The Silent Side of Polyphony: On the Disappearances of “Silentium!” from the Draft s of Dostoevskii and Bakhtin

Slavic Review ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 75 (3) ◽  
pp. 678-701
Author(s):  
Jason Cieply
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Negative Theology ◽  
History Of The Novel ◽  
Gradual Development ◽  
History Of ◽  
Brothers Karamazov ◽  
Shed Light

In drafts, correspondence, and diaries from the mid-1870s, Fedor Dostoevskii makes repeated allusions to Fedor Tiutchev’s paradoxical articulation of the inefficacy of the word in “Silentium!” but removes them from the printed versions of his texts. The only exception is Brothers Karamazov, where Dmitrii reproduces garbled fragments of the poem under interrogation and in commenting on Ivan’s silence-like speech. I use these “traces” of “Silentium!” to shed light on Dostoevskii’s conscious experimentation with authorial silence in novels conventionally understood in terms of the polyphonic proliferation of speech. Beginning with Mikhail Bakhtin’s own allusion to “Silentium!” in the unpublished Author and Hero in Aesthetic Activity, the theorist came to emphasize the role of silence in polyphony. Drawing on Jacques Derrida’s acknowledgement of the affinity between negative theology and the negative path to affirmation taken in deconstruction, I show how Bakhtin comes to conceive of the history of the novel as the gradual development of apophatic strategies for approximating the unspoken interior world of the other in writing.

scholarly journals The First Production of The Brothers Karamazov on the Russian stage in the Mirror of the Press (Based on the Collections of the Vladimir Dahl State Museum of the History of Russian Literature)

2020 ◽  
pp. 219-241
Author(s):  
Pavel E. Fokin ◽  
Ilya O. Boretsky
Keyword(s):  
Russian Literature ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Theatrical Production ◽  
Distinctive Features ◽  
The Brothers Karamazov ◽  
The Press ◽  
State Museum ◽  
History Of ◽  
Brothers Karamazov

The first Russian theatrical production of Dostoevsky's novel The Brothers Karamazov premiered on the eve of Dostoevsky’s 20th death anniversary on January 26 (February 7) 1901 at the Theater of the Literary and Artistic Society (Maly Theater) in St. Petersburg as a benefit for Nikolay Seversky. The novel was adapted for the stage by K. Dmitriev (Konstantin Nabokov). The role of Dmitry Karamazov was performed by the famous dramatic actor Pavel Orlenev, who had received recognition for playing the role of Raskolnikov. The play, the staging, the actors’ interpretation of their roles became the subject of detailed reviews of the St. Petersburg theater critics and provoked controversial assessments and again raised the question about the peculiarities of Dostoevsky’s prose and the possibility of its presentation on stage. The production of The Brothers Karamazov at the Maly Theater in St. Petersburg and the controversy about it became an important stage in the development of Russian realistic theater and a reflection of the ideas of Dostoevsky’s younger contemporaries about the distinctive features and contents of his art. The manuscript holdings of the Vladimir Dahl State Museum of the History of Russian Literature includes Anna Dostoevskaya’s collection containing a set of documentary materials (the playbill, newspaper advertisements, reviews, feuilletons), which makes it possible to form a complete picture of the play and Russian viewers’ reaction to it. The article provides a description of the performance, and voluminous excerpts from the most informative press reviews. The published materials have not previously attracted special attention of researchers.

scholarly journals The First Production of The Brothers Karamazov on the Russian stage in the Mirror of the Press (Based on the Collections of the Vladimir Dahl State Museum of the History of Russian Literature)

2020 ◽  
pp. 219-241
Author(s):  
Pavel E. Fokin ◽  
Ilya O. Boretsky
Keyword(s):  
Russian Literature ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Theatrical Production ◽  
Distinctive Features ◽  
The Brothers Karamazov ◽  
The Press ◽  
State Museum ◽  
History Of ◽  
Brothers Karamazov

The first Russian theatrical production of Dostoevsky's novel The Brothers Karamazov premiered on the eve of Dostoevsky’s 20th death anniversary on January 26 (February 7) 1901 at the Theater of the Literary and Artistic Society (Maly Theater) in St. Petersburg as a benefit for Nikolay Seversky. The novel was adapted for the stage by K. Dmitriev (Konstantin Nabokov). The role of Dmitry Karamazov was performed by the famous dramatic actor Pavel Orlenev, who had received recognition for playing the role of Raskolnikov. The play, the staging, the actors’ interpretation of their roles became the subject of detailed reviews of the St. Petersburg theater critics and provoked controversial assessments and again raised the question about the peculiarities of Dostoevsky’s prose and the possibility of its presentation on stage. The production of The Brothers Karamazov at the Maly Theater in St. Petersburg and the controversy about it became an important stage in the development of Russian realistic theater and a reflection of the ideas of Dostoevsky’s younger contemporaries about the distinctive features and contents of his art. The manuscript holdings of the Vladimir Dahl State Museum of the History of Russian Literature includes Anna Dostoevskaya’s collection containing a set of documentary materials (the playbill, newspaper advertisements, reviews, feuilletons), which makes it possible to form a complete picture of the play and Russian viewers’ reaction to it. The article provides a description of the performance, and voluminous excerpts from the most informative press reviews. The published materials have not previously attracted special attention of researchers.

Fazliddin Muhammadiev’s Journey to the “Other World”: The History of a Cold War Ḥajjnāma

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-32
Author(s):  
Vladimir Bobrovnikov ◽  
Artemy M. Kalinovsky
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Novel ◽  
History Of The Novel ◽  
Publication History ◽  
Policy Goals ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
History Of ◽  
Other World ◽  
Sacred Rite

Abstract Fazliddin Muhammadiev’s Dar on dunyo (“In the other world”), first published in Tajik in 1965 and later translated to Russian, Uzbek, and many other languages, is the only known fictionalized account of the ḥajj produced in the Soviet Union. Based on a trip made by the author in 1963, the novel provided the Soviet reader a rare glimpse into this sacred rite. Drawing on archival sources, contemporary responses, and the text itself, this article traces the origins and publication history of the novel, situates it within Soviet domestic and foreign policy goals, and analyzes the text to see how the author tried to reconcile competing ideological priorities.

The Arabic Novel and History

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roger Allen
Keyword(s):  
Literary History ◽  
Historical Novel ◽  
Arabic Literature ◽  
The Novel ◽  
History Of The Novel ◽  
Literary Genres ◽  
History Of ◽  
Arabic Speaking ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter examines the relationship between the Arabic novel and history within the context of the Arabic-speaking world, and in particular the process of producing a literary history of the novel genre written in Arabic. It first considers the early development of the novel genre in Arabic as part of a cultural movement that gained impetus in the nineteenth century, with particular emphasis on the interplay of two cultural forces: the importation of Western ideas (including literary genres) and the role of the premodern Arab-Islamic cultural heritage in each subregion. It then discusses examples of narrative from the premodern heritage of Arabic literature before turning to the history of the Arabic novel. The chapter also presents examples of the Arabic historical novel, one of which is Sālim Ḥimmīsh’s Al-‘Allāma (2001, The Polymath).

Inventing the Novel

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Bracht Branham
Keyword(s):  
Literary History ◽  
Theoretical Work ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Human Consciousness ◽  
Menippean Satire ◽  
History Of The Novel ◽  
I And Thou ◽  
History Of

Bakhtin as a philosopher and a student of the novel is intent upon the novel’s role in the history of consciousness. His project fails if he is wrong about the dialogic nature of consciousness or the cultural centrality of the novel as the only discourse that can model human consciousness and its intersubjective character. Inventing the Novel is an argument in four stages: the Introduction surveys Bakhtin’s life and his theoretical work in the 1920s, which grounded his work on the novel, as investigated in following chapters. Chapter 1 sketches Bakhtin’s view of literary history as an agonistic dialogue of genres, concluding with his claim that the novel originates as a new way of evaluating time. Chapter 2 explores Bakhtin’s theory of chronotopes: how do forms of time and space in ancient fiction delimit the possible representation of the human? Chapter 3 assesses Bakhtin’s poetics of genre in his account of Menippean satire as crucial in the history of the novel. Chapter 4 uses Petronius to address the prosaics of the novel, exploring Bakhtin’s account of how novelists of “the second stylistic line” orchestrate the babble of voices expressive of an era into “a microcosm of heteroglossia,” focusing it through the consciousness of characters “on the boundary” between I and thou. Insofar as this analysis succeeds, it evinces the truth of Bakhtin’s claim that the role of Petronius’s Satyrica in the history of the novel is “immense.”

South Pacific

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Linda Crowl
Keyword(s):  
International Organizations ◽  
Book History ◽  
South Pacific ◽  
Indigenous Populations ◽  
The Novel ◽  
History Of The Novel ◽  
Nation States ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
History Of

This chapter examines book history in the anglophone South Pacific, focusing on how creative writing as well as reading developed from small localized efforts within systems of colonial management and then as part of international pressures to decolonize. The discussion begins with a look at the role of European missionaries in promoting literacy in the South Pacific, and how colonial administrators used missions in pacification and to provide education to Indigenous populations. The chapter then considers the publishing activities of colonial governments and how the history of the novel in the Pacific was shaped by regional and international organizations. It also describes publishing by nation states after independence and by groups and individuals despite numerous challenges.

Tracing the History of the Novel as a Genre in Turkey (1908–1940)

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 343-364 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ahu Selin Erkul Yağci
Keyword(s):  
The Novel ◽  
Reading Practices ◽  
Distant Reading ◽  
History Of The Novel ◽  
Indigenous Production ◽  
History Of ◽  
Publishing Houses ◽  
Literary Market ◽  
Reading History

This article emerged as a response to the lack of discussion within the fields of book and reading history of the position of translation and translators. It examines the pioneering role played by translation in the literary market in Turkey between 1908 and 1940, by problematizing the relationship between translation and the indigenous production of novels. This study poses specific questions on the dynamics of the literary market: What was published in these years? In what form were these texts published? What were the strategies and policies adopted by publishing houses between 1908 and 1940? What kinds of changes occurred in publishing and reading practices after the change of script and the Alphabet Reform? What was the role of translation in the ‘reading revolution’, defined by the emergence of mass literacy and the proliferation of materials? The answers to these questions will be presented through the scrutiny of a wide variety of sources. Data from bibliographies, booksellers' catalogues and advertisements published in newspapers and magazines will be analysed using the distant reading strategy of book historians.

Bakhtinʼs Influence on Croatian Literary Theory and Criticism

2015 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 48-53
Author(s):  
István Ladányi
Keyword(s):  
Literary Theory ◽  
Dominant Role ◽  
The Other ◽  
Literary Studies ◽  
The Novel ◽  
History Of The Novel ◽  
Russian Formalism ◽  
Theory And Criticism ◽  
History Of ◽  
The University

The School of Stylistics in Zagreb and the School of Literary Studies in Zagreb had a dominant role in the shaping of literary studies in Croatia. From its beginnings in the late 1950ʼs, it can be only investigated in correlation with the other Yugoslav centres of literary studies, mainly with the literary researches and translations carried out at the University of Belgrade. The School of Literary Studies in Zagreb was influenced by the Structuralist schools and Russian Formalism. In the research focusing on the history of the novel (Viktor Žmegac, Milivoj Solar and others), the interest was raised in Bakhtinʼs theoretical works (both the Russian editions and their translations). Especially the notions of carnivalization, chronotope and the concept of the novel’s polyphony are discussed in works on the history of the novel. The influence of the latest Russian and international readings of Bakhtin’s work can be seen in Croatian literary studies in the researches and editions by Vladimir Biti and his co-workers, from the beginning of the 1990’s onwards.

Reading Statelessness

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lyndsey Stonebridge
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
The Novel ◽  
History Of The Novel ◽  
Political Sovereignty ◽  
History Of

Hannah Arendt’s analysis of the failure of human rights to address statelessness is well known. Less commented upon is how important literature was to her thought. This chapter shows how Arendt’s 1940s essays on Kafka connect the history of the novel to shifting definitions of legal and political sovereignty. Arendt reads The Castle as a blueprint for a political theory that is also a theory of fiction: in the novel K, the unwanted stranger, demolishes the fiction of the rights of man, and with it, the fantasy of assimilation. In a parallel move, Kafka also refuses to assimilate his character into the conventions of fiction. Arendt’s reading changes the terms for how we might approach the literature of exile and of human rights.

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