Bakhtin on poetry, epic, and the novel: Behind the façade

Abstract

Mikhail Bakhtin has gained a reputation of a thinker and literary theorist somehow hostile to poetry, and more specifically to the epic. This view is based on texts, in which Bakhtin creates and develops a conceptual contrast between poetry and the novel (in "Discourse in the Novel") or between epic and the novel (in "Epic and Novel"). However, as I will show, such perceptions of Bakhtin's position are grounded in a misunderstanding of Bakhtin's writing strategy and philosophical approach. Bakhtin often draws such conceptual contrasts as the ones between epic and novel, but does so not in order to characterize pre-given phenomena (in this case, the epic and the novel as two groups of literary works), but to construct a conceptual space which he in turn uses to explicate elements of his philosophy.

Author's Profile

Sergeiy Sandler
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

Analytics

Added to PP
2012-12-30

Downloads
901 (#13,599)

6 months
126 (#23,494)

Historical graph of downloads since first upload
This graph includes both downloads from PhilArchive and clicks on external links on PhilPapers.
How can I increase my downloads?