The concept of defamiliarization (dehabitualization, also bestrangement), as reflected in Victor Shklovsky’s “Art as technique”, is a very good way of explaining what “artfulness” of art and, consequently, “literariness” of literature are all about.
Habitualization
The tendency of humans to get used to things, beings and phenomena they experience recurrently and to take them for granted can hardly be denied — everybody does it all the time. Almost everything we see/hear/smell/experience regularly becomes habitualized over time.
This explains, for example, why overused words and phrases lose their initial power of expression and why people change their hair-styles and images from time to time; why new versions of theatrical interpretations of classical literary pieces are needed or why film directors desperately seek new expressive means and techniques; why one always complains about everydayness and why one of the central marketing maxims is that of a unique sales proposal; why companies need talented copywriters, who are capable of presenting such companies’ non-unique activities as something new and ground-breaking, and why the packaging of popular products is changed from time to time.
Our inclination towards habitualization may, perhaps, be explained in terms of the principle of economy of attention, mental effort and emotions — without this crucial ability to economize we would be in trouble. The useful side of the phenomenon though, does not diminish the inner need for new impressions, emotions and experiences intrinsic to human psychology. Art (and literature as one of its instances) is what helps us see the familiar in a different, insightful light.
Defamiliarization in literature operates on at least two axes: the axis of literary works (i.e. how literary works accomplish defamiliarization) and the axis of literary history (i.e. how change in literary tradition is explained by defamiliarization).