Mikhail Bakhtin

Biography
- (1895-1975) Born in Orel, south of Moscow. Studied Classics and
Philosophy at St. Petersburg.
- Was exiled to Kazakhstan due to religious practices in 1929—did most of
his best work during exile.
- Lost his right leg to a bone disease in 1938.

Russian Formalism—Bakhtin is often associated with this school of theory,

seen as an antecedent to the American New Criticism.

Marxist influences—Interested in historic/social world and how people

think/act. Believes language is an ideological concept. Language and the
meanings attached to words and concepts are the result of social and
historical development.
Thus, he disagrees with Saussure’s structuralism—language is to be seen as
material, and must be studied in the fashion that people use it.

Dialogue--Most of Bakhtin’s work focuses on dialogue. For Bakhtin,

language requires dialogue and is constructed by three elements (a speaker,
a listener, and a relationship between the two). All aspects of language and
language itself require at least two individuals as a result of this.
Reading itself becomes a dialogue, for we develop our opinions of characters
through the dialogue of actions they perform and our personal values and
interests.

Heteroglossia—Language is a fusion between the world views and personal

idiolects through dialogue. Every individual possesses a different “language”
and thus, a conversation is a hybridization between different languages
within a single expression.
-Bakhtin—”"Every utterance participates in the ‘unitary language’ (in its
centripetal forces and tendencies) and at the same time partakes of social
and historical heteroglossia.”
Heteroglossia can be used in literary theory to discuss the various voices and
languages within a piece and how they co-exist in dialogue.
Chronotope—Literally “time space.” Bakhtin defines it as "the intrinsic
connectedness of temporal and spatial relationships that are artistically
expressed in literature.” Simply put, in order to conjure a fictional world, an
author must utilize aspects of the real world in which he/she lives and
understands.