Introductory
Criticism in literature has been going around the text, and the author who wrote it. But criticism isn't limited to the author or his text, the era he belonged to and historical, political and economic contexts are equally important to it. Though the critics behind formalism ignored everything except text, similar to the New Critics. (Actually, formalists came before new critics. And New Criticism was itself a formalist movement in criticism.)
Formalism was a movement in literary criticism that originated in Russia during Russian Revolution in 1910s. Formalism had two distinct groups: one, led by Viktor Shklovsky, focused on poetry (hence the group name "Society for the Study of Language in Poetry") while the other pivoted their efforts in Linguistic (analysis of text) [not confirmed though]. Formalists didn't believe in literature as a tool of didactic moral teaching but as a separate (aesthetic) entity in itself. Thus, we'll define formalism as follows:
Formalism is a theoretical position that favours form over the thematic concerns within a text or its relationship with the world outside. (Study Smarter)
Emphasis on Text (in Poetry)
We usually trace themes, background information, literary and poetic devices, and rhyme or rhythmic patterns when critically appreciating a poem. Formalists were only concerned about literal dissection of a poetic text and the literary devices (not within thematic context but on the fly, somewhat how we are supposed to critically appreciate the "unseen" stanza in the Practical Criticism portion in the paper of Literary Criticism in MA English Annual System). They focused on the poetic form (and language). Though Formalists drew their theory on the canvas of Sylbolists (Saussure's stricturalism), they were not so keen on blurring the line between prose and poetry [unlike Symbolists].
Plot
Traditionally, we assume plot to be a sequence of (small) events but Formalists (most notably Shklovsky) did not like the idea of plot being "a combination of motifs (the smallest units of narrative)". According to them, plot was no longer "synonymous with story" but a compositional device (which 'formed' a structure). For Shklovsky and other Formalists, plot as a "story" was merely "a description of events", plot was the structure on which "story" served as a building material.
Sources and Suggested Readings
Modern Literary Criticism and Theory - A History (Provided by Ma'am Sehla)
