Mikhail M. Bakhtin
Response Paper #11: Mikhail M. Bakhtin
Three important points on the biography of the critic include:
1). According to Wikipedia: Bakhtin was a Russian philosopher, literary critic, semiotician, and scholar who worked on literary theory, ethics, and the philosopher of language (n.p).
2). According to Biography.com: In 1929 he was exiled from Vitsyebsk to Kazakhstan. Known for Problems of Dostoevsky 's Poetics, his ideas influenced Western thinking in cultural history, linguistics, literary theory, and aesthetics (n.p).
3). Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: The Bakhtin Circle was a 20th century school of Russian thought which centered on the work of Mikhail Mikhailovich Bakhtin, and developed by him (n.p).
Five key points offered by the critic:
1). “…the life they have lived as already completed genres, with a hardened and no longer flexible skeleton” (913): Speaking of other genres, uses the example of epics, and explains that epics are hardened and are no longer flexible, whereas novels are still plastic, and can be played with by writers because there are no strict and rugged guidelines to follow.
2). “The novel has no canon of its own, as do other genres; only individual examples of the novel are historically active, not the generic canon as such” (913): states that studying a novel is like studying languages that are not only alive, but still young; it is hard to study a novel and place into canon criteria because what can be done with the novel is still unknown.
3). “It gets on poorly with out genres” (913): Bakhtin is saying that the novel does not work well with other genres because other genres are fixed, where as said earlier, the novel is plastic. There are still no fixed rules for writing or contributing to a novel.
4). “But the problem of the novel genre as a whole has not yet found anything like a satisfactory principled resolution” (915): Mikhail thinks that the problem is that the novel keeps being put into one category of its
Three important points on the biography of the critic include:
1). According to Wikipedia: Bakhtin was a Russian philosopher, literary critic, semiotician, and scholar who worked on literary theory, ethics, and the philosopher of language (n.p).
2). According to Biography.com: In 1929 he was exiled from Vitsyebsk to Kazakhstan. Known for Problems of Dostoevsky 's Poetics, his ideas influenced Western thinking in cultural history, linguistics, literary theory, and aesthetics (n.p).
3). Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: The Bakhtin Circle was a 20th century school of Russian thought which centered on the work of Mikhail Mikhailovich Bakhtin, and developed by him (n.p).
Five key points offered by the critic:
1). “…the life they have lived as already completed genres, with a hardened and no longer flexible skeleton” (913): Speaking of other genres, uses the example of epics, and explains that epics are hardened and are no longer flexible, whereas novels are still plastic, and can be played with by writers because there are no strict and rugged guidelines to follow.
2). “The novel has no canon of its own, as do other genres; only individual examples of the novel are historically active, not the generic canon as such” (913): states that studying a novel is like studying languages that are not only alive, but still young; it is hard to study a novel and place into canon criteria because what can be done with the novel is still unknown.
3). “It gets on poorly with out genres” (913): Bakhtin is saying that the novel does not work well with other genres because other genres are fixed, where as said earlier, the novel is plastic. There are still no fixed rules for writing or contributing to a novel.
4). “But the problem of the novel genre as a whole has not yet found anything like a satisfactory principled resolution” (915): Mikhail thinks that the problem is that the novel keeps being put into one category of its
Cited: Bakhtin, Mikhail M. “Epic and Novel: Toward a Nethodology for the Study of the Novel”. 3. United States of America: Neal Education, 2005. Pg. 912-925 . Print. "Mikhail Bakhtin." 2012. Biography.com 31 Oct 2012, 07:59 http://www.biography.com/people/mikhail-bakhtin-40687 "Mikhail Bakhtin." Wikipedia. N.p., 27 2012. Web. 31 Oct 2012. . "The Bakhtin Circle." http://www.iep.utm.edu/bakhtin/. N.p., 15 2005. Web. 31 Oct 2012.