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The Polyphonic World of Cervantes and Dostoevsky

Slav N. Gratchev

This book is the first scholarly attempt to examine Don Quixote from the angle of dialogism and polyphony. To begin with, although Mikhail Bakhtin considered Dostoevsky the “creator of a polyphonic novel,” we believe that the first elements of polyphony can be observed in Cervantes’ Don Quixote. A preliminary objective will therefore be to articulate, without reducing the role of Dostoevsky in the creation of the polyphonic novel and relying on Bakhtin’s interpretation of polyphony, heteroglossia, and multivoicedness, that the polyphonic structure appeared and evolved to a state of relative maturity centuries before Dostoevsky. The book will subsequently explore how and why the polyphonic structure was born within the classic monophonic structure of Don Quixote, the ways in which this new structure positioned itself in relation to the classic monophonic one, and what relations it may be said to have established with it resulting in a unique amalgam—the hybrid semi-polyphonic novel. An overarching concern throughout the project will be to trace Cervantes’ search for new and more sophisticated expressive possibilities that the old, monophonic narration could not offer, while also shedding light on how Cervantes systematically and deliberately employed polyphonic structure in Don Quixote.

Lexington Books

Pages: 162 • Trim: 6¼ x 9⅜

978-1-4985-6553-0 • Hardback • December 2017 • $111.00 • (£85.00)

978-1-4985-6554-7 • eBook • December 2017 • $105.50 • (£82.00)

Subjects: Literary Criticism / European / Spanish & Portuguese, Foreign Language Study / Spanish, Literary Criticism / Modern / General

The Polyphonic World of Cervantes and Dostoevsky

Hardback

eBook

Summary

This book is the first scholarly attempt to examine Don Quixote from the angle of dialogism and polyphony. To begin with, although Mikhail Bakhtin considered Dostoevsky the “creator of a polyphonic novel,” we believe that the first elements of polyphony can be observed in Cervantes’ Don Quixote. A preliminary objective will therefore be to articulate, without reducing the role of Dostoevsky in the creation of the polyphonic novel and relying on Bakhtin’s interpretation of polyphony, heteroglossia, and multivoicedness, that the polyphonic structure appeared and evolved to a state of relative maturity centuries before Dostoevsky. The book will subsequently explore how and why the polyphonic structure was born within the classic monophonic structure of Don Quixote, the ways in which this new structure positioned itself in relation to the classic monophonic one, and what relations it may be said to have established with it resulting in a unique amalgam—the hybrid semi-polyphonic novel. An overarching concern throughout the project will be to trace Cervantes’ search for new and more sophisticated expressive possibilities that the old, monophonic narration could not offer, while also shedding light on how Cervantes systematically and deliberately employed polyphonic structure in Don Quixote.

Details

Lexington Books

Pages: 162 • Trim: 6¼ x 9⅜

978-1-4985-6553-0 • Hardback • December 2017 • $111.00 • (£85.00)

978-1-4985-6554-7 • eBook • December 2017 • $105.50 • (£82.00)

Subjects: Literary Criticism / European / Spanish & Portuguese, Foreign Language Study / Spanish, Literary Criticism / Modern / General

Author

Slav N. Gratchev is associate professor of Spanish at Marshall University.

Table of Contents

Table of contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part I: The World of Cervantes
Chapter I: “I hear voices in everything and dialogic relation among them.” (M. Bakhtin)
Chapter II: “We do not read words, we read ideas.” (M. Bakhtin)
Chapter III: “I am against enclosure in a text.” (Bakhtin)
Chapter IV: “Feci quod potui, faciant meliora potentes. I have done what I could; those who can will do better.”
Chapter V: “Writers themselves do not create polyphonic novels.” (Bakhtin)
Chapter VI: “Consensus omnium. By the agreement of all.”
Chapter VII: “Quantum satis. The amount that is needed.”
Chapter VIII: “Carthago delenda est. Carthage must be destroyed.”
Chapter IX: “Life enters language through concrete utterances.” (Bakhtin)
Part II: The World of Dostoevsky
Chapter X: “Nothing is absolutely dead: every meaning will have its festival.” (Bakhtin)
Bibliography
About the author
Index

The Polyphonic World of Cervantes and Dostoevsky

Slav N. Gratchev

The Polyphonic World of Cervantes and Dostoevsky

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