Bakhtin's valorization of the novel derives from his belief that the diverse, multi-languaged voices of heteroglossia (a term that refers to the situation by which an ever-changing multiplicity of social languages and speech types are artistically organized in the text) find their fullest expression in the novel, and can only be incompletely represented in "monologic" forms such as poetry, epic and drama.¹ For Bakhtin, the novel is equipped to deal with heteroglossia because it is an open form, where the word is not bonded to a singular ideological meaning but contains enough ambiguity to encourage multiple readings. Furthermore, it is a form that is sensitive to social value ("[t]he novelistic word […] registers with extreme subtlety the tiniest shifts and oscillations of the social atmosphere", DIN, p.300), and one that encourages active engagement and not passive consumption on the part of the reader (282). As a text, the novel is structured by the interaction and dialogical interanimation of voices, stratified by an infinite range of languages (social, generic, professional and national), dialects and accents, all of which possess a particular and unique "world view" (299).