Page 204 - DENG501_LITERARY_CRITICISM_AND_THEORIES

Literary Criticism and Theories Digvijay Pandya, Lovely Professional University

Notes Unit 18: Mikhail Bakhtin and his ‘From the Prehistory of
Novelistic Discourse (Textual Analysis with
Chronotopes and Perennial Narativity)

CONTENTS
Objectives
Introduction
18.1 Bakhtin’s Concept of Chronotopes
18.2 Bakhtin’s Concept of Polyphony
18.3 From the Prehistory of Novelistic Discourse—Critical Appreciation
18.4 The Dialogic Imagination: Chronotope, Heteroglossia
18.5 Summary
18.6 Key-Words
18.7 Review Questions
18.8 Further Readings

Objectives

After reading this Unit students will be able to:
• Discuss Bakhtin’s ‘From the Prehistory of Novelistic Discourse’.
• Understand the Concept of Chronotopes.
Introduction

Mikhail (pronounced Mikahil) Bakhtin was a Russian genre critic whose theories were not just
influential but also threctly related to literature. His genre, of course, was the novel and he looked
at the novel in, well, novel ways.
Bakhtin was concerned with language or discourse as a social activity. The Bakhtin School
comprising Bakhtin, Pavel Medvedev and Valentin Volosphinov believed ‘words’ to be active,
dynamic, that had several connotations and would mean something different to a different person
or social hierarchy or whose meaning would differ according to time and place. Earlier linguist
patronised the view that language was ‘isolated ... divorced from its verbal and actual contest’.
The Bakhtin School used the Russian word ‘solvo’ which can and is translated into English as
‘word’, but the Russian connotation extends a social flavour that would more readily imply utterance
‘or even’ discourse.
Bakhtin looked upon language as an instrument and an area of class struggle. Hitherto revolutions
(for example, the French Revolution of 1789), could not be visualized without bloodshed. With
Bakhtin came a new theory, verbal signal or words as instruments of revolution. Where does this
become apparent? It becomes apparent when various class interests come into conflict with each
other on language grounds.
Bakhtin considered the novel to be such a dynamic genere that would eventually take over, many
other genres. For instance, Epic, which was characterized (according to Bakhtin) by an uncrossable
gulf separating the characters and events from the audience was eventually subsumed by the
novel, in such a way that a separation would be unthinkable. Such an understanding would
explain ancient writers like Euripides (480–406 BC), who wrote about Epic characters in a novelized

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