Problems of Dostoevsky’s Art

Introduction

Bakhtin’s book appeared in Leningrad in 1929, shortly after his arrest, under the title “Problems of Dostoevsky’s Art”. It argues that Dostoevsky created a new kind of novel: the characters are not objects of the author’s description but subjects with their own consciousness and their own word, and the author speaks with them rather than about them. The unity of such a novel lies not in one worldview but in the interplay of many voices – polyphony. For the second edition of 1963 Bakhtin added a long chapter on genre that traces the polyphonic novel back to the Socratic dialogue, Menippean satire and carnival. The book made Bakhtin known in the 1960s; critics have objected that it underrates the authorial voice and Dostoevsky’s own religious convictions.

Connections

Builds on

• The Brothers Karamazov1880 · Fyodor Dostoevsky

More works by Mikhail Bakhtin

• 1965Rabelais and His World