Bakhtin, Mikhail (1895—1975) A Russian linguist and literary critic, Bakhtin was a prodigious author who worked under difficult circumstances for most of his life---two World Wars as well as a revolution---and he was one of the most influential literary theorists of the twentieth century. An instinctively anti-systemic yet utterly rigorous thinker, his concepts of the carnivalesque, chronotope, dialogism, heteroglossia and polyphony have had enormous resonance in almost every domain of contemporary aesthetics, but especially film and literature. He is often associated with the Russian Formalism, but in reality his work was always quite distinct in its goals and ambitions. Bakhtin was born in Orel to a landless but noble family. His father was a mid-level bank official who moved the family from Orel to Vilnius and finally to Odessa as Bakhtin was growing up. He began his university studies in Odessa but soon transferred to St Petersburg University. From there he moved to Nevel, where he taught for two years. It was here that the members of the first ‘Bakhtin circle’ came together. Among them was V. N. Vološinov, under whose name it is alleged Bakhtin published one of his most famous books, Marxism and the Philosophy of Language (1973). He published a second book, Freudianism (1927) under his name too, as well as another, The Formal Method in Literary Scholarship (1928) under the name of another close colleague P. N. Medvedev. Opinion is divided as to the status of these texts and it is not really known why Bakhtin might have decided to do it. In 1920 he moved to Vitebsk, where the great modernist artists El Lisitsky, Malevich, and Marc Chagall were taking refuge from the revolution. In 1924 he moved back to St Petersburg, which had by then been renamed Leningrad, and finally began to publish some of his work, which until then had only circulated amongst a closed group of friends and admirers. But in a pattern that was to recur throughout his life, many of these manuscripts he attempted to publish were either suppressed or lost. Some survived to be published decades later, but many vanished altogether. There is a famous story that during World War II Bakhtin, an inveterate smoker, used the completed manuscript of a book to make his cigarettes because paper was in short supply. His first major book, translated as Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics (1984), which introduced the concepts of dialogism, heteroglossia and polyphony wasn’t published until 1929. He submitted his doctorate in 1940, but owing to the war it could not be defended until 1946. The thesis, which would eventually be published in 1965, translated as Rabelais and his World (1968), divided the academic community and he was denied his doctorate. In contrast to the strict philological expectations of the time, Bakhtin’s thesis ranged widely over history and sociology and tried to situate Rabelais in the context of his own culture. For this reason, he didn’t shy away from or politely ignore the crudity of Rabelais’ prose and interests as might have been prudent, at least from the point of view of establishing his career. His friends nonetheless managed to secure an appointment for him and he was able to teach at university level for many years until ill health forced him to retire in 1969. Well known in Russia from the early 1920s, it wasn’t until the 1970s that Bakhtin became known in the West, but as soon as the translations began to appear in English (as well as French and German) it was immediately obvious that his was a great voice in literary theory. His work provides one of the few truly original theories of the novel. Further Reading: K. Clark and M. Holquist Mikhail Bakhtin (1984). M. Holquist Dialogism (2002). D. Lodge After Bakhtin (1990). P. Stallybrass and A. White The Politics and Poetics of Transgression (1986). R. Stam Subversive Pleasures: Bakhtin, Cultural Criticism and Film (1989).