Response to a Question from the
Novy Mir Editorial Staff
When evaluating our own times, our own contemporaneity, we tend to err (in one direction or another). And this must be taken into account (1). The editorial staff of Novy Mir asked Bakhtin how he would evaluate the current state of literary scholarship (1). From what I'm understanding is that Bakhtin's evaluation is one in which most critics tend to study literature in the context of the era is was written, or worse, in the current era it's being read. While understanding the culture of the time a work is written is important, Bakhtin posits that earlier eras must also be considered.
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The following quote explains it best:
“There exists a very strong, but one-sided and thus untrustworthy, idea that in order better to understand a foreign culture, one must enter into it, forgetting one's own, and view the world through the eyes of this foreign culture... Of course, a certain entry as a living being into a foreign culture ... is a necessary part of the process of understanding it; but if this were the only aspect, it would be merely duplication and would not entail anything new or enriching. Creative understanding does not renounce itself, its own place in time, its own culture; and it forgets nothing. In order to understand, it is immensely important to for the person to who understands to be located outside the object of his or her understanding- in time, in space, in culture. For one cannot even see one's own exterior and comprehend it as a whole, and no mirrors or photographs will help; our real exterior can be seen and understood only by other people, because they are located outside us in space and because they are others... In the realm of culture, outsideness is the most powerful lever of understanding.” (6-7)
When Bakhtin uses the term "creative understanding" it reminds me of his earlier concept of aesthetics when he says, "The first step in aesthetic activity is my projecting myself into him and experiencing his life from within him. I must experience—come to see and to know—what he experiences; I must put myself in his place and coincide with him, as it were” (“Author and Hero” 25). I'm wondering if his "creative understanding" is not just as expansion of his earlier concept, but instead of applying it to individuals, he is making the connect to a collective audience of how literature should be studied.
By looking at his concept of aesthetics and his thoughts on the study of literature, we may, then, say that his use of the word "other" in this particular essay would represent an entire culture rather than an individual. Bakhtin appears to be making a case for the study of the classics in order to understand and comprehend whatever literature is being studied. Without the foundation of the classic literature, and the cultures in which they were derived from, the rest is only a fragment that exists out of context.
He sums it all up by saying, "A meaning only reveals its depths once it has encountered and come into contact with another, foreign meaning: they engage in a kind of dialogue, which surmounts the closedness and one-sidedness of these particular meanings, these cultures" (7).
By looking at his concept of aesthetics and his thoughts on the study of literature, we may, then, say that his use of the word "other" in this particular essay would represent an entire culture rather than an individual. Bakhtin appears to be making a case for the study of the classics in order to understand and comprehend whatever literature is being studied. Without the foundation of the classic literature, and the cultures in which they were derived from, the rest is only a fragment that exists out of context.
He sums it all up by saying, "A meaning only reveals its depths once it has encountered and come into contact with another, foreign meaning: they engage in a kind of dialogue, which surmounts the closedness and one-sidedness of these particular meanings, these cultures" (7).
Questions to Consider
It has grown to be more common in undergraduate classes that more modern literature is what is being taught. Classics are rarely considered. If Bakhtin is correct in assessing that in order to evaluate literature, one must have an understanding of not only the cultural era, but also the classical that led up it, where does that leave us today in teaching our students? Do you think we are doing a disservice to students by not teaching classical literature? Is our teaching incomplete in this sense? If so, what do you speculate is the remedy? Is it even possible anymore to not only teach the value of the classics, but also have the time to incorporate the modern literature that holds their interest?
NEXT: The Bildungsroman