Summary
Mikhail Bakhtin's "Speech Genres and Other Late Essays" presents six works from his "Esthetics of Creative Discourse," representing the culmination of his lifelong analysis and reflection. The essays are deeply informed by a vast storehouse of accumulated factual material.
This collection offers insights into the mature thought of a thinker who devoted his life to reconsidering fundamental aspects of discourse. Readers gain access to the final extant manuscripts published in the Soviet Union, demonstrating Bakhtin's enduring engagement with his analytical and reflective processes.
Key concepts
- Speech Genres — A concept that likely refers to distinct types of utterances with characteristic thematic, stylistic, and compositional features.
- Esthetics of Creative Discourse — A theoretical framework or approach to understanding the principles and nature of artistic and communicative expression.
- Late Essays — Works produced in the final years of Bakhtin's life, reflecting his most developed and considered ideas.
- Bildungsroman — A specific literary genre, potentially examined for its unique speech characteristics and developmental themes.
From the book
Description: "Speech Genres and Other Late Essays presents six short works from Bakhtin's Esthetics of Creative Discourse, published in Moscow in 1979. This is the last of Bakhtin's extant manuscripts published in the Soviet Union. All but one of these essays (the one on the Bildungsroman) were written in Bakhtin's later years and thus they bear the stamp of a thinker who has accumulated a huge storehouse of factual material, to which he has devoted a lifetime of analysis, reflection, and reconsideration."--Page 4 of cover.