Ensaios de Bakhtin sobre o romance (1935-1941): um estudo de suas formações intelectuais e inovação

Abstract

This essay traces the Russian intellectual traditions informing Bakhtin's work on the novel and pose the question of his originality in a more substantiated way then has been the case so far. I concentrate on the discourses of literary theory and history to discuss in more detail Veselovski, the Formalists, and Olga Freidenberg, and to touch upon Griftsov and the Moscow discussion about the novel held in December 1934 and January 1935, in which Lukacs and Pereverzev were two of the most prominent participants. At the outset, my aim is to outline and analyse the work of Veselovski, the Formalists and Freidenberg in a rigorously selective way and with particular reference to their formative effect on Bakhtin's writings on the novel. In the second part of the article I deal with Bakhtin's reactions to this inherited intellectual field.