Page 208 - DENG501_LITERARY_CRITICISM_AND_THEORIES

Literary Criticism and Theories

Notes directly and indirectly about the nature and use of parody, even going into its early use in the
Middle Age carnival. Even if I didn't understand, necessarily, Bakhtin's concept of parody, it did
find it a fascinating subject to focus on. Rarely do these theoreticians focus on the notion of the
comedy, specifically, and it was an interesting notion as to attribute it to the inception of the early
novel. Bakhtin's last paragraph was an interesting shift from the rest of the novel. Separated by a
space, the last paragraph concisely summed up Bakhtin's discourse on the prehistory of the novel,
underscoring the importance of the history of the formation of the novel, beyond the interestes of
"mere literary styles." Staying true to his form, Bakhtin's last words included a number of examples.

18.4 The Dialogic Imagination: Chronotope, Heteroglossia
The Dialogic Imagination (first published as a whole in 1975) is a compilation of four essays
concerning language and the novel: "Epic and Novel" (1941), "From the Prehistory of Novelistic
Discourse" (1940), "Forms of Time and of the Chronotope in the Novel" (1937-1938), and "Discourse
in the Novel" (1934-1935). It is through the essays contained within The Dialogic Imagination that
Bakhtin introduces the concepts of heteroglossia, dialogism and chronotope, making a significant
contribution to the realm of literary scholarship. Bakhtin explains the generation of meaning
through the "primacy of context over text" (heteroglossia), the hybrid nature of language
(polyglossia) and the relation between utterances (intertextuality). Heteroglossia is "the base
condition governing the operation of meaning in any utterance." To make an utterance means to
"appropriate the words of others and populate them with one's own intention. Bakhtin's deep
insights on dialogicality represent a substantive shift from views on the nature of language and
knowledge by major thinkers as Ferdinand de Saussure and Immanuel Kant.
In "Epic and Novel", Bakhtin demonstrates the novel's distinct nature by contrasting it with the
epic. By doing so, Bakhtin shows that the novel is well-suited to the post-industrial civilization in
which we live because it flourishes on diversity. It is this same diversity that the epic attempts to
eliminate from the world. According to Bakhtin, the novel as a genre is unique in that it is able to
embrace, ingest, and devour other genres while still maintaining its status as a novel. Other
genres, however, cannot emulate the novel without damaging their own distinct identity.
"From the Prehistory of Novelistic Discourse" is a less traditional essay in which Bakhtin reveals
how various different texts from the past have ultimately come together to form the modern novel.
"Forms of Time and of the Chronotope in the Novel" introduces Bakhtin's concept of chronotope.
This essay applies the concept in order to further demonstrate the distinctive quality of the novel.
The word chronotope literally means "time space" and is defined by Bakhtin as "the intrinsic
connectedness of temporal and spatial relationships that are artistically expressed in literature."
For the purpose of his writing, an author must create entire worlds and, in doing so, is forced to
make use of the organizing categories of the real world in which he lives. For this reason chronotope
is a concept that engages reality.
The final essay, "Discourse in the Novel", is one of Bakhtin's most complete statements concerning
his philosophy of language. It is here that Bakhtin provides a model for a history of discourse and
introduces the concept of heteroglossia. The term heteroglossia refers to the qualities of a language
that are extralinguistic, but common to all languages. These include qualities such as perspective,
evaluation, and ideological positioning. In this way most languages are incapable of neutrality,
for every word is inextricably bound to the context in which it exists.
In the philosophy of language and philology, chronotope is a term coined by M.M. Bakhtin to
describe the way time and space are described by language, and, in particular, how literature
represents them. The term itself (Russian: XpoHoTon), from Greek: XpÓvoç ("time") and τÓπoç
("space"), can be literally translated as "time-space." Bakhtin developed the term in his 1937 essay
"Russian: ΦopMbi BpeMeHN N xpoHOTona B poMaHe", published in English as "Forms of Time
and of the Chronotope in the Novel.
Bakhtin scholars Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist state that the chronotope is "a unit of
analysis for studying language according to the ratio and characteristics of the temporal and
spatial categories represented in that language". Specific chronotopes are said to correspond to

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