In pictures of the exquisitely photogenic widow Kennedy, Ms. Finley says, the public found a way of giving formal shape to tragedy and bereavement, a 20th-century equivalent to the Madonnas of classical paintings.
And, over the decades, a pattern developed "in both their content and their formal shape".
The repetition of incidents, characters, and themes provides The Book of Laughter and Forgetting with its formal shape.
The new power alignment between the Iraqis and the Americans took formal shape on Tuesday with a ceremony in the palace complex, at which John D. Negroponte, formerly the American ambassador to the United Nations, presented his credentials to the new Iraqi president, Ghazi al-Yawar.
The band resisted giving it formal shape.
It was redesigned for 1963-64 with a squarer, more formal shape.
Linklater came up with the screenplay by giving some formal shape to his characters' manias.
President Clinton and Prime Minister Jean Chretien were early supporters of the permanent tribunal, now taking formal shape as the International Criminal Court.
This sectarian division, still existent today, probably took time to assume formal shape.
To get unanimous backing of all 15 Council members, it did not take the formal shape of a resolution or presidential statement, but rather was an expression of the Council's opinion.
From professional milestones (officiating the funeral of Coretta Scott King, with three former and one sitting president in the audience) to personal ones (a commemorative portrait of Long and his wife) he clearly favours pastel tones and formal shapes".
