Bakhtin was a Russian philosopher, born in 1895 in the city of Oryol and died in 1975.
- He studied philology, graduated in 1918, worked in education, and in 1921 founded the influential “Bakhtin Circle” of criticism.
Souad Khalil | Libya
Critical theory is considered one of the literary theories that are strongly and directly influenced by the prevailing philosophy of the era to which it belongs. With the emergence of various and sometimes opposing philosophies, literary theory itself changes. For example, in the nineteenth century, the ideas and philosophy of Hegel dominated people’s minds as well as the literary and critical theories of the time. However, by the end of the century, with the rise of new philosophies such as Marxism, the situation changed completely. Gradually, Marxism became the dominant theory.
Generally speaking, literary theories have always oscillated between two poles: the descriptive and the normative. The first regards the literary work as independent from society and the historical context to which it belongs, focusing instead on the emotional and affective aspects expressed by the writer in the artistic work. The second focuses on linking the work to the society it belongs to. Naturally, both directions undergo development from time to time in their theoretical premises and practical applications.
The first orientation gave rise to what is known as “New Criticism,” led by T. S. Eliot, as well as Russian Formalism and structuralist approaches. The second orientation found its most famous expression in Marxist criticism, which was rooted in Marxist philosophy.
Within this second orientation, many critics emerged at different historical periods. Yet this does not mean that, from time to time, a critic might not attempt to combine the two approaches—the formalist and the social—in order to produce a new theory.
This is precisely what happened with Mikhail Bakhtin. It is difficult to classify him solely as a Marxist critic, and equally difficult to place him within the framework of Russian Formalism. To clarify this, it is necessary to highlight the key features of the two schools.
Marxism regarded the study of literature within its historical and social framework. For some critics, literary works were even subject to the same economic laws that governed other sciences within society. Thus, for a period of time, literature was treated as a form of ideological propaganda. Among the most prominent critics of this orientation were Georg Lukács, Louis Althusser, Pierre Zima, and Lucien Goldmann.
Russian Formalism, on the other hand, focused on the linguistic structure of the work, rejecting any study of the social context or the author in relation to the literary text. Key figures of this school included Roman Jakobson, Viktor Shklovsky, Boris Eikhenbaum, and—interestingly—Bakhtin himself.
Before we explore how Bakhtin defined language—based on what Reda Ismail wrote about Bakhtin, language, and ideology, and how Bakhtin relied on literary structure to reveal the dynamic nature of language—let us briefly introduce who Bakhtin was.
He was a Russian philosopher, born in 1895 in the city of Oryol and died in 1975. He studied philology, graduated in 1918, worked in education, and in 1921 founded the influential “Bakhtin Circle” of criticism.
Bakhtin was arrested due to his association with Christianity and was also exiled to Siberia for six years, from 1929 to 1936. He later returned to Leningrad (St. Petersburg), where he worked at the Institute of Art History, which at the time was one of the strongholds of Russian Formalists. He then moved to Saransk, where he served as a professor at its university. From 1969, he settled in Klymovsk (a suburb of Moscow) after his health deteriorated. There, he wrote for several journals, particularly Problems of Literature and Context.
Philosophical inquiry permeates Bakhtin’s theoretical framework. He wrote extensively on literary theory, language, semiotics, criticism, and textual studies. He contributed to shaping theoretical conceptions of language, poetics, and semiotics in their intricate relations with society and history. His comprehensive theory was formed through philosophy, the humanities, and metalinguistics.
Bakhtin defined language as a system of signs organized within a particular structure that is, at the same time, ideological. Language, for him, is also the ordinary embodiment of social communication. Therefore, the study of linguistic signs inevitably involves engaging with the social and economic relations as well as the prevailing ideologies of reality.
Although in this definition he connects language with ideology, Bakhtin, in his literary studies, did not focus on tracing the reflection of social and political forces within the text. Rather, he concentrated on literary structure, revealing the dynamic nature of language in certain types of literary heritage. He also focused on how language can be fashioned into a liberating discourse—resisting and rejecting domination, and demanding freedom. Language, therefore, is not static, merely expressing what occupies society’s mind. Through its rhetorical formations, it reflects the concerns and struggles of that society.
For this reason, critics often describe Bakhtin’s language as dynamic and polyphonic, not static or isolated from its social context, as in the case of Formalism or Structuralism. At times, language and its forms may directly articulate class struggle and issues of freedom. Thus, the source of the literariness of a work lies in its social language, not in an abstract or detached one.
Bakhtin further argued that the specific element of aesthetic communication is that it is fully realized within the artistic work itself and in its continuous renewal through the reader’s participation in the creative process. It requires no additional external validation. Yet this special form of communication is not abstract or isolated; it participates in the flux of social life, reflects the broader economic base, and enters into processes of interaction and exchange with other forms of communication. Our task, therefore, is to understand the shape of the poetic utterance as a form of collective communication realized within linguistic material.
Among Bakhtin’s most famous works, which exemplify his applied studies, is his 1929 book Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics. In it, he compared the novels of Dostoevsky and Tolstoy—two of the greatest Russian novelists in history—from a linguistic perspective. His study concluded that Tolstoy’s novels are fundamentally bound to a single ideology—that of the author himself. They do not contain perspectives or voices other than the author’s ideological framework. Dostoevsky, by contrast, gave expression to the people at large, presenting a plurality of voices (polyphony) within his works.
In Dostoevsky’s novels, many characters embody different and independent worldviews. Their consciousness does not merge with the author’s; they are not mere mouthpieces for his ideas and opinions. Rather, they represent distinct and autonomous perspectives. For this reason, Dostoevsky is considered more representative of society and its issues than Tolstoy. Consequently, Bakhtin referred to Dostoevsky’s novels as polyphonic novels (multi-voiced), while Tolstoy’s were characterized as monologic (single-voiced).
Focusing specifically on this study, due to its great importance in the field of novel writing, we encounter a crucial question: does the author, in a literary work, remain confined within the boundaries of his own self—especially if he belongs to a society full of upheaval, revolutionary ferment, and a yearning for freedom? Naturally, this issue is one of the most significant in the philosophy of literature, as it may vary from one writer to another.
However, it is clear that an author cannot completely detach himself from his society—except perhaps in certain genres such as lyric poetry. In the case of the novel and drama, such detachment is nearly impossible, as these genres inherently impose a multiplicity of voices upon their authors. As Bakhtin states, language must sometimes serve as a catalyst for liberation and even revolution.
From this, we understand that Bakhtin never dismissed the role of the author in the literary work—as did Formalism and Structuralism. Rather, he regarded the author’s artistic ability as the primary force shaping the creative work.
Bakhtin also devoted attention to the study of the phenomenon of the *carnival*, which had attracted the interest of many European playwrights, who drew from it certain modern traditions of theatrical writing. The carnival, as Bakhtin viewed it, is a celebration unrestricted by fixed boundaries. As Dr. Gaber Asfour puts it, it is a “festival in which hierarchical distinctions of relationships, classes, and conventions are overturned.”
What Bakhtin derived from this phenomenon was an inquiry into the impact of carnivalesque elements on the formation of literary genres since ancient times, beginning with Socrates. Broadly speaking, Bakhtin’s theory has fascinated many critics because of its dual emphasis—both social and formal—in analyzing the social strata embedded in language.
In the Arab world, many critics have also turned to Bakhtin’s ideas—for example, Sayed El-Bahrawy. Yet, at the same time, some accusations have been directed at this theory, claiming that it lacks the qualities necessary to be considered a true critical theory. Some view it as nothing more than a personal orientation specific to Bakhtin and a small circle of critics.
This view, however, is incorrect. Although its contributions and applied studies may be relatively few, at the theoretical level it is rich in ideas and procedures, making it a significant critical theory in the history of literary criticism. According to Reda Ismail, it is important for three main reasons:
- It focuses on the study of literary works.
- It is procedural in its analysis of the language of literary discourse.
- It pays close attention to the analysis of language in actual social reality.
This is what Reda Ismail states in his study Bakhtin: Between Language and Ideology*. Another study, however, highlights Bakhtin’s theory of the text in determining its identity and interpretive methodology, as well as his understanding of interpretation as a response. Bakhtin viewed the text—whether written or oral—as the foundation of all fields of study (linguistics, philology, literary studies, and the humanities in general). For him, the text is immediate reality: without the text, there is no object for inquiry or questioning, and no field of research.
Epistemology, in Bakhtin’s thought, rests on his theory of language, which begins with human speech as the product of the interaction between language and context bound to history. Speech, in his view, is not merely individual, nor is it infinitely variable and boundless; rather, it is an object of a new kind of linguistic inquiry that he called metalinguistics.
He argued that this science makes it possible to overcome the sterile dichotomy of form and content and provides tools for the formal analysis of ideologies. Bakhtin also believed that the most important feature of discourse is its dialogic nature—that is, its intertextual dimension. Every utterance, therefore, engages in dialogue with the discourses that preceded it and those that are yet to come.
Bakhtin adopted this as a foundation for developing his new conception of cultural interpretation: culture, in his view, is constituted by the discourses preserved within collective memory. Each speaker (whether as interlocutor, sender, or communicator) must therefore determine the position of their discourse in relation to these cultural discourses.
Read: Reflections on Modern Painting
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Souad Khalil, hailing from Libya, is a writer, poet, and translator. She has been writing on culture, literature and other general topics.
