The tension within the “specter” of Bakhtin and narrative theory

Abstract

In the history of contemporary narrative theory, Mikhail Bakhtin exists like a unique “specter” due to his narrative theories, which are classified as the early theories of structuralism and also closely related to the new narratology. Although Bakhtin’s dialogue, monologue, and double-voiced discourse were interpreted by Tzvetan Todorov as a form of formalism, Bakhtin’s theory of the polyphonic novel was questioned by Todorov. Wayne Booth had completed constructing the rhetoric of fiction in the 1960s, but when he got in touch with Bakhtin in the 1980s, he was shocked to find that Bakhtin had “awakened” him. The narrative theories of Booth and Bakhtin strongly resonate in the relationship construction regarding the author and the protagonist, the narrator and the reader, and the resonation is also revealed from a novel’s rhetoric to its ethics. Booth’s student James Phelan further realized the importance of Bakhtin in promoting the study of narrative ethics. In Wallace Martin’s Recent theories of narrative, the references and discussions about Bakhtin were truly “everywhere.” The purpose of this article is to analyze the cause of “the tension within the narrative theory” raised by McHale.