The Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms - Ross Murfin 2018

Polyphonic (polyvocalic)

Polyphonic (polyvocalic): Meaning “many-voiced,” a term used to refer to what Soviet critic Mikhail Bakhtin called dialogic texts, that is, ones in which several viewpoints or discourses are in dialogue with one another. The term is closely associated with Bakhtin’s theory of heteroglossia, which holds that most if not all literary works involve a multiplicity of voices that interact and compete. Discussing the concept of polyphony in Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics (1929), Bakhtin contrasted two nineteenth-century Russian novelists, Leo Tolstoi and Fyodor Dostoevsky, characterizing their respective works as monologic and dialogic and describing the Dostoevskian novel as “a plurality of independent and unmerged voices and consciousnesses, a genuine polyphony of fully valid voices.” He also believed, however, that all novels are to some degree polyphonic since they relate the views of various characters as well as those of the narrator(s), thereby disrupting the authoritative, authorial voice.