September 1998
THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE SCHOOL OF GRADUATE STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS (M. A.) IN ENGLISH LITERATURE SHIRAZ UNIVERSITY SHIRAZ, IRAN
EVALUATED AND APPROVED BY THE THESIS COMMITTEE AS: EXCELLENT
THESIS COMMITTEE:
PARVIN GHASEMI, Ph.D., ASSISTANT PROF. OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. (CHAIRPERSON)
FARIDEH POURGIV, Ph.D., ASSISTANT PROF. OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
ALIREZA ANOUSHIRVANI, Ph.D., PROF. OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
Table of Contents
DEDICATION
CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER TWO FROM IDEA OF NOVEL TO NOVEL OF IDEAS: A SURVEY OF THE IDEAS OF BAKHTIN
CHAPTER THREE "THE VOICE OF THE PEOPLE IS THE VOICE OF GOD": BELLOW AND THE POLYPHONIC NOVEL
CHAPTER FOUR "THOU MOVEST ME": DIALOGUES OF TEXTS IN HERZOG
CHAPTER FIVE CONCLUSION
DEDICATED TO SEYYED MOHAMMAD KHATAMI AND ALL THOSE WHO ARE WORKING TO REBUILD THE WORLD ON THE PRINCIPLES AND ARCHITECTONICS OF DIALOGUE AND ANSWERABILITY
A very great number of people have helped me with this study, both by giving me information and by checking and correcting what I have written. Those whom I should most like to thank are Dr. Parvin Ghasemi, the advisor of my thesis, for her sincere encouragement, great cooperations, and corrections; her support has been extremely valuable. I am also deeply indebted to Dr. Farideh Pourgiv for her insightful and enlightening comments and opinions; she has been a reliable source of information and yet a meticulous critic. I also appreciate the critical reading and help of Dr. Alireza Anoushiravani, whose invaluable suggestions and comments reduced my faults.
Beside all the names that are mentioned between the covers of this work, others in a way or another have helped me in the formation of a theoretical basis for the study whom I should like to express my gratitude. Among others I should mention Rahman Amiri, Dr. Behzad Ghaderi, Ahamd Jafarzadeh, Dr. Hadi Kamyabee, Dr. Hadi Khaniki, Mohammad Ali Mokhtari, Dr. Hassan Nekuruh, Gholamreza Shafi'ee, and Hossein Sharifi.
Perhaps above all I should be grateful to my parents and my wife whose supports, cooperation and patience are an Archemidian points for me.
Novel, because of its structure and certain characteristics, is a genre in which a variety of ideas find expression. In his studies on the genre Mikhail Bakhtin has stressed on this essential variety and the interaction of the ideas with each other. Bakhtin's dialogic approach has proved as more successful in dealing with the protean genre of the novel. Part of this study is a survey of the ideas of Bakhtin, where a dialogue is maintained between his and the other theories (including Aristotelians, Marxists, the New Critics, Freudians, and the deconstructionists).
Then, Saul Bellow's Herzog is selected as a case study and without imposing the theory to the text, the theoretical basis of the text is juxtaposed to the theories of Bakhtin. In this novel, Bellow's representation of a multiple of ideas, decentralizes and decanonizes the discourses (such as psychoanalysis and the Wasteland outlook) that in the American society of postwar era has become dominant and hegemonic. In his carnivalistic approach to ideas, Bellow creates an opportunity for the other discourses that has been repressed.
The strategy of representing ideas in a horizontal way and with no hierarchically higher idea leads to the contact and a free dialogue of ideas. The heterogeneous and dialogic mind of the title character intensifies these contacts and at the same time itself becomes a location intersection and interaction of ideas.
The example of Herzog clearly shows how in a polyphonic text the author cannot impose his or her ideology to the process of the dialogues. Indeed in the city of ideas that novel provides, the ideas of the author become just one idea beside others and in a constant process of give and take with them.