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POLYPHONY IN THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV: VARIATIONS ON A THEME

POLYPHONY IN THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV: VARIATIONS ON A THEME Ever since the reappearance of Bakhtin's Dostoevskii study in 1963,1 his concept of the "polyphonic novel" has been widely discussed and comment- ed on by other Dostoevskii scholars. By shifting the focus of attention from the ideological content of the novels to the ideology underlying their form, Bakhtin succeeded in turning the traditional co-philosophising with Dostoev- skii and his characters into a theoretical problem that could be analysed as an aspect of the dialogic structure of the novels. As Bakhtin sees it, Dostoevskii's novels are marked by a particular relationship between the author and his characters, the latter being regarded as individuals in their own rights, free and independent, on a par with the former. Together, they form a polyphony of equal and autonomous voices and consciousnesses, engaged in an open- ended ideological dialogue with each other, the author, and the readers. Although Bakhtin's theory has received wide acceptance in Dostoevskii criticism, there have always been some scholars who have rejected his inter- pretation of the novels by analogy with musical polyphony. The argument that ideas and ideologies acquire a poetic function and are transformed into images of ideas and ideologies when represented within the poetic universe of http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Canadian-American Slavic Studies Brill

POLYPHONY IN THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV: VARIATIONS ON A THEME

Canadian-American Slavic Studies , Volume 17 (3): 10 – Jan 1, 1983

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Publisher
Brill
Copyright
Copyright © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands
ISSN
0090-8290
eISSN
2210-2396
DOI
10.1163/221023983X00127b
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Ever since the reappearance of Bakhtin's Dostoevskii study in 1963,1 his concept of the "polyphonic novel" has been widely discussed and comment- ed on by other Dostoevskii scholars. By shifting the focus of attention from the ideological content of the novels to the ideology underlying their form, Bakhtin succeeded in turning the traditional co-philosophising with Dostoev- skii and his characters into a theoretical problem that could be analysed as an aspect of the dialogic structure of the novels. As Bakhtin sees it, Dostoevskii's novels are marked by a particular relationship between the author and his characters, the latter being regarded as individuals in their own rights, free and independent, on a par with the former. Together, they form a polyphony of equal and autonomous voices and consciousnesses, engaged in an open- ended ideological dialogue with each other, the author, and the readers. Although Bakhtin's theory has received wide acceptance in Dostoevskii criticism, there have always been some scholars who have rejected his inter- pretation of the novels by analogy with musical polyphony. The argument that ideas and ideologies acquire a poetic function and are transformed into images of ideas and ideologies when represented within the poetic universe of

Journal

Canadian-American Slavic StudiesBrill

Published: Jan 1, 1983

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