Engaging the dialogic: Bakhtin and Chaucer, Milton, and Browning (Mikhail Bakhtin, Geoffrey Chaucer, John Milton, Robert Browning)

Mikhail Bakhtin developed an in-depth critical theory for the novel, which I believe is helpful in a study of poetry as well. Thus, in this thesis my aim has been to prove the usefulness of Bakhtin's theories with three, white, male, canonical poets: Chaucer, Milton, and Browning. I have tried to establish a methodology for applying Bakhtin's theories to poetics, using Bakhtinian novelistic devices that are engaged when an author or poet wishes to innovate or break from his tradition. These devices illuminate a poet's conversation with his society and literary history, and the freedom with which the poet uses these devices increases over time. Therefore, my intraspective studies of Chaucer's Parliament of Fowls, Milton's Paradise Regained, and Browning's dramatic monologues conflate to show an interspective growth in English poetry to an ever freer use of Bakhtinian devices and discourse.