Carnival, dialogue, and drama, in the study and presentation of a literary and a liturgical text

Abstract

The thesis considers three pieces of dialogue.1. Ivan and Alyosha in The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoievski. 2 Dorothy Heathcote and some sixth form students in a classroom in Stockton on Tees. 3 A priest and congregation in a church in Carlisle. In each of these dialogues one factor can be isolated. It is the factor of "jolly relativity". It is a relativizing quality. It diminishes the absolute character of any speech. Mikhail Bakhtin's theory of dialogicality is applied to the classroom drama of Dorothy Heathcote and to the Eucharistic prayer said in a church. The thesis claims that what happens in the dialogue of Alyosha and Ivan in the first extract also happens in the other two dialogues.