Dostoevsky's Poetics: Mikhail Bakhtin

One of the most significant literary theorists of the twentieth century, Bakhtin is noted for his studies on discourse especially when it is concerned with the novel. Bakhtin expanded upon his sociohistorical focus—which he would eventually term "heteroglossia"—applying it to literature as well as linguistics. Bakhatin introduces the ideas of polyphony and dialogism in Problems of Dostoevsky 's Poetics. Dostoevsky created a new kind of novel by giving each of his characters an individual voice unmarked by his own beliefs and opinions, Bakhtin believed that Dostoevsky 's work proved that authors could escape their own reality to create another. The various voices of the novel together form what Bakhtin termed "dialogism".

Background on B and his theories.

Mikhail Bakhtin … As Todorov (1984) mentions, “one could praise Mikhail Bakhtin, without too many qualms, on two counts: that he is the most important Soviet thinker in the human sciences and the greatest theoretician of literature in the twentieth century”.

His influence on literary studies especially regarding the novel. As Morris (2003) indicates that “his ideas are being utilized not just in literary studies but also in philosophy, semiotics, cultural studies, anthropology, feminist and post-colonial studies, Marxism, ethics and, of course, Russian and

Despite polyphony being a musical term, Bakhtin retains the musical element within its meaning in regards to the literary genre. Accourding to Bakhtin a polyphony novel is “one in which several different voices or points of view interact on more or less equal terms” (Baldick: 1990). In his work Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics, Bakhtin regards Dostoevsky as “one of the greatest innovators in the realm of artistic form” (1984). Dostoevsky’s is the creator of the polyphonic novel because of his fundamental innovation in terms of the novel