Critical of the critics—Educational fiction

Author: Tzvetan Todorov
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2002-03-01
Features: One of the "Modern Western Academic Library" series. The book narrates the intellectual evolution and personal growth of the French literary theorist Tzvetan Todorov, tracing how he transformed from a Bulgarian "literary theorist" into a formalist and structuralist, and later into an advocate of dialogic criticism. It also discusses many of the major critical schools of the 20th century, involving important literary theorists and writers from different countries such as Russia/Soviet Union, Germany, France, Canada, etc. Additionally, the author himself explains in the "Preface" of this book that he attempts to examine the major ideological trends of the 20th century and their reflections in literature and criticism, and tries to find a "more reasonable" "ideological stance," an "almost correct" "literary view and critical perspective." Alternatively, one could say this book is a reflection by a renowned critic on the Western literary criticism of the 20th century in which he was involved. Each chapter of the book is written in the same way; first, I will identify the elements of romanticism that the discussed writers were influenced by, and then I will identify the ideas that intentionally or unintentionally negate and transcend this ideological framework. The last chapter of the book appears somewhat different from the others, as here I take myself as the subject of study, attempting to synthesize the findings of the previous chapters. However, this difference is merely superficial; in a sense, the other chapters also narrate my personal history: my past and present are still a "romanticist" who tries to transcend romanticism by analyzing the writers he has continually admired. The repeated shifts in each chapter blend with the rest and evolve continuously until reaching a peak, which is not a synthesis. It could also be said that what follows is an unfinished educational novel.