Mikhail Bakhtin, Art and Answerability: Early Philosophical Essays by M. M. Bakhtin

Lindsay Sullivan (Cardiff University)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 2.2.2.00: Post-1917 Writing and Culture in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, 1917-present.
Vol. editors: Neil Cornwell (University of Bristol), Nicole Kennedy (University of Newcastle), Roman Koropeckyj (University of California, Los Angeles), Andrei Rogatchevski (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway)

Domains

Philosophy (any)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1975

Places

Russia (Country of Origin)

Resources

Art and Answerability is the third volume of Bakhtin translations to appear in the University of Texas Slavic Series. It contains a detailed introduction by Michael Holquist and the essays “Art and Answerability” (1919), “Author and Hero in Aesthetic Activity”, (c. 1920-1923) and “The Problem of Content, Material, and Form in Verbal Art” (1924). The essays are fragmentary and incomplete. Bakhtin's works have had a complicated publication record both while he was alive and since his death. The volume entitled Art and Answerability did not start out as a unified collection of essays, but they are thematically linked through their exploration of the relationship between the self and the other, and the nature of aesthetics.

“Art and Answerability” hints that there is a connection between art and life, between aesthetics and ethics. Bakhtin writes: “I...

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

1329 words

Citation: Sullivan, Lindsay. "Art and Answerability: Early Philosophical Essays by M. M. Bakhtin". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 27 August 2004 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=6512, accessed 05 December 2025.]

Mikhail Bakhtin, Art and Answerability: Early Philosophical Essays by M. M. Bakhtin

Domains

Dates

Places

Resources

Save this article

Leave Feedback