The novel, unlike other literary forms, embraces heterogeneity in discourse and meaning: it re-creates a reality that is based on the interactions of a variety of subjective consciousnesses and ways of thinking and speaking about the world.
In this sense novelistic discourse undermines absolute or authoritative (monologic) language, which is revealed to be merely one form of ideological expression operating within an essentially intersubjective medium.
The editors provide an introduction placing the essays within the context of Bakhtin's conception of language, and a glossary explaining his extensive and idiosyncratic technical vocabulary.
The epic expresses a unity of worldview that does not permit the development of an alienated interiority of the soul, or indeed any form of behaviour, interpretation or language that is at variance with it.
[11] Covering a range of novelistic prototypes, beginning with the ancient Greek Romance and proceeding historically to the work of Rabelais, Bakhtin analyzes the ways in which configurations of time and space (Chronotopes) have been represented in narrative literature.
[12] In undertaking such an analysis, Bakhtin is again concerned with demonstrating the capacity of novelistic prose to present a more profound image of people, actions, events, history and society.
"[14] Language is intrinsically shaped, historically and in each individual speech act, by qualities such as perspective, evaluation, and ideological positioning, and in this fundamental sense is not amenable to the science of linguistics.
Any form or use of language can enter into the world of the novel, and the novelist must be adept at harnessing this multiplicity for "the orchestration of his themes and for the refracted expression of his intentions and values.