The Concept of Literary Genres in Mikhail Bakhtin’s Theoretical Framework

The “genre” of literary works is one of the important issues in the field of literary criticism. In every period, different criteria have been employed as the grounds for similarity and distinction, and thus as the bases for the classification of literary works into genres. These criteria have encompassed both the formal aspects of works, such as modes of expression, stylistic factors, rhetorical devices, and the like, and their internal dimensions, such as mood, plot, character, and so forth. The present study, conducted through a descriptive-analytical method and with the aim of elucidating Bakhtin’s approach to the problem of genre, so that other researchers can adopt a more precise approach to the classification of Persian literary genres, in light of Bakhtin’s views, seeks to answer the question of what criteria, from Bakhtin’s point of view, should be used in classifying literary works, and what exact definition and characteristics pertain to the term chronotope, which he employs. From Bakhtin’s perspective, whatever is represented or negotiated discursively in a literary work constitutes the world and reality that the author and his society have accepted within their consciousness. Hence, literature is a reflection of consciousness, and the history of literature, and consequently the history of genres, is equivalent to and commensurate with the course of the history of consciousness. From this point of view, the criteria that should be taken into consideration in determining genre must be epistemological; that is, they must concern the way in which consciousness knows reality and the external world. Since time and space are the essential dimensions of human consciousness, Bakhtin introduces the ‘chronotope’ not merely as a classification tool, but as the fundamental principle that governs narrative structure and drives the evolution of literary genres. or the time-space continuum. This means that the cognition of reality in each historical period, and its representation in the literary works of that period, possesses its own particular temporal-spatial characteristics. It is on the basis of this very criterion that Bakhtin explains, defines, periodizes, and traces the genealogy of literary genres.

کلیدواژه ها:

Genre ، Bakhtin ، Chronotope ، time-space continuum ، historical literary genres ، Literary Criticism