Reviews for The Subject of Violence: The Song of Roland and the Birth of the State

The average rating for The Subject of Violence: The Song of Roland and the Birth of the State based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2009-11-13 00:00:00 Robert Labranche This is a pretty solid criticism of Bakhtin's reading of Rabelais and its shortcomings. Bakhtin's insights were useful, and provide a framework that can be very complex and deep, but it's not without its issues. Berrong's primary criticisms in his text are largely historical in nature. There are a lot of liberties Bakhtin takes with Rabelais' work and cherry-picking that reinforces his points. Moreover, Berrong spends a goodly amount of time outlining, and this is also pretty common among those who reference Bakhtin, only small portions of his books toward the beginning, while the latter portion of the book reflect Rabelais' rising social status and his own resistance against the grotesque depictions and performances in the earlier portions of his work. In many ways, it recalls The Civilizing Process, in which those who want respect and status start behaving in ways that upper-class people do to fit in, and Berrong posits that this is essentially the case. It's a good, short read, and is certainly a worth supplement to those using an citing Bakhtin heavily. No author is without their critiques, and Berrong's are good the temper the uptopian and high-flying language in Bakhtin's work.

Review # 2 was written on 2014-11-09 00:00:00 Nicola Liotta Excellent. Simply excellent.