Romantic literature in light of Bakhtin

209 Pages·2014·1.425 MB·English

by  Bakhtin, Mikhail Mikhaĭlovich, Reed, Walter L

Romantic Literature in Light
of Bakhtin
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Romantic Literature in Light
of Bakhtin
Walter L. Reed
NEW YORK • LONDON • NEW DELHI • SYDNEY
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Bloomsbury Academic
An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Inc
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Bloomsbury is a registered trade mark of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
First published 2014
© Walter L. Reed, 2014
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted
in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,
recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior
permission in writing from the publishers.
No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or
refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can be
accepted by Bloomsbury or the author.
Library of Congress Cataloging-i n-Publication Data
Reed, Walter L., author.
Romantic literature in light of Bakhtin / Walter L. Reed.
pages ; cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-62356-346-2 (hardback : alk. paper) —
ISBN 978-1-62356-111-6 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Bakhtin, M. M. (Mikhail
Mikhailovich), 1895-1975. 2. Romanticism — History and criticism. I. Title.
PG2947.B3R44 2014
809’.9145--dc23
2013045209
ISBN: HB: 978-1-6235-6346-2
PB: 978-1-6235-6111-6
ePDF: 978-1-6235-6809-2
ePub: 978-1-6235-6404-9
Typeset by Refi neCatch Limited, Bungay, Suffolk

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Th is book is dedicated to the memory of my father,
Stephen Winsor Reed, 1912–1966
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Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Foreword: Romanticism in Light of Bakhtin xi
1 Architectonics: Articulating a Period Imagination 1
2 Personalism: Reckoning Voices 41
3 Chronotopes: Coordinating Representative Genres 77
Aft erword: Bakhtin in Light of Romanticism 139
Appendix: Diagrams 147
Notes 149
Index 171
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Acknowledgments
First and foremost, I would like to thank Mikhail Epstein for continual
encouragement of this project, specifi c advice about turns of the argument,
and generous collaboration over Bakhtin and many other matters during
our years of friendship. I am no less grateful to Michael Holquist for half
a century of friendship, collegiality and dialogic inspiration, as well as for
insisting that I read Bakhtin as he began his work on Th e Dialogic
Imagination . I thank Vern McGee for many insights into the problems of
translating from Bakhtin’s Russian, from the writing of his dissertation
that became Speech Genres and Other Late Essays to the present.
I owe a debt to the late Maximilian Aue for a better understanding of
the heights and depths of German Romanticism, to the late Louis Mackey
for a better grasp of the ancient and ongoing quarrel between literature
and philosophy, and to Marshall Duke for a better understanding of
fi ctional personality, in literature and in life. Cathy Caruth, John Sitter
and William Gruber off ered constructive advice about an earlier draft of
the manuscript; thoughtful commentary by Michael Gamer and Jonathan
Roberts helped me reshape the book as it now stands. Bree Beal provided
valuable research and editing assistance in the last stages of revision.
None of them, of course, is responsible for any questionable assertions,
inaccuracies of reference or infelicities of expression that may remain.
I thank Dean Steven Sanderson and Dean Robert Paul of Emory
College for approving the sabbatical leaves in which much of the book
was conceived and written.
A version of Chapter 2, part III appeared in “Author and Hero in
Frankenstein’s Aesthetic Activity,” Dialog/Carnival/Chronotope 2, No. 42
(2009), 7–27; a version of Chapter 3, part V appeared in “London
Calling: Th e Urban Chronotope of Romanticism,” Non-site, Dec. 28,
2011 <nonsite.org/feature/london-calling-the-urban-chronotope-of-
romanticism>. Permission to use this material has been granted by
both these journals. An earlier version of Chapter 3, part IV appeared in
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