polyphony: one construct, many systems

In music, polyphony is a texture of two or more independent melodic lines sounding at once, each with its own shape yet combining into a coherent whole, as in a fugue or a Renaissance motet. Fux's The study of counterpoint (1725) taught the voice-leading that keeps such lines independent, and Jeppesen's Counterpoint anatomizes the polyphonic vocal style of the sixteenth century. The referent is a relationship among simultaneous, equally weighted voices, described by their independence and combination, the structural idea that literary criticism later borrowed for the novel.[1][2]

Unit

The relationship among two or more simultaneous, independent melodic voices

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Assessed by the number of independent voices and the degree of their melodic and rhythmic autonomy

In literary theory, Bakhtin borrowed polyphony to describe a kind of novel, exemplified for him by Dostoevsky, in which many independent consciousnesses and their voices coexist without being subordinated to a single authorial viewpoint. His Problems of Dostoevsky's poetics (1929) argues these voices meet as equals in genuine dialogue rather than as mouthpieces for the author's finalized truth. The referent is a structural feature of narrative discourse, read from the autonomy of characters' viewpoints, the same many-independent-voices construct as the musical texture that named it.[3]

Unit

The coexistence of multiple independent, unmerged authorial-level voices in a narrative

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Read from the text by the independence of characters' voices and the absence of a single dominating authorial viewpoint