Mikhail Bakhtin's ideas have influenced thinking in literary studies, anthropology, linguistics, psychology and social theory. Michael Holquist argues that Bakhtin's work gains coherence through his commitment to the concept of dialogue. With only two comprehensive accounts of Bakhtins contributions available in the West ... Holquists attempt to provide a contextualized summary of Bakhtins work is a formidable accomplishment in its own right, resulting in a volume that will be of interest for those seeking a unified, general understanding of Bakhtin.
The best introduction to Bakhtin as he is at his mostprovocative and lucid form. The next book to read for those interestedin the man would be the Rabelais and the Dostoevsky book.
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.
In Dialogism, Michael Holquist provides the first comprehensive account of the Bakhtinian legacy, drawing on the entire corpus of Bakhtin's existing works, including previously unexamined Soviet archival material. While work from Bakhtin's different periods is highly varied, Holquist argues that there is a coherent shape to the achievement as a whole. Its key is Bakhtin's commitment to the concept of dialogue, the principle of constant interplay between a variety of dynamic voices and discourses in different levels of texts, nature, society and the self.
