Известия Уральского федерального университета. Серия 2: Гуманитарные науки (Mar 2018)
M. M. Bakhtin as an Author and Reader of Reviews
Abstract
This paper aims to illustrate one of the aspects of work of Russian literary critic M. Bakhtin which has not been considered previously. The sources of this paper are two works by Bakhtin dedicated to literary reviews: Bakhtin’s internal review of the book Shakespeare’s Drama (1970) by L. E. Pinsky and a summary of W. Schmid’s review of the book The Poetics of Composition (1971) by B. A. Uspensky. It is important to note that the texts studied in the article are later ones, they were created after 1965 — the year of Bakhtin’s Rabelais was published and after the beginning of his rehabilitation from Saransk. They were published posthumously. In both cases the author considers Bakhtin’s response to works which were important for his own reflections and theories. They are carnival elements in Shakespeare’s plays in Pinsky’s work as Bakhtin was interested in them as a theorist of carnival culture and laughter, and thoughts of polyphony and the voice/voices of the author in Schmid’s review of Uspensky’s book which contradict his own view and which he tries to communicate with. Using philological, textual, and hermeneutical methods, the author shows how the review turns out to be an important tool in the polemics between scholars and serves to clarify the author’s own ideas and thoughts.
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