The Birth of Memory and the Memory of Birth
Daniil Kharms and Lev Tolstoi on Infantile Amnesia
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4738014 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Sara Pankenier (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2009 |
| Volume | 68 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 804-824 |
| Publication date | 2009-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Slavic Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0037-6779 • E-ISSN: 2325-7784 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/s0037677900024530 |
| OpenAlex | W2587706066 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 11 |
Through the juxtaposition of early autobiographical fragments by Lev Tolstoi and Daniil Kharms, Sara Pankenier argues that both writers similarly push beyond the limits of memory to recover the infant self from the abyss of infantile amnesia. Their accounts of preternatural memory and precocious self-awareness counter the phenomenon, which psychologists now term infantile amnesia, whereby the onset of memory occurs only several years after birth. They thus flagrantly violate human experience, as well as the literary conventions that otherwise govern the representation of infancy. By endowing the infant self with adult memory-and narrative voice-these writers create a hybrid autobiographical self that unites the divided autobiographical subject posited by Philippe Lejeune. Despite the differences in their tragic and comic tone, both Tolstoi and Kharms employ the infant subject to explore issues of power and voice through narrative experimentation in an uncharted region of memory otherwise made inaccessible by infantile amnesia
Amnesia · Art · Autobiographical memory · Childhood amnesia · Childhood memory · Cognition · Cognitive psychology · Developmental psychology · Episodic memory · Epistemology · Literature · Narrative · Phenomenon · Psychoanalysis · Recall · Representation (politics · Subject (documents · Computer Science · Folklore, Mythology, and Literature Studies · History · Neuroscience · Philosophy · Psychology · Russian Literature and Bakhtin Studies · Themes in Literature Analysis
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,06 |
| Citation span | 2010 - 2010 (1) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |