In the paper is elucidated the specificity of M. Bakhtin’s concept of carnivalesque literature. A special attention is paid to his ideas concerning the novel genre as a border genre also viewed as a dissident anti-genre prone to its deviant behaviour since it is noncanonical and even anti-canonical. Another aspect touched on relates to Tel Quel, an influential literary and theoretical avantgarde journal. Its issues were dedicated to promotion of literary quality, which, in the opinion of its employees, encountered threat from the part of ideological demagogues. J. Kristeva accentuated the significance of the bakhtinian principle of textual dialogism as a principle of subversive activities.