With reference to the
work of Kristeva, discuss the relevance of Dialogism and Carnival to a
postructuralist understanding of the Novel.
In this essay I will be discussing
the two terms carnival (the spectacle of the colloquial language) and dialogism
(two or more speakers in play in language) in response to the form of the novel
and to Kristeva’s essay entitled Word,
Dialogue and Novel (1986) and, due to the strong influences of Bakhtin in
this essay, The Dialogic Imagination (1975),
specifically the chapter Discourse in the
Novel.
Prior to the
work of Bakhtin, the novel was viewed much differently to what customary today,
as it was usually analysed with a structuralist reading. These theorists favoured
to apply poetic theory to the novel, and used a scientific vernacular in
attempt to explore and explain this form. Structuralists believe the novel to
be monophonic, defined as there being one voice only acting within the text
opposed to dialogic in which there are many, and they used symbols, scientific
language (such as the term ‘centrifugal forces’- a force that acts to pull away
from the centre or norm) and equations to better explain their views, as well
as tending to ignore decentralised forces in life and language when examining
the novel.
The Dialogic Imagination is a compilation of Bakhtin’s previous essays including Epic and
Novel (1941), From the Prehistory of Novelistic
Discourse (1940), Forms of Time and
of the Chronotope in the Novel (1938), and Discourse in the Novel (1935) and was first published together in
1975, due to the increases in the popularity of the poststructuralist ideas
within his essays. Indeed, pre 1960-70s, structuralism was the accepted method
of considering the novel and as Bakhtin’s ideas developed in the 1940s, this
Russian theorist’s idea failed to reach the west due to west and east
hostilities.
Kristeva,
however, presented and adapted his ideas to bring them to the west, she wrote
of many of Bakhtins idea’s with her own insight in her essays, with the effect
of a poststructuralist approach to language and the novel. However, like
Bakhtin, Kristeva struggled to cut off from the methods in which structuralists
present their ideas in the same ways I have stated previously (the use
of symbols, scientific language and equations) thus creating an essay which contains a contradicting
duality, also as I will discuss later, she failed to apply her theory to all
novels, so briefly allotted the noncompliant text into another category of
literature, the epic, to the effect of lessening her theory’s integrity.
In
both the essays; Word, Dialogue and Novel
(Kristeva, 1986) and to The Dialogic
Imagination (Bakhtin, 1975), the argument that the novel is dialogic (a
multitude of voices) is a significant one.
Bakhtin argues
that language, therefore the novel, is a representation of life, and life
itself is dialogic and full of disrupting forces from many events and
individuals pulling the language away from the simplistic view of structuralist
understanding (centrifugal forces). He writes;
A common unitary language is a system of linguistic norms. But these norms do not constitute an abstract imperative, they are rather the generative forces of linguistic life, forces struggle to overcome the heteroglossia of language, forces that unite and centralise verbal ideological thought, creating within a heteroglot national language the firm, stable linguistic nucleus of an officially recognised literary language. (Bakhtin, 1975, p271)
Bakhtin is
arguing here that the official linguistically language is monologic and
ideological. As it is often dictated by the ruling upper classes, it neglects
all of the irregularities of language found in the national language. The
national languages are obviously dialogic, as they are affected by; dialect and
colloquial words (e.g. the novel Adam
Bede, 1859), a modern example could be a the way that language had adapted
in response to media and technology with the creation of new words and their abbreviations
as well as the evolution of text/internet speech and their abbreviations. Bakhtin
believes that the national language in the novel should be celebrated rather
than rejected and restrained by the official language, as he believes that the
influences behind the writing in the novel should be evident within the
language used.
Kristeva
supports and builds upon this point in her essay and argues that diologism
“appears on every level of the denotative word” (p.44). She explains this by
proposing three dimensions of textual space for dialogue, she writes that; “These
three dimensions […] of dialogue are writing subject, addressee, and exterior
texts” (Kristeva, 1986, p.36). In this quotation Kristeva is arguing that word
is a product of word definition, as well as being influenced by upwards of two
prospective of intertexuality at any given time. To her, even a single word isn’t
a stable thing; it is ever changing due to the readership which alters the word
from the literal or connotative meaning to one of perception that is influenced
by many factors. This point in her essay I strongly agree with as I can
understand how, for example, the word ‘Apple’ could be understood in a myriad
of ways. Today this could be a reference to the fruit, a colour, a first or surname,
an acronym, a band, a technology company and many other endless associations.
The listener and the speaker could take a very different meaning from the
simple word ‘apple’. In the same way, the
novel can be read in a way that derives from the authors intentions by any
reader, and each reader can perceive the same novel differently from the other
members of the novels audience, in this way the novel is dialogic as there are
no right, wrong or otherwise ways of reading, all readings including the intended
and the perceived are valid and present with in the text.
The author Virginia
Woolf arguably portrays the dialogic
in experimental novel, entitled The Waves
(1931), in which the characters
dialogue is the main body of writing and the prospective and character’s voice
within the dialogue are ever changing. This could be seen as Woolf using a
literal diologism in her text to create waves of consciousness; also she
chooses her characters to have different backgrounds to conjure different
expectations of the characters in the readers attempting to represent all of
the aspects that effect writing to make it become dialogic. This could also be
to represent national language, which is the language group formed of regional
words etc. which I write about later.
In a sense, intertexuality is a form of
diologism, being that a reader and author brings their intrinsic and extrinsic experiences
to what they are reading and by doing this they shape the novel in a dialogic
way. An example of this can be seen within
the literary genres, as for a novel to become of a set genre the author must
intentionally apply conventions and techniques of the desired genre to their
writing for it to work successfully. In Gothic genre, set preconceptions of
intertexuality are present, I will explain using the ‘vampire’. In Bram Stokers
Dracula (1897), the most famous
vampire in literature had ratty teeth and for a long time this was their
appearance until Hammer Horror (1970s)
films adapted the vampire to have two pointed fangs, the ratty teeth were no more;
soon the vampire became sparkly and
gentle in the works of Stephenie
Meyer’s Twilight. Yet some aspects do
not change, like the dark clothing, telepathy, the drinking of blood etc. This
shows how past examples of a subject is present in subsequent novels, even if
they become adapted due to centrifugal dialogic forces.
In her essay
Kristeva explores Carnival in relation to the dialogical novel, explaining that
dialogism give way to carnival as they both explore the perceptions of the many.
She believes that all novels are carnival novels due to the expression of the
public and the private languages with in the texts, she writes that;
Carnivalesque discourse breaks through the laws of language censored by grammar and semantics and, at the same time, is a social political protest. There is no equivalent, but rather, identity between challenging the official linguistic codes and challenging the official law.
(Kristeva, 1986, p36)
In this, Kristeva is arguing that
carnival is now a set feature within the novel and that the carnivalesque can
be present in novels despite the author’s intentions. Carnival has a way of
entering a novel through diologism. It is notable that term of ‘carnival’ was
discovered by Kristeva in the work of Bakhtin’s Discourse in the Novel (1935). Bakhtin wrote;
At the time when major divisions of the poetic genres were developing under the influence of the unifying centralising, centripetal forces of verbal ideological life, the novel – and those artistic prose genres that gravitate towards it – was being historically shaped by the current of decentralising, centrifugal forces […] poetry was accomplishing the task of cultural, national and political centralisation of the verbal ideological world in the higher official socio-ideological levels, on the lower levels, on the stages of local fairs, buffoon spectacles, the heteroglossia of the clown sounded forth, ridiculing all. (Bakhtin, The Dialogic Imagination; Discourse in the Novel, 1975, p.273)
In other words,
Bakhtin is arguing that whist the official literary language was successful in
the history of society; the diologism of life still influenced the lower forms
of the literary arts in a protest to monologic forms of literary arts, as form
of rebellion against the latter and a celebration of satire, dialects and the
unusual, etc. Through these acts of street plays etc, language was brought to
the lower classes in their national language through spectacle and this
influenced the shaping of the novel.
With this in
mind, Kristeva builds her argument that all novels are carnival due to this
shaping. In the quotation;
Within the carnival, the subject is reduced to nothingness, while the structure of the author emerges as anonymity that creates and sees itself created as self and other, as man and mask… The carnival first exorcises the structure of literary productivity, then inevitably brings light this structure’s underlying unconsciousness: sexuality and death. Out of dialogues that appear to be established between them, the structure dyads of carnival appear: high and low […] the carnival challenges of god, authority and social law; in so far as it is dialogical, it is rebellious. (Kristeva, 1986, p.49)
Kristeva
argues that carnival can be in the novel despite author’s intentions (Richardson ’s Pamela, which could be read as a
character of pure womanhood and virtue, as the author intended, or as something
else, such as a satire to the absurdity of such a woman). Kristeva also argues
in this quotation that by the novel having the presence of one in a novel,
(e.g. laughter) the other (e.g. tears) is also present, this also relates back
to dialogism as the reader will associate positives with their opposites
unconsciously. She goes on to write that “The scene of carnival, where there is
no stage, no ‘theatre’, is thus both stage and life, game and dream, discourse
and spectacle.” (Kristeva, 1986, p.49). However, there is an irony with in the
argument of carnival by both the theorists, as by presenting a law in which
carnival works, they are structuring what they observe that can not be
structured, thus counter arguing themselves.
The novels that
do not fit to Kristeva’s theory that all novels are carnival, she briefly
refers to as ‘epic’ novels. This seems to the crucial setback in her theory
which she doesn’t allow much counter argument against. She writes that the epic
is ‘an extra-textual, absolute entity […] that relativizes dialogue to the
point where it is cancelled out and reduced to monologue’ (Kristeva, 1986,
p.57). This section reads differently to
the previous points of the essay, not sounding as convincing and almost
desperate due to the amount of diagrams she uses to try explaining her point.
This seems as though she knows that they are flaws to the theory but dos not
want to recognise them enough to cancel out her own argument. I understand why
she does this as there are many more examples of novel that fit to her theories
than go against.
The
novel is a very complex form of literacy and by being such it would be much too
simplistic to apply the theory of poetry to it; the novel can not be monologic
no more than life can be. As a form, it is designed to be the means to which
individuals can relay information to one another, express experiences, rebel against
the repression of society and ultimately invoke thought and ideas of others
mentally and physically.
To
suggest that a novel is dialogic is to suggest that it is not a novel at all,
and to say that a novel isn’t an exploration of carnival (even in the most
minor way) is just as detrimental. The word is the expression of human life,
the novel is a collection of words, and the novel therefore is human life in
word form.
Bibliography
Bakhtin, M (1975). The Dialogic
Imagination. Texas ; University
of Texas
Eliot, G (1859). Adam Bede. Scotland
Kristeva, J (1986. Word, Dialogue and Novel). New York ;
Columbia University
Richardson, S (1740). Pamela. London ; Messrs Rivington and Osborn.
Woolf, V (1931). The Waves. London ; Hogarth.
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© Kate Ruston and Happy Little Narwhal 2016. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Kate Ruston or Happy Little Narwhal with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
© Kate Ruston and Happy Little Narwhal 2016. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Kate Ruston or Happy Little Narwhal with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
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