Novel as a feminine genre: Bakhtin’s dialogic in the light of feminist literary criticism

In the article, the author presented a small survey and analysis of the current gender approach to theories of Bakhtin on the novel and dialogic. The starting point of this study is the similarity of dialogism with the idea of a feminine language, described in the works of Luce Irigaray and Helene Cixous. This research is highlighting the issue that was raised in feminist literary critics in 1960-1980-ies whether the novel is a “feminine” genre, and the points of view of various researchers are given. It is shown that many of the key ideas that Bakhtin developed in his theory of the novel were relevant in terms of feminist literary theory.