Polyphony (literature)

In literature, polyphony (Russian: полифония) is a feature of narrative, which includes a diversity of simultaneous points of view and voices. Caryl Emerson describes it as "a decentered authorial stance that grants validity to all voices".^[1] The concept was introduced by Mikhail Bakhtin, using a metaphor based on the musical term polyphony.

Bakhtin's primary example of polyphony was Fyodor Dostoevsky's prose. According to Bakhtin, the chief characteristic of Dostoevsky's novels is "a plurality of independent and unmerged voices and consciousnesses, a genuine polyphony of fully valid voices". His major characters are, "by the very nature of his creative design, not only objects of authorial discourse but also subjects of their own directly signifying discourse".^[2]

Polyphony in literature is the consequence of a dialogic sense of truth in combination with the special authorial position that makes possible the realization of that sense on the page.^[3] The dialogic sense of truth, as it manifests in Dostoevsky, is a radically different way of understanding the world to that of the monologic. Dostoevsky's novels, according to Bakhtin, cannot be understood from within the monological tradition of western thought, a way of thinking about "truth" that has dominated religion, science, philosophy and literature for many centuries.