Jansy Mello asked:
And yet, after V. Alexander wrote about "multi-vocal" works I was
reminded of an old posting on Bakhtin and dialogism where this issue
was raised concerning Nabokov's "voices". Could she, or Stephen
elaborate on that?
I'm afraid I can't say much about how this question might relate to
Bakhtin's notions of multi-voicedness or polyphonicity--it has been too
long since I reviewed them. I do not think, however, that Bakhtin's
concept as expressed in Problems of Dostoevsky's Poetics or The
Dialogic Novel is what is going on here--just a gut feeling,
though. There may be some worthwhile concepts to explore especially in
Bakhtin's Author and Hero in Aesthetic Activity, which makes
some interesting points about the ethical dimensions of creating a
character, from an authorial (but not from a delusional) point of
view.
Nabokov would likely have gotten his first non-fiction taste of MPD
from William James's Principles of Psychology (1890), which he
read at 12 or 13 (Wislon letters?). In that work MPD was called "the
phenomenon of alternating personality". Harvard UP, 1981, v. 1, pp
358-371 (followed by "mediumships or possessions"). James includes
mostly references to the work of Pierre Janet--whom someone else on the
list already meantioned in recent days.
Thanks to Brian Boyd and Sam Schuman for providing that wealth of
information about the Shakespearean question.
Stephen Blackwell