David Lodge, A Dialogue Novel Theory And Creative Practice

The 1980s and the following epoch witnessed David Lodge's promotion ofBakhtin's theory of dialogism and the evident influence of Bakhtinian theory of thepolyphonic novel on his novelistic writings thereafter;besides,we have reason to holdthat Bakhtin's literary theory could commendably interpret the creative writings ofDavid Lodge before the 1980s.The dissertation claims that David Lodge supplements,evolves the Bakhtiniantheory of"the polyphonic novel"whether in terms of his own theoretic criticism orliterary creation,which is mainly manifested in his stress on the interaction anddialogue (different from the contrapuntal)between diverse voices and viewpoints andchanges resulting from this;David Lodge tends to apply the term"dialogic novel"which has been employed by Bakhtin himself to"the polyphonic novel",therefore inthis dissertation the previous term is used when David Lodge's theory and creation isconcerned.The first part presents a commentary summary of Bakhtin's theory of"thepolyphonic novel"and Lodge's theoretical interpretation and development of it.Firstly the dissertation summarizes how Bakhtin's notion of the polyphonic novel ischaracterized aesthetically by relativity and duality and so forth;its style ischaracterized by heterogeneity and his discourse characterized by"doublevoicedness;it also employs the carnivalized chronotope on the plot or structure,withcharacteristics of openness;Techniques such as intertextuality and so forth arepervasive in the text;in terms of contents,cultural diversity and multi-voicedness ofideas,war against and communicate with each other in a synchronic state,whilehaving it's own understanding of some relevant debates about polyphonic novel inChinese academia such as"whether the protagonist totally has his own independenceor not","whether the author could has his preferable sound/idea among others or not",etc..Then the dissertation summarizes Lodge's elaboration on the dialogic novel inaspects such as discourse,style,and the interrelation between the author and thereader and claims that he develops the Bakhtinian theory of the polyphonic novel inthe following two respects:he emphasizes that the dialogic novel itself is the dialoguebetween various creating methods,especially between traditional Realism andmodernism-postmodernism;the dialogic novel is also the dialogue between the authorand the reader,whose way of meaning generating distinguishes it from thepostmodern novel.The second part analyzes the"dialogic"characteristics of David Lodge's literarycreation in various respects and explores his development of Bakhtin's theory of thepolyphonic novel in several aspects.We discuss features of Lodge's works as dialogicnovels in aspects such as"multivoicedness of ideas","the carnivalized chronotopes","double voicedness of discourse"and"bi-shifting of viewpoints","the carnival squareof texts","grist for Lodge's carnivalizing mill"."Realism and Post-modernism in the dynamic","changing by interaction",and generalize these features as"all are thedialogue,all for the dialogue".Furthermore,the dissertation focuses on how Lodgecombines consciously the realistic style and modern-postmodernism style in hiswritings to invigorate them;When Lodge elaborates on dialogues between diversevoices and viewpoints,he is expert in display how interactions lead to changes,adding"constructional"and"re-constructional"sense to dialogism,and bothsynchronic and diachronic dimensions to the carnivalized chronotope.Thedissertation claims that it is in these two respects that David Lodge's creative writingtheoretically supplements and develops the Bakhtinian notion of"the polyphonicnovel".In conclusion,it is dialogism that scaffolds the establishment of David Lodge'sunique creative styles in British literary world and even the production of this mostfamous and creative work heretofore The Small World.His effort on extendingand invigorating novels through dialogism is constructive to the genre's evolution.And,in current epoch of multiculturalism and ethnic group clash in the globalizationcontext,David Lodge's prototype structures of"opposition——exchangecompromise"in his dialogic novels is thought evoking to us.