Subject
Bakhtin & Nabokov
From
Date
Body
The first edition of Bakhtin's book on Dostoevsky was published in 1929 and
astutely reviewed by Petr Bitsilli in a 1930 issue of "Sovremennye
zapiski," side by side with a part of "Luzhin's Defense" and
Tsetlin's review of "Chorb." This means that Nabokov could have read at
least Bitsilli's review if not Bakhtin himself. Yet in his unpublished
1931 paper on Dostoevsky in which he discussed Marxist, Freudian and
religious biases in Dostoevsky criticism of the 1920's, Nabokov doesn't
refer to Bakhtin's theory of so-called "polyphonic novel." As Pekka Tammi
convincingly argued in his "Problems of Nabokov's Poetics" (Helsinki, 1985,
97-101) Nabokov's narrative, in terms of Bakhtinian metaphors, should be
defined as anti-polyphonic:
"We may talk of a pronouncedly anti-polyphonic feature in the
author's writing: an overriding tendency to make explicit the presence of a
creative consciousness behind every fictive construction." (100)
Alexander Dolinin
At 09:17 AM 9/25/04 -0700, you wrote:
>Dear Jansy,
> I summarized my thoughts about Bakhtin & VN in the EDNOTE to Laufer's
>posting. I doubt VN knew B's work which surfaced posthumously
>
>
>----- Forwarded message from jansy@aetern.us -----
> Date: Sat, 25 Sep 2004 10:28:04 -0300
> From: Jansy Berndt de Souza Mello <jansy@aetern.us>
>
>Dear Don,
>concerning Mr. Lauffer´s message, I remember having read that Bakthin was an
>admirer of Dostoevski, who he considered the only real example
>for poliphonic
>writing and "dialogism". Therefore, it would be interesting to learn what
>Nabokov thought about Dostoevski´ s "moral and artistic stupidity" in his
>"Lectures on Russian Literature" where he analyses four of D.´s novels .Would
>VN himself be familiar with Bakthin´s assesment of Dostoievski?
>Jansy
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Donald B. Johnson"
>To:
>Sent: Friday, September 24, 2004 9:00 PM
>Subject: QUERY: Nabokov and Bakhtin
>
>
> > A quick question:
> > Many of us find Nabokov Bakhtinian. But did Nabokov read Bakhtin? Know
> > him? What's the best work on the actual connection between these two?
>the
> > documented influence of Bakhtin on Nabokov?
> >
> > Thanks for any help,
> > Matt Laufer
> >
> >
>
>----- End forwarded message -----
----- End forwarded message -----
astutely reviewed by Petr Bitsilli in a 1930 issue of "Sovremennye
zapiski," side by side with a part of "Luzhin's Defense" and
Tsetlin's review of "Chorb." This means that Nabokov could have read at
least Bitsilli's review if not Bakhtin himself. Yet in his unpublished
1931 paper on Dostoevsky in which he discussed Marxist, Freudian and
religious biases in Dostoevsky criticism of the 1920's, Nabokov doesn't
refer to Bakhtin's theory of so-called "polyphonic novel." As Pekka Tammi
convincingly argued in his "Problems of Nabokov's Poetics" (Helsinki, 1985,
97-101) Nabokov's narrative, in terms of Bakhtinian metaphors, should be
defined as anti-polyphonic:
"We may talk of a pronouncedly anti-polyphonic feature in the
author's writing: an overriding tendency to make explicit the presence of a
creative consciousness behind every fictive construction." (100)
Alexander Dolinin
At 09:17 AM 9/25/04 -0700, you wrote:
>Dear Jansy,
> I summarized my thoughts about Bakhtin & VN in the EDNOTE to Laufer's
>posting. I doubt VN knew B's work which surfaced posthumously
>
>
>----- Forwarded message from jansy@aetern.us -----
> Date: Sat, 25 Sep 2004 10:28:04 -0300
> From: Jansy Berndt de Souza Mello <jansy@aetern.us>
>
>Dear Don,
>concerning Mr. Lauffer´s message, I remember having read that Bakthin was an
>admirer of Dostoevski, who he considered the only real example
>for poliphonic
>writing and "dialogism". Therefore, it would be interesting to learn what
>Nabokov thought about Dostoevski´ s "moral and artistic stupidity" in his
>"Lectures on Russian Literature" where he analyses four of D.´s novels .Would
>VN himself be familiar with Bakthin´s assesment of Dostoievski?
>Jansy
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Donald B. Johnson"
>To:
>Sent: Friday, September 24, 2004 9:00 PM
>Subject: QUERY: Nabokov and Bakhtin
>
>
> > A quick question:
> > Many of us find Nabokov Bakhtinian. But did Nabokov read Bakhtin? Know
> > him? What's the best work on the actual connection between these two?
>the
> > documented influence of Bakhtin on Nabokov?
> >
> > Thanks for any help,
> > Matt Laufer
> >
> >
>
>----- End forwarded message -----
----- End forwarded message -----