Bakhtin Basics

[epea_pteroenta]

For literary theory seminar next week we have to read (among other things) a 25 page article by the Russian formalist (I think he's a formalist?), M. M. Bakhtin. It was an article called "Discourse in the Novel" from "The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays" (1972) and translated by Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist. As far as I can tell the essay

Comments

Bisexuals, trisexuals, homosapiens, carcinogens, hallucinogens, men, Pee Wee Herman...

[eolivet]

semantic(s), poetic(s), scientific, thematic(s), systematic, syntactic, specific, authentic, epic, dramatic, rhetoric, syncretic, dialogic, genetic, lyric, monologic, basic, phonetic, generic, static, dynamic(s), parodic, hermetic, ironic, socio-semantic, auto-telic, polemic, dialectic(s), politic(s), organic, aesthetic, academic, sclerotic, subatomic

It's like..."La Vie Boheme" from RENT on STEROIDS! Or "Jellicle Cats" dialed up to 11!

Other than the paragraph that sounded like a dirty novel, I confess my eyes glazed over reading this...I feel your pain. Really. I'm so, so sorry. [/Ten from Doctor Who] :/

[stuckinpast]

MY BRAIN HURTS.

*hearts*

[valancy_s]

Ha!!!!

This man and in particular this book are a running joke in my department. Everyone who takes the Intro to the Teaching of Writing course has to read some of it - my year they had to read ALL of it. I got out of the course because I'd taken something similar (no Bahktin though) during my MFA, and have spent the past three years being confused by all the references but grateful that I wasn't subject to his nonsense.

In all that time no one has ever done anything as fun as this with him! I wish I could share it with all my friends here.

Re: *hearts*

[epea_pteroenta]

That's brilliant!

And please feel free to share it if you like - I've unlocked it. I can hardly take the credit for it - Bakhtin should take all the credit. :)

[sarapellow]

Oh lord, you've given me flashbacks to my time working in arts PR and trying to work out what the #$^%! the visual artists were %$#^&*#@ talking about in their artist statements. I once had to read a 250-word sentence that had NO punctuation, nary a comma, I kid you not. I take comfort that you, as a classics graduate from Cambridge, find it as incomprehensible and, frankly, up its own bottom as I do. I applaud your courage and forbearance in reading it all! Presumably you need to work out wtf it means now. I get that every specialised field has its own jargon but my experience in the arts was that many artists, out of some sort of inferiority complex, felt the need to 'academicise' (a nod to Bakhtin there) their work to make it legitimate.

And boy, I bet Freud would have had a field day with him!

[epea_pteroenta]

Oh trust me, I'm not going to spend any more time thinking about this article! I couldn't have read it if I was actually seriously trying to make sense of it! There are other things to read for that seminar so I will concentrate on them. I suspect the rest of the class will have issues too...

And boy, I bet Freud would have had a field day with him!

Yes... :D

[clunkhall]

I have NO IDEA how you read that.

I tried to read the extracts, doesn't help that I'm tired anyway, but... BOY! Wow...

The best thing you can do, though, is find hilarity in it - it's the only way!! Kudos. I actually love it.