Bakhtin and Narratology

This paper is devoted to clarifying the importance of Bakhtin’s intellectual heritage for narratology, as noted by Paul Ricoeur. In particular, the following are considered: Bakhtin’s interpretations of event and consciousness in relation to the modern understanding of narrativity as the formation and retranslation of event experience, as well as Bakhtin’s position on the dual eventfulness of narrative; Bakhtin’s concept of authorship (“primary” and “secondary” authors) in relation to the modern axiom of dissociation of the figures of author and narrator; later Bakhtin’s “metalinguistics” in relation to modern research into the verbalization of narrative. The significance of Bakhtin’s theory of the deed for understanding the category of narrative ethos is noted. The relevance of Bakhtin’s contribution to historical poetics for the realization of the innovative project of historical narratology is emphasized.