"Forms of Time and of the Chronotope in the Novel: Notes Toward a Historical Poetics" by Mikhail Bakhtin - Article Summary

The term chronotope indicates the relationship between time and space as expressed in literature. It is a term borrowed from Einstein's Theory of Relativity. Just as it is in physics, in literature too time and space are inseparable, and one cannot be described independently of the other.

Indicators are used to describe the position in time and space within the narrative. We may regard the narrative as plottable on the axes of time and space.

The chronotope can be said to define the genre of a piece. Different genres have characteristic chronotopes.

We cannot directly and simply recognize the historical background upon which every text draws because chronotopes from different time periods became intertwined and co-influential. Thus it may be difficult to strictly define the genre of a text based on the structure of its chronotope. A work's relationship with reality can be deduced from the chronotope as well.

The Chronotope of the Road

Time and space as are tightly connected with emotion and thought as they are with one another. "The road" is a good example of this: it is a place where encounters of varying types may plausibly take place, as it is a neutral environment where people of all backgrounds may meet (both in time and space), thus collapsing "social distances" . It is an appropriate setting for chance encounters, and as such it makes appearances in works as early as Greek dramas.

As adequate as the road is as a literal meeting place, it also serves as a metaphor for the path a character travels through the narrative. The road, across all genres, is written so that it passes through familiar territory; and it is via the travel along this road that the reader learns about social and historical nature of the setting in which the road exists.

Various modes of temporality may intersect as well. Personal time, that which concerns the biographies and private lives of the characters intermingles with historical time to create the characteristic weaving of the two we see in novels.

The chronotope of the threshold is an important one in literature. It is the one that occurs in the changing point in a life, the point of crisis.

The chronotope is the structure around and upon which events of the narrative are built. It is within them that plot is manipulated, and meaning constructed. It is thanks to the chronotope that events become realistic, almost palpable; time and space are brought out of the dimension of text and into near realism. Events that happen within the chronotope of the novel are vivid, while others that occur in remote chronotopes are more dry and abstract. The chronotope gives body to the entire novel.

Thus while we may talk about the quantitative and physical values of the chronotope- the geographical place and the historical time- the chronotope is also that structure which lends the emotional layer so invaluable to works of literature.

Language too is based on chronotopes. Even the internal meanings of words are based on chronotopes in that they represent an entity existent in time and/or space.

Mikhail Bakhtin. Image source