Energeia as Defamiliarization: Reading Aristotle with Shklovsky’s Eyes

Abstract

In their work on Aristotle’s Rhetoric, Monica Westin and George Kennedy resort to defamiliarization, a device coined by one of the leading figures of Russian Formalism, Viktor Shklovsky, to comment on rhetorical energeia. This connection is examined taking into account the recent trends in the scholarship on energeia to determine whether it is methodologically and metatheoretically productive. Drawing on the insights afforded by cognitive approaches to literature and embodiment, the gap between defamiliarization and energeia is bridged by how both devices tap into perception by triggering perceptual simulations.