies in formulating of the Shklovksy’s complex concept of the aesthetic form as well as in comparison of two corresponding concepts of western neomarxist and soviet formalist adepts. It is established as a result of the research that irrespective of their different views two thinkers acknowledged estrangement as a universal quality of the work of art and prioritized form over content. At the same time Shklovksy’s concept can be called more objective and less dependent on the will of an artist, and Marcuse’s theory explains better mutual influence between reality and art.