Mikhail Bakhtin

Mikhail Mikhailovich Bakhtin (November 17, 1895 (new style)-1975) wrote influential works in literary theory and literary criticism. He was born in Orel, Russia.

Key concepts associated with Bakhtin's works include dialogism, heteroglossia, the carnivalesque, and chronotope .

Much of Bakhtin's work centered on interpreting the novel form. For many years he had problems publishing due to the repressive political reality of the USSR. His work therefore only gradually became known outside of Russia.

As a literary theorist, Bakhtin emerged out of the school of Russian Structuralism, but attempted to understand the method of literary meaning in dialogue as a series of structures inherent in the text and culture surrounding the text.

Major works

Problems of Dostoyevsky's Poetics (1929)

The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays by M.M. Bakhtin

Marxism and the Philosophy of Language

Speech Genres and Other Late Essays

Popular Culture in Middle Ages and the Renaissance: the context of François Rabelais

Rabelais and His World (1968)

External link

• The Bakhtin Circle, Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• The Bakhtin Centre