الفهرس 
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Abstract
Bakhtin’s theoretical project has been mainly concerned with formulating a definition of the novel as a polyphonic, heteroglot and subversive genre, a definition that is primarily elaborated in his seminal texts problems of Dostoevsky’s poetics (1929; rev. ed. 1963), The Dialogic Imagination (1934-41) and Rabelais and his World (1965). As
defined by Bakhtin in his Dostoevsky book, the novel is a site on which a multiplicity of ’equally empowered’, ’unmerged’ voices, points of
view/ideologies – embodied in socially situated characters – intersect,collide, interact and relativise one another, with the author’s as merely
one, among the other voices in the novel. In short, Bakhtin conceives of the novel as a site of, in the words of Glazener, ’dialogic ideologies’ (111).
Just as it is characterized by polyphony, the novel for Bakhtin is equally defined by its formal capacity to represent the internal stratification of language or what Bakhtin terms, ’social heteroglossia’. As it is discursively constructed in such a way as to incorporate a diversity of
socio-ideological languages/discourses, the novel, Bakhtin contends,effects the subversion of the official language with its claims to absolute
truth. Bakhtin thus emphasises, as Gardiner puts it, ’the counterhegemonic or liberating potential of the novel form’ (43).
The subversive power of the polyphonic novel, Bakhtin suggests,is to be understood in the light of its carnivalesque prehistory. As it brings
together the high and the low; the official sacred word and its carnivalesque profanation; laughter and tears, the carnivalesque, Bakhtin emphasises, is dialogical, counter-hegemonic and by definition subversive of the dominant culture, and its hierarchal power structures. Bahktin, thus,
posits a utopian – perhaps a too utopian – space in which dissident voices can successfully subvert the hegemony of the dominant order.
Aim of Research This thesis explores the extent to which Bakhtin’s theory of the novel can fully account for what has come to be known as ’Third-World’ literature or what Barbara Harlow refers to as ’resistance literature’.
Specifically, the thesis attempts a recontextualising, a re-reading of the
Bakhtinian paradigm in the light of four ’Third-World’ novels: Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart (London: Heinemann, 1958.), Emile Habibi’s Al-Waqa’i‘ al-ghariba Fi Ikhtifa’ Sa‘id Abi-l Nahs al-Mutasha’il (The Secret Life of Saeed, the Ill-Fated pessoptimist (1974), Toni Morrison’s Beloved (1987), and Bahaa Taher’s Al-Hubb fi-l Manfa (Love in Exile) (1995).
Working with and through, Bakhtin’s theory of the novel, this thesis aspires to go beyond the Bakhtinian paradigm so as to formulate a
new concept of polyphony, illuminating the possible inflections and mutations of the Bakhtinian paradigm as it travels into the context of ’Third-World’ literary production. This is not to underestimate the insights that Bakhtin’s theory of the novel can offer ”to anyone theorizing or intervening in the cultural politics of decolonization” (pechey 62).
Setting the problem:
As it attempts to contextualise Bakhtin’s theory of the novel in a ’postcolonial’ context, the thesis poses the problematic of what Edward Said refers to as ’traveling theory’. A theory, Said contends, arises as an answer to the ideological imperatives of a particular historical moment.
As it ’travels’, however, a theory has to be transformed so as to meet the ideological requirements of its new locality, i.e., the historical exigencies of the new time and place in which it is transplanted.
Bakhtin’s theory of the novel, with its two fold emphasis on dialogism as well as the liberating utopian promise of popular culture, is, thus, to be understood in the light of the historical conjuncture in which it was produced: as both a reaction against and an attempt to intervene in
the Stalinist moment, with its repressive, totalitarian ideology.
Furthermore, as a ”traveling theory” Bakhtin’s theory of the novel has to be transformed so as to meet the ideological imperatives of its
reproduction in a ’postcolonial’ context. For, as Said writes, ”a [methodological] break through can become a [methodological] trap, if it
is used uncritically, repetitively, limitlessly” (239).
Whereas previous studies have predominantly uncritically applied Bakhtin’s theory of the novel to the literary production of the ”Third
World,” this thesis puts forward a two-fold argument:
(a) In ’Third-World’ literature it is possible to trace a kind of polyphony different from that defined by Bakhtin: what we have in ’Third-World’ novels is not so much that democratic interplay of contending voices/ideologies/discourses that Bakhtin conceives of as the defining feature of Dostoevsky’s ’polyphonic’ novel as a homogenous – yet internally stratified – voice of the colonized
which is set vis-à-vis a marginal, unitary, authoritarian voice of the coloniser. Furthermore, the internal stratification within the voice
/culture of the colonized is synthesized into a higher unity. Hence,the divergence from the Bakhtinian paradigm which emphasizes
that the antagonistic voices characteristic of the ’polyphonic’ novel is not to be resolved dialectically.
(b) The divergence from the Baktinian paradigm is understood in the light of the different historical context /ideological imperatives that inform Bakhtin’s theory of the novel and Dostoevsky’s polyphonic novel on the one hand and the novels of Bahaa Taher, Chinua Achebe, Emile Habibi and Toni Morrison on the other.
Chapterization The thesis is divided as follows:
Introduction The introductory chapter maps the main problematics posed in the thesis, the methodological tools used, as well as introduces the main hypothesis of the thesis. It also reviews the current literature, highlighting the contribution of thesis in the light of an examination of that literature.
part One: Theoretical Engagement with Bakhtin
Chapter Two: Bakhtin’s Theory of the Novel
This chapter will explore Bakhtin’s theory of the novel as elaborated in his seminal texts problems of Dostoevsky’s poetics, The Dialogic Imagination, and Rabelais and his World. The central aim of
this chapter is to introduce Bakhtin’s main concepts – ’polyphony’,’heteroglossia’, and ’carnival’ – that constitute the terms in which Bakhtin has conceived of the novel as a genre.
Chapter Three: Bakhtin’s Theory of the Novel as a ’Traveling Theory’: ’postcolonial’ Appropriations of Bakhtin This chapter examines how ’postcolonial’ theorists/critics put Bakhtin to use in their working on the main concerns of ’postcolonial’ discourse. In its survey of appropriations of Bakhtin’s work by a number
of ’postcolonial’ critics/theorists, this chapter primarily examines how/ifBakhtin has been inflected in the process of his translation to a
’postcolonial’ context. This chapter also considers the utility of Bakhtin’s major insights, his main concepts to ’postcolonial’ analysis.
part Two: Case Studies (Things Fall Apart, The Secret Life of Saeed,the Ill-Fated pessoptimist, Beloved, and Love in Exile) In this part I will examine the various degrees to which the novels
in question are, as Glazener puts it, ’hospitable’ to the Bakhtinian paradigm and the extent to which they offer resistances to it. This part will be sub-divided into two chapters, each of which will explore one of the main dialogic levels in the four novels:
Chapter Four: Multiple Voices At this dialogic level of analysis texts will be analyzed in terms of
the antagonistic voices, socio-ideological discourses, points of view embodied in socially-situated characters, who as such function as
ideologues.
Chapter Five: The Carnivalesque and polyglossia
This dialogic level of analysis explores how ’translatable’ Bakhtin’s two concepts of ’polyglossia’ and the ’canivalesque’ are to a
’postcolonial’ context. This level of analysis also makes use of Bakhtin’s theorisation of the intimate connection between the novel, carnivalesque culture and history to examine the extent to which the diverse writers
draw on folk traditions as well as/or appropriate the novel form.
Furthermore, in this level of analysis, the historical contexts in which the analyzed texts are embedded will be examined.
Conclusion: In the conclusion I will pursue two major aims:
(a) elucidate both the possibilities and limitations of the Bakhtinian paradigm in the light of the analyses of the novels in question.
(b) attempt to forge an alternative paradigm that, though taking its point of departure from that of Bakhtin, will attempt to go beyond it so as to offer a more adequate theorization of the literary production of the ’Third-World’.
The study comes to the following conclusions:
(1) problematic as Bakhtin’s concept of ’polyphony’ is when examined in relation to the ’Third-World’ novel, Bakhtin’s conceptualization of the carnivalesque, his mapping of the origin of the (polyphonic) novel in folk, carnivalesque culture, as well as his conceptualization
of heteroglossia – or the internal stratification of language – remain relevant, illuminating concepts for the analysis of the ’Third-World’
novel. These concepts ’translate’ well to a ’postcolonial’ context. In other words, the ’postcolonial’ novel is more ’hospitable’ to some of
Bakhtin’s concepts than others.
(2) A re-reading of Bakhtin in the light of the four ’Third-World’ novels under examination suggests two modified paradigms of multivoicedness:
(a) a bi-vocal paradigm in which the internally stratified voice of the colonized/oppressed and their embattled culture in all its totality is juxtaposed to the monologic voice of the colonizer/the oppressor, (b) a paradigm of multi-voicedness in which this bi-vocal paradigm is disrupted by the hybrid voice of those who are situated in a position of inbetweeness, those who do not fully belong to either colonizer (oppressor)/colonized (oppressed), those whose
consciousness is a site of two contending world-views that remain unresolved. While the internally stratified voice of the oppressed in both diagrams is foregrounded within the economy of the ’Third-
World’ novel, the unitary voice of power is discursively marginalized, and reduced to an object of representation to be parodied, mocked and subverted.
(3) The ’Third-World’ writer invokes his/her multilayered cultural matrix. This ’formal’ aspect of the ’Third-World’ ’novel’ is ideologically laden.
(4) Although the ’Third-World’ novel is a site of contending narratives of history, History, as text, enters Taher’s, Habibi’s, Morrison’s and
Achebe’s narratives to consolidate a repressed, marginalized narrative. As such, these novels, though foregrounding how history is mediated through (and even constructed in) narrative, do not do away with/ negate the ’Historical’ as such.