Журнал научных разысканий о биографии, теоретическом наследии и эпохе М. М. Бахтина

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Диалог. Карнавал. Хронотоп








Диалог. Карнавал. Хронотоп.19953

Диалог. Карнавал. Хронотоп, 1995, № 3
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Dialogue. Carnival. Chronotope, 1995, № 3

Galin Tihanov (Jesus College, Oxford)

Michael F. Bernard-Donals.
«MIKHAIL BAKHTIN.
Between Phenomenology and Marxism». Cambridge University Press, 1994.

Bernard-Donals's investigation is the first book-length study of the complex intersections of phenomenology and Marxism in Bakhtin's writings and for this reason it should be read and praised.

Dealing with the issues Bernard-Donals chooses to is not an easy task, for it presupposes deep knowledge of at least three subjects: phenomenology, Marxism and Bakhtin himself. I cannot but say that as a whole the author displays a good acquaintance with some key-texts in these areas. The reader will inevitably notice that the author lacks a knowledge of Russian which, however, does not prevent him from structuring his book and evolving his argument in a lucid way.

The first chapter broaches the question of Bakhtin's attitude to Russian Formalism. The author is certainly right to start from this point because it is in Bakhtin's affinity and reservations toward the Formalists that some of his major views gained shape and uniqueness. At the outset of this chapter the basic premises of the investigation are outlined. Bernard-Donals defines the subjects of phenomenology and Marxism as follows: «Phenomenology deals with the construction and nature of individual human consciousness, the latter [Marxism] with the construction of human social relations» (p.3). No doubt, this picture of what phenomenology and Marxism are concerned with is correct but it seems to speak the language of unshakable, text book truths which tend to oversimplify matters. Suffice it to say that phenomenology is not alien to the problems of intersubjectivity and social relations1 and also Marxism (Marcuse, Fromm etc.) does not remain completely indifferent to the perspectives of an universalized human nature (and consciousness) exemplified in the individual human being. It goes



ОБЗОРЫ И РЕЦЕНЗИИ   Galin Tihanov
Michael F. Bernard-Donals. "Mikhail Bakhtin…"

Диалог. Карнавал. Хронотоп, 1995, № 3
128   129
Dialogue. Carnival. Chronotope, 1995, № 3

to the author's credit that he prefers to speak of "Marxisms" rather than "Marxism" at one instance on the same page, but this intention is not realized in the text and the Marxism Bernard-Donals refers to is reduced to the undoubtedly respectable but not entirely representative for that reason post-Marxism. It is also important to remark that the author mentions the name of Merleau-Ponty (relegating him to a footnote and without examining his ideas) as the only one example for a possible philosophical synthesis between Marxism and phenomenology. A perusal of Piccone's early essay and Shirley Pike's mid-80's monograph2, among other contributions on this topic, might have convinced him that this issue deserves closer inspection and cannot be exhausted by reference to Merleau-Ponty alone.

The argument concerning Russian Formalism and Bakhtin's attitude toward it aims to identify both the tensions between and the shared dispositions of Bakhtin and the Formalists. Unfortunately, the author avails of a relatively limited first-hand knowledge of Russian Formalism. Tynyanov's work, of vital importance for an understanding of the Formalists' views of literary evolution, and Tynyanov's and Jakobson's essential Проблемы изучения литературы и языка are not mentioned at all. Also the secondary literature the author draws on displays some hardly permissible lacunae. He relies for the most of the opening pages on Victor Erlich's classic book. Indeed, he extensively rehearses some of Erlich's arguments, valuable but very well-known for a long time now, at the risk of making a specialized audience feel slightly annoyed. In Chapter 2 he adds to this P. Steiner's original contribution Russian Formalism: A Metapoetics but omits the more recent and not less significant book by Jurij Striedter3, two further studies commenting on Bakhtin and Marxism4 and on Bakhtin, Marxism and Russian Formalism5 have, too, escaped the author's attention.

Despite this Bernard-Donals analyzes carefully Bakhtin's dissatisfaction with the prevailingly (but not exclusively) linguistics-oriented programme of the Formalists and correctly sees the point of rupture between Bakhtin and them in Bakhtin's conviction that what needs to be studied in the first place are aesthetic and cultural dimensions of literary creation. His observation that Bakhtin goes even further than this to insist on investigating the «aesthetic vision outside of art», without however endowing this aspect with primary importance, is precise and pertinent. Questionable, how
ever, remains the author's decision to equalize without qualifications the analysis of «aesthetic vision outside of art» with «sociological analysis» as a whole (p.13) and «scientific» knowledge with any form of «organized» knowledge about reality (p.14).

The second chapter will supply the reader with thorough comments of Bakhtin's indebtedness to Kant and neo-Kantianism based on an attentive reading of Bakhtin's Автор и герой в эстетической деятельности . Bernard-Donal's knowledge here comes from an unmediated acquaintance with Kant and Husserl but, again, depends on second-hand information as to Hermann Cohen's impact on Bakhtin. His main source is the pioneering work of Holquist and Clark6. Regrettably, nothing is said about M.Kagan and his writings which largely mediated Bakhtin's knowledge and understanding of neo-Kantianism. Instead, the role of I.Kanaev and his essay Современный витализм , appears to be strongly overrated. Also, the categorical attribution of this essay to Kanaev is far from indisputable, especially after Nina Perlina's comparison of Losky's and Bakhtin/Kanaev's texts7. The critical argument in this chapter is rich and convincing and these lapses cannot fully erode its effect. The pages on Husserl are both succinct and illuminating and G.Spet's part in his reception in Russia does not pass unacknowledged. It is only at one instance in this chapter that the author seems to give up his right to distance himself from the text under scrutiny: discussing Автор и герой, Bernanrd-Donals is inclined to accept without further questioning Bakhtin's contention that cognitive understanding and aesthetic consummation are necessarily irreconcilable (p.31). From the poststructuralist perspective, which the author applies with good results elsewhere in the chapter (f.e. p.37), Bakhtin's statement could be possibly reexamined.

As mentioned before, the author is not a specialist in Russian studies and has no command of Russian. Obviously his book is oriented toward an audience specialized in literary theory and philosophy. That is why most of the comments voiced above should not be taken to diminish decisively the conceptual value of the book. However, there is one significant occasion, on which the lack of knowledge of Russian proves to have acted as an obstacle to Bernard-Donals' project. It is almost inconceivable to investigate Bakhtin's neo-Kantianism without analyzing his К философии поступка, available in Russian as early as 19868. The lack of an English translation until 19939 must have caused the absence of



ОБЗОРЫ И РЕЦЕНЗИИ   Galin Tihanov
Michael F. Bernard-Donals. "Mikhail Bakhtin…"

Диалог. Карнавал. Хронотоп, 1995, № 3
130   131
Dialogue. Carnival. Chronotope, 1995, № 3

this book in Bernard-Donals's.

The third chapter is the longest and the argument there is subtle and exhaustive. The author traces the tacit parallels between Bakhtin's thought on language, discourse and literature, on the one hand, and reception theory and hermeneutics, on the other. He argues conclusively that Bakhtin's preoccupation with language is rich in implications for modern critical theory and can be read along with Ingarden, Iser, JauЯ and Gadamer to light them up from unexpected and fresh angles but also to be challenged by them. Particularly demonstrative is the critique on Gadamer from materialist positions (esp. pp.83—86). The reader will be certainly tempted to ask the author to reveal in future studies his considerations on the way Bakhtin can be read in the light of a different branch of hermeneutics, a representative figure of which is Ricoeur who himself has been an outstanding interpreter of Husserl and phenomenology10.

The fourth chapter focuses on Bakhtin's (i.e. Bakhtin's circle's) Marxist texts from a modern, enlightened but in no way resigned Marxist point of view. The ultimate purpose of this very good chapter is to investigate whether Bakhtin's and Voloshinov's notion of language can promote an understanding of language «as productive of social change» (p.87). The author seems to be inclined to admit that expecting that much from a theoretical discourse on language (be it even Bakhtin's and Voloshinov's) would be paramount to wishful thinking (see p.99). And yet he remains somehow torn between the sober poststructuralist idea that «humans understand ideological activity while they are in ideology» (author's italics, p.89) and the typically structuralist distinction between science and ideology which makes him claim that «Bakhtin's materialism does not seem able to provide an extra ideological or scientific understanding of ideology» (p.88). It seems to me that the reason for this contradiction lies in the insufficiently critical attitude of the author towards Althusser's concept of ideology, itself not free of such contradictions11.

In addition, when discussing the problem of speech genres, Bernard-Donals tends to construe their existence in a radically and exclusively negative sense which can hardly find corroboration in Bakhtin's texts. To do this, Bernard-Donals uses in an excessively metaphorical way Bakhtin's notion of monologue and derives speech genres from monologic discourse. He identifies «monolog
ic» and «generic» (p.98), a procedure Bakhtin himself never undertook in Проблемы речевых жанров.

The next chapter, «Science and Ideology», proceeds to overcome some of the hesitations of the former in favour of a unambiguous and well argued denial of the possibility for science to be privileged over and severed from ideology. Then it moves to make the crucial point that Bakhtin's dialogism has an utopian nature, for it is «purely a function of language» and historical forces are «exterior to the process of dialogism» (p.107). This argument is extended to facilitate the conclusion that «Bakhtin, after close consideration, did not offer a theory of social transformation per se» (p.132, author's italics). Very productive and theoretically substantiated is Bernard-Donals's scepticism as to whether Bakhtin's theory of the novel, being rather a theory of the novelistic as a recurring trend, can be used for discussions of the static features of the genre (p.108).

The sixth chapter, «Science, Praxis and Change», and the last, «Bakhtin, the problem of knowledge, and literary studies» are less chapters on Bakhtin and more an analysis, through Bakhtin, of some trends in the American educational scene and the debates about the importance of local cultures. The reader will inevitably enjoy the lucid and intelligent comments on Rorty, Fish and D.Davidson. True, they will take him beyond phenomenology and Marxism to neo-pragmatism but this detour is nevertheless intellectually delightful, although the inclination to identify the «phenomenological Bakhtin» with Fish and Rorty (p.169—170) might call forth some reservations. Going back to the questions posed in the fourth chapter, the author is trying now to offer his own solution to the question of whether language can produce social change. His conclusion is too optimistic to my mind. It draws on attractive post-Marxist linguistic and social theories but appears to be flawed by circularity of argument: «language affects, in a very real sense, one's material conditions since language is part of those very conditions» (p.175). This statement is structured on the poststructuralist model of reversible equivalence between the two elements (material conditions — language) but at the same time it is part of an analysis, sustained throughout the book, which does not want to sacrifice the materialist hierarchy of language and reality.

In conclusion, I think that Bernard-Donals's is an intelligent and ambitious book which, despite some lacunae and theoretical



ОБЗОРЫ И РЕЦЕНЗИИ   Galin Tihanov
Michael F. Bernard-Donals. "Mikhail Bakhtin…"

Диалог. Карнавал. Хронотоп, 1995, № 3
132   133
Dialogue. Carnival. Chronotope, 1995, № 3

limitations, has the great merit of posing clearly and vigorously a problem of extreme importance for the present state of Bakhtin studies. Bernard-Donals manages to show that construing Bakhtin as situated between and determined by the theoretical boundaries of Marxism and phenomenology is an approach which does justice to his complexity and scope as a truly indispensable twentieth-century thinker. Offering subtle observations and considerations on several occasions, taking into account important historical aspects and details while overlooking others, the book provides a valuable framework for future studies and serves at the same time as an incentive for a patient and careful broadening of our knowledge of Bakhtin.

1 A.Schьtz's name and writings are not even mentioned by Bernard-Donals.

2 Piccone P. «Phenomenological Marxism» // Telos, 9, 1971; Shirley R.Pike, Marxism and Phenomenology. London and Sydney: Croom Helm, 1986.

3 Striedter Jurij. Literary Structure, Evolution and Value: Russian Formalism and Czech Structuralism Reconsidered. Cambridge (Mass.) and London: Harvard University Press, 1989.

4 Gardiner M. The Dialogics of Critique. M.M.Bakhtin and the Theory of ideology. London and New York: Routledge, 1992.

5 Pechey Graham «Bakhtin, Marxism, and Poststructuralism» // The Politics of Theory. Proceedings of the Essex Conference on the Sociology of Literature. Colchester, University of Essex, 1983, pp.234—247.

6 Holquist M. and Clark K. «The Influence of Kant in the Early Work of M.M.Bakhtin» // Literary Theory and Criticism. Ed. J.Strelka. Bern: Peter Lang, 1984, pp.299-313. A recent very good study analyzing Bakhtin's phenomenological concept of art and the neo-Kantian influence, which the author cannot be reproached for not having taken into consideration because the two books must have been written more or less at the same time, is Matthias Freise's Michail Bachtins philosophische Aesthetik der Literartur. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1993.

7 Nina Perlina's research on the authorship of this disputed article is quoted and discussed in G.S.Morson and Caryl Emerson, «Introduction: Rethinking Bakhtin» // Rethinking Bakhtin. Ed. by
G.S.Morson and C.Emerson. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1989, p.45. This book can be seen also in Bernard-Donals's bibliografy.

8 Бахтин М.М. «К философии поступка» // Философия и социология науки и техники. Ежегодник, 1984-85. М., 1986.

9 Bakhtin M.M. Toward a Philosophy of the Act. Trans. and with notes by V. Liapunov. Ed. by M.Holquist and V.Liapunov. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1993.

10 Cf.: Ricoeur P., Husserl: An Analysis of his Phenomenology. Trans. by E.Ballard and L.E.Embree. Evaanston (Ill.): Northwestern University Press, 1967.

11 For an efficient critique of Althusser's contradictory views on ideology see, among others, Emesto Laclau. Politics and Ideology in Marxist Theory. London: Verso, 1979, p.101.


ОБЗОРЫ И РЕЦЕНЗИИ   Galin Tihanov
Michael F. Bernard-Donals. "Mikhail Bakhtin…"

 




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