Reflecting the Perpetual Present: Literature as Immanence in Bakhtin's Thought

Author: Game J.

Source: Neophilologus, Volume 82, Number 4, October 1998 , pp. 499-511(13)

Publisher: Springer

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Abstract:

Through a methodological and contextualised survey of the philosophical grounds of the Bakhtinian approach and of its key-exemplifications, this article studies in what measure Bakhtin's literary theory achievements (the definition of "literarity", of styles, of forms of speeches, the essential dichotomy between the dialogic novel and monologic poetry), serve his ultimate philosophical and anthropological aims, i.e. the presentation of the meaning as essentially "unfinalizability". In order to do so, this essay specifies how Bakhti's literary theory is at the same time the means and the end, the instrument and the object of his work. By doing so, this article shows how Bakhtin's thought is related to the notion of immanence and how the very organisation of his works is already – at a meta-level – an expression of immanence.

Language: English

Document Type: Regular paper

Affiliations: 1: King's College, Cambridge

Publication date: 1998-10-01