Page 213 - DENG501_LITERARY_CRITICISM_AND_THEORIES

Unit 18: Mikhail Bakhtin and his ‘From the Prehistory of Novelistic Discourse (Textual Analysis with Chronotopes...

Walter van Herzeele not only plays the role of false friend in the 'individual' plot-sequence, where Notes
he uses his position as Arnold's best friend and confidant for his own scheming to get Oda to
renounce Ackerman and marry him instead, he also (and successfully) plays this role on the
historical plane, where he stands in the grace of both opposed political parties and knows their
secrets: Walter was […] in de gunsten des Graven, even als in die der opstandelingen gedrongen:
de geheimen der beide gezindheden doorgrondde hy: de belangen van den Prins, even als die der
Gentenaers, werden door hem in schyn verdedigd; en nauw was de eene of andere maetregel
genomen, of hy werd aen de vyandlyke benden overgebriefd.
had come into the Count's favour, as well as in that of the rebels: he fathomed the secrets of both
parties: both the interests of the Prince and of the citizens of Ghent were defended by him, but
only in name; and hardly had one or the other measure been taken, before it was passed on to the
enemy[.]

Self-Assessment
1. Choose the correct options:
(i) Bakhtin’s Chronotope theory was written is ............... .
(a) 1830s (b) 1850s
(c) 1820s (d) none of these
(ii) Bakhtin found in Dostoevsky’s work a true representation of ............... .
(a) menotymy (b) metaphor
(c) polyphony (d) none of these
(iii) The hybrid nature of language in ............... .
(a) heteroglossia (b) dialogism
(c) polyglossia (d) none of these
(iv) Chronotope is a term coined to ............... .
(a) M.M. Bakhtin (b) Michael Holoquist
(c) Caryl Emerson (d) none of these.
18.5 Summary

• 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 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 fromthe audience was eventually
subsumed by the novel, in such a way that a separation would be unthinkable.
• Mikhail Bakhtin's chronotope concept offers for the study of the intrinsically hybrid genre of
the historical novel. By applying the concept to the analysis of the early 19th -century
Flemish historical novel, I illustrate how the chronotope of the adventure novel of ordeal,
which structures a significant number of the historical novels published in Belgium between
1830 and 1850, and which can be traced back to the ancient Greek romance, can undergo
drastic revisions under the influence of the particular poetics of the Belgian historical novel.
• The chronotope essays 'Forms of Time and of the Chronotope in the Novel. Notes toward
a Historical Poetics' (henceforth referred to as FTC) and 'The Bildungsroman and Its

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