Background
Morson, Gary Saul was born on April 19, 1948 in New York City. Son of David M. and Evelyn (Estrin) Morson.
(Este livro detalha, com profundidade, conceitos-chave e p...)
Este livro detalha, com profundidade, conceitos-chave e períodos de construção do pensamento bakhtiniano. Sua introdução esclarece a posição de diversos autores diante dos escritos de M. Bakhtin e de seu círculo, bem como as perspectivas de estudioso s que trilharam as veredas constituídas pelos trabalhos e pela maneira como foram sendo conhecidos, principalmente no Ocidente. A idéia de prosa e de uma "prosaística", o que inclui a prosa cotidiana, a literária, a filosófica e a teoria subjacente, é trabalhada de forma a articular questões ligadas à autoria, dimensão que abarca tanto o conceito de vozes e entonação, como a paródia, o discurso citado e a polifonia, os textos disputados, as teorias do romance e dos gêneros, o difícil conceito de cronotopo, entre outras.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/8531410231/?tag=2022091-20
(Books about thinkers require a kind of unity that their t...)
Books about thinkers require a kind of unity that their thought may not possess. This cautionary statement is especially applicable to Mikhail Bakhtin, whose intellectual development displays a diversity of insights that cannot be easily integrated or accurately described in terms of a single overriding concern. Indeed, in a career spanning some sixty years, he experienced both dramatic and gradual changes in his thinking, returned to abandoned insights that he then developed in unexpected ways, and worked through new ideas only loosely related to his earlier concerns Small wonder, then, that Bakhtin should have speculated on the relations among received notions of biography, unity, innovation, and the creative process. Unity―with respect not only to individuals but also to art, culture, and the world generally―is usually understood as conformity to an underlying structure or an overarching scheme. Bakhtin believed that this idea of unity contradicts the possibility of true creativity. For if everything conforms to a preexisting pattern, then genuine development is reduced to mere discovery, to a mere uncovering of something that, in a strong sense, is already there. And yet Bakhtin accepted that some concept of unity was essential. Without it, the world ceases to make sense and creativity again disappears, this time replaced by the purely aleatory. There would again be no possibility of anything meaningfully new. The grim truth of these two extremes was expressed well by Borges: an inescapable labyrinth could consist of an infinite number of turns or of no turns at all. Bakhtin attempted to rethink the concept of unity in order to allow for the possibility of genuine creativity. The goal, in his words, was a "nonmonologic unity," in which real change (or "surprisingness") is an essential component of the creative process. As it happens, such change was characteristic of Bakhtin's own thought, which seems to have developed by continually diverging from his initial intentions. Although it would not necessarily follow that the development of Bakhtin's thought corresponded to his ideas about unity and creativity, we believe that in this case his ideas on nonmonologic unity are useful in understanding his own thought―as well as that of other thinkers whose careers are comparably varied and productive.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0804718229/?tag=2022091-20
(For decades, the formal peculiarities of War and Peace di...)
For decades, the formal peculiarities of War and Peace disturbed Russian and Western critics, who attributed both the anomalous structure and the literary power of the book to Tolstoy's "primitive," unruly genius. Using that critical history as a starting point, this volume recaptures the overwhelming sense of strangeness felt by the work's first readers and thereby illuminates Tolstoy's theoretical and narratological concerns. The author demonstrates that the formal peculiarities of War and Peace were deliberate, designed to elude what Tolstoy regarded as the falsifying constraints of all narratives, both novelistic and historical. Developing and challenging the ideas of Mikhail Bakhtin, Morson explores Tolstoy's account of the work's composition in light of various myths of the creative process. He proposes a theory of "creation by potential" that incorporates Tolstoy's main concerns: the "openness" of each historical moment; the role of chance in history and within narrative patterns; and the efficacy of ordinary events, "hidden in plain view," in shaping history and individual psychology. In his reading of Tolstoy, he demonstrates how we read literary works within the "penumbral text" of associated theories of creativity.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0804717184/?tag=2022091-20
( In this important and controversial book, one of our le...)
In this important and controversial book, one of our leading literary theorists presents a major philosophical statement about the meaning of literature and the shape of literary texts. Drawing on works by the Russian writers Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, and Chekhov, by other writers as diverse as Sophocles, Cervantes, and George Eliot, by thinkers as varied as William James, Mikhail Bakhtin, and Stephen Jay Gould, and from philosophy, the Bible, television, and much more, Gary Saul Morson examines the relation of time to narrative form and to an ethical dimension of the literary experience. Morson asserts that the way we think about the world and narrate events is often in contradiction to the truly eventful and open nature of daily life. Literature, history, and the sciences frequently present experience as if contingency, chance, and the possibility of diverse futures were all illusory. As a result, people draw conclusions or accept ideologies without sufficiently examining their consequences or alternatives. However, says Morson, there is another way to read and construct texts. He explains that most narratives are developed through foreshadowing and "backshadowing" (foreshadowing ascribed after the fact), which tend to reduce the multiplicity of possibilities in each moment. But other literary works try to convey temporal openness through a device he calls "sideshadowing." Sideshadowing suggests that to understand an event is to grasp what else might have happened. Time is not a line but a shifting set of fields of possibility. Morson argues that this view of time and narrative encourages intellectual pluralism, helps to liberate us from the false certainties of dogmatism, creates a healthy skepticism of present orthodoxies, and makes us aware that there are moral choices available to us.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0300068751/?tag=2022091-20
Morson, Gary Saul was born on April 19, 1948 in New York City. Son of David M. and Evelyn (Estrin) Morson.
Bachelor, Yale University, 1969; Master of Philosophy, Yale University, 1973; Doctor of Philosophy, Yale University, 1974; student, University of Oxford, 1969-1970.
Assistant to associate professor, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 1974-1985; professor, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, since 1985; endowed chair Frances Hooper Professor of Arts and Humanities, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, 1990.
(For decades, the formal peculiarities of War and Peace di...)
( In this important and controversial book, one of our le...)
(Este livro detalha, com profundidade, conceitos-chave e p...)
(Books about thinkers require a kind of unity that their t...)
(Book by Morson, Gary Saul)
(Brand New. In Stock. Will be shipped from US. Excellent C...)
(Brand New. In Stock. Will be shipped from US. Excellent C...)
Member Tolstoy Society (president since 1991), American Academy Arts and Sciences.
Married Ewa Hauser, 1969 (divorced 1976). Married Miriam Jane Ackerman, July 7, 1983, 1 child, Emily.