POLYPHONIC POETICS IN ENGLISH AND UZBEK NOVELISTIC TRADITIONS: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF GENEALOGY AND NARRATIVE VOICE

Abstract

This article examines the comparative genealogy and poetic principles of the polyphonic novel in English and Uzbek literary traditions. Drawing on Bakhtin's concepts of dialogism, heteroglossia and the autonomy of consciousness, the study argues that polyphony should not be reduced to the number of characters or plot lines. It is a narrative principle through which different social languages, values and historical memories enter into active dialogue. In English fiction, polyphonic tendencies develop through social heteroglossia, the ethical narrator and modernist experimentation with consciousness. In Uzbek fiction, they emerge through the encounter of oral-storytelling inheritance, Jadid reformist thought, historical memory and national self-reflection. The article concludes that the polyphonic novel is a flexible comparative category: it becomes productive only when it is interpreted through the concrete literary history of each national tradition.^[1]

[1].For the broader categories of dialogism and heteroglossia, see Bakhtin, M. M. (1981). The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays. Austin: University of Texas Press.