Authority and Personality in M.M. Bakhtin's "Author and Hero in Aesthetic Activity"

M.M. Bakhtin's fundamental claim in his seminal essay "Author and Hero in Aesthetic Activity" situates verbal action as the most essential constituent of human personality. A careful reading of this text reveals important truths about the relationship between free individual personhood and the nature of the speech utterance. Bakhtin connects the human experience of speech to the life and person of Jesus Christ emphasizing the incarnation and the Trinitarian view of God as essential principles for understanding the creative power of the word and consequent liabilities. Bakhtin develops these theological and philosophical coordinates around a discussion of the author-hero relationship in the novel asserting that the verbal utterance is creatively involved in building and sustaining the inner personhood of those it addresses. Bakhtin's critical conclusion substantiates that from whom a word is received, and to whom the spoken word appeals has weighty influence on the type and character of human personality, and that personality's relationship to authority.

Name thesis:degree_name

PhD

Level thesis:degree_level

Immediate Access

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Communication and Rhetorical Studies

Year dc:date.available

2013

Author dc:creator

• Ward, Joel Scott

Contributors dc:contributor

• Calvin Troup
• Pat Arneson
• Janie Fritz

• aesthetics
• authority
• Bakhtin
• dialogue
• incarnation
• personality

Language dc:language

English

Repository record dc:identifier

https://dsc.duq.edu/etd/1339

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dsc.duq.edu:etd-2355