Bahktin Epic and the Nove Flashcards
What does Bahktin note about Aristotle and other ancient poetics?
They seem to see literature as a completed ‘whole’ - hence they ignore the novel
‘The epic absolute past…’
‘The epic absolute past is the single source and beginning of everything good for all later times as well.
What does Bakhtin suggest is the ‘creative impulse’ for epics?
Memory (NOT knowledge)
‘The epic past…’
‘the epic past is absolute and complete. It is as closed as a circle; inside it everything is finished, already over’
Character in the epic
Externalised - shown through actions, and we know as much about the character as he knows about himself
What does Bakhtin suggest the epic relies on?
‘on impersonal and sacrosanct tradition, on a commonly held evaluation and point of view’
What does the completedness of epic cause?
‘Epic distance’; one cannot evaluate but only accept with ‘reverence’
