Mikhail Bakhtin Questions and Answers
Mikhail Bakhtin
Mikhail Bakhtin's central argument in "Discourse in the Novel."
Mikhail Bakhtin's central argument in "Discourse in the Novel" is that novels are inherently dialogic, meaning they are composed of multiple voices and perspectives. This multiplicity of voices...
Mikhail Bakhtin
Define "Heteroglossia" as referred to in "Discourse in the Novel."
"Heteroglossia" literally means "other voices" or "different voices." Bakhtin believed that the complexity and diversity of many different voices was overlooked in literary and sociological...
Mikhail Bakhtin
Mikhail Bakhtin's views and treatment of language
Mikhail Bakhtin viewed language as inherently dialogic, emphasizing its social interaction and the multiplicity of voices within texts. He believed that meaning is created through dialogue and the...
Mikhail Bakhtin
What is the concept of grotesque realism and the main theme of Rabelais and His World, by Bakhtin?
In Rabelais and His World, Bakhtin puts forward the concept of Grotesque Realism which is an analysis of language and literature involving the body. This is a continuation of Bakhtin's project of...
Mikhail Bakhtin
Explain Bakhtin's concept of Heteroglossia and how it defines a novel's unique characteristics.
Bakhtin argued that early Formalist and Structuralist critics did not articulate the "sociological stylistics" of literature. These critics focused too much on the unitary, abstract rules of...
Mikhail Bakhtin
Explain the concept of "Intertextuality" in relation to Mikhail Bakhtin's essay "Discourse in the Novel."
The term "intertextuality" was developed by French literary critic Julia Kristeva in 1966, appropriately enough in a series of essays that introduced the work of Mikhail Bakhtin, who worked in...
Mikhail Bakhtin
How do Bakhtin's and Saussure's concepts of "language" compare and contrast?
Bakhtin believed that Saussure's approach to language was too narrow. Saussure, he said, looked at the word as if it were a self-sufficient whole, while Bakhtin argued that we should look at the...
Mikhail Bakhtin
How does Bakhtin distinguish the novel from the epic?
Bakhtin distinguishes the novel from the epic by arguing that the novel is a developing genre whereas the epic is completed and antiquated. To some extent, this is because the novel is still a...
Mikhail Bakhtin
How do individual text-messages, using Bakhtin's concept of heteroglossia, show centripetal and centrifugal forces?
There are a couple of issues going on in this question. It seems to me that the best way to approach it is to take each one singularly and move from there. If we examine "heteroglossia"...