I state a thesis: Dostoevsky is a polyphonic hedgehog. The subthesis is that Tolstoy is a monologic fox.The second part of that comparison comes from Isaiah Berlin’s The Hedgehog and the Fox. Berlin cites the Greek poet Archilochus’s dictum, “A fox knows many things; a . . . . Continue Reading »
Consciousness enters the world and the stones remain stones and the sun the sun. Still existence becomes completely different when consciousness arises, Bakhtin argues in Speech Genres. This happens become the coming of consciousness is the coming of “the witness and the judge” . . . . Continue Reading »
In one of his late essays in Speech Genres, Bakhtin traces the secularization of literature to the solvent effects of irony:“Irony has penetrated all languages of modern times (especially French); it has penetrated into all words and forms . . . Irony is everywhere - from the . . . . Continue Reading »
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