"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 tight...