The Novelness of Bakhtin

The six essays in The Novelness of Bakhtin present interpretations and discussions of Bakhtin´s essential yet difficult ideas on novelness. The contributions, written by prominent Bakhtin scholars, develop the concept of novelness beyond mere exegesis and deliver a wide range of approaches to the perspectives and possibilities of the concept: intellectual history, archival research and textual analysis as well as discussions of the connections with stylistics, rhetoric, and the theory and history of the novel. Thus, The Novelness of Bakhtin contains a multifaceted examination of a cornerstone of Bakhtin´s literary theory and attempts to answer the Janus-faced question hidden in the title of the book: What is the novelness of Bakhtin?

The essays were originally presented as papers at a conference held at the University of Copenhagen in 1998. They have been revised and augmented for this publication.