Bhaktin's concept of polyphony, dialogism and heteroglossia

Deb dulal halder Halder

In Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics, Bakhtin developed the concepts which were to inform much of his work. The concept of ‘polyphony’ (borrowed from music) is central to this analysis. Polyphony literally means multiple voices. Bakhtin reads Dostoevsky’s work as containing many different voices, unmerged into a single perspective, and not subordinated to the voice of the author. Each of these voices has its own perspective, its own validity, and its own narrative weight within the novel. Dialogism is referred to as ‘double-voiced’ or ‘multi-voiced’. It is a ‘principle’ which can become the main referent of a particular aesthetic field. Each character has their own final word, but it relates to and interacts with those of other characters. Discourse does not logically unfold (as in analytical philosophy), but rather, interacts. This makes dialogical works a lot more ‘objective’ and ‘realistic’ than their monological counterparts, since they don’t subordinate reality to the ideology of the author. In The Dialogical Imagination, Bakhtin extends his analysis of dialogism through the concept of heteroglossia. In a situation of heteroglossia, the dominant perspective, or one’s own perspective, is itself defamiliarised. This happens because it is made visible from the perspectives of others, as well as one’s own. It ruptures the mythological relationship to language, showing the gap between words and their meanings.