Bakhtin's Theory of Carnival and Menippean Satire in Reading The Brothers Karamazov and Analyzing the Inner World of Its Heroes

These are two critical works by Mikhail Mikhailovich Bakhtin (1895–1975), a major twentieth-century literary critic whose importance was not widely recognized in Russia until near the end of his life. Both works examine the novels of the nineteenth-century Russian realist writer Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky (1821–1881) through a fresh critical lens. Bakhtin argues that Dostoyevsky's fiction is a space rich in dialogue and carnivalesque irony. Dostoyevsky is also identified as a pioneer and an influence on existentialist philosophy.