(1895-1975) Mikhail Mikhailovich Bakhtin, a Russian scholar influenced by the Formalists. Earned degree in classics and philology at the University of Petrograd. Began his work on the theory of the novel in the late 20s with Problems of Dostoevski's Poetics (1929). His doctoral dissertation, Rabelais and His World (wr. 1940, pub. 1968), developed his idea of "carnival." He was rediscovered during the early 60s.