Bakhtin, M.M. The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1982. Print. Summary: The first of the two chapters we read begins with a definition of chronotope, which deals with time and space relationships in literature (84). Bakhtin uses this framework to explore different pieces of literature and how they are located in a specific space and time influence the texts. One example he points to is of Greek mythology and how time seems to stand still for characters and they do not age, despite the fact that years of time may have passed (105). In fact, in some cases in literature, the events could also happen any place and so setting is not spatially important to the text or plot. He goes on to explain common characteristics of different genres, like Greek mythology being a way to test the hero (106). There are two types of autobiography in Greek literature: Platonic and rhetorical (130–131). A major author that he spends time discussing is Rabelais and the chronotype applied to his text, as well as the grotesque aspects of life depicted in his work. The last section deals with the idyllic in novels and a couple of the example forms it could take. The second chapter on discourse is where is writes about heteroglossia, which has to do with “a multiplicity of social voices…and interrelationship” in a text (263). He then discusses different types of substitutions and examples of how heteroglossia functions in different circumstances. From here he breaks down concepts of how a speaker and listener interact in order for communication to occur (282). The rest of the chapter explores issues of ideology and its affect on words and “double-styled hybrid construction,” which demonstrates double speech of belief systems through a single speaker (304). Response: One piece that I felt may have been better explored was in the chronotope chapter. Here he spends a lot of time explaining how chronotope applies to Greek mythology, but I wondered if he considered it solely as written literature or if he thought about how orality may have shaped the text as he read it. We’d just been studying orality in Greek literature with Dr. Enos, so some of the makers that Bakhtin refers to, for example the use of words like “suddenly” to advance the plot may have more to do with the fact that it used to be told orally. These are certainly trigger words for action, but they are also words that could have helped trigger as memory aids for the plot. Also, when telling a story like that orally, it would seem that keeping track of the number of years and time and remembering to advance the ages of characters would only make it more difficult to remember and retell. I may have to read up on this some more in other texts to see if Bakhtin has something else to say about it elsewhere. Connection/Questions: Bakhtin starts to discuss the use of signs at the end of the chronotope chapter, which harkens to Vygotsky a bit, but it wasn’t too fully developed here for me to be certain they are using the word sign in the same way. Also, when he discusses signs and their relationship to the exterior world, this made connects to Vygotsky’s views on inner and outer speech. Bakhtin even later on directly talks about inner speech, showing how in a text this can function through the author (319). In fact, Bakhtin makes the text itself seem alive and speaking back to us (252). He adds to this concept that it is localized in time and space, similar to Vološinov’s ideas that ideologies are bound up in the words themselves, and by the readers receiving them (253). Bakhtin also indirectly connects to Vološinov when Bakhtin talks about ideology not being the only aspect to be looked at when studying the novel, though later on he acknowledges that poets, for example, cannot escape ideology when creating (259, 286). Bakhtin also writes about the author’s function within this system, which connects to other discussions of authorship by Barthes and Foucault (254). Also like Vološinov’s arena, Bakhtin writes about how words are “tension-filled” and how they navigate the different interactions and layers of meaning (276). Similar to Heidegger’s feeling about technology, Bakhtin feels that words are not neutral either but that words retain a “taste” of how they have been used (293). Where else does Bakhtin talk about signs? Does Bakhtin ever write about orality and Greek literature? |
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