Phil,
Thanks! Great start on my primer! Your explanation was a perfect starting
point.
I hunted around on Google a bit and found a few quotes. Then I remembered
I have a brand new copy of Dialogic Imagination by Bakhtin still unopened,
ready to be discovered. Holquist's glossary in the back and Bakhtin's
essay Forms of Time and Chronotope in the Novel, which begins and ends with
a clear explanation of the term chronotope and much use of it throughout,
were also a big help. I look forward to digging into Bakhtin.
As you point out, the term is borrowed from science. Bakhtin explains page
84, referring to the term chronotope, "This term [space-time] is employed
in mathematics, and was introduced as part of Einstein's Theory of
Relativity. The special meaning it has in relativity theory is not
important for our purposes; we are borrowing it for literary criticism
almost as a metaphor [almost, but not entirely]. What counts for us is the
fact that it expresses the inseparability of space and time."
As I begin to absorb the generic meanings and specific senses of a new term
for me like this, I look for similar terms - terms that function in the
same way but have different meanings (like the words telescope and
microscope) or could be substituted with a similar generic meaning (spying
glass, magnifying glass). For the latter search, a generic substitute for
"chronotope" could be "context". At this point, as I get a handle, and
please correct me if I am on the wrong track, "chronotope" appears to be a
technical word for "context." In a sentence using the term "chronotope",
"chronotopic", etc., substituting the term "context" or "contextual" seems
to supply a generic sense of the same meaning, but of course will be devoid
of its analytical content (the interconnectedness of time and space in
human experience). Here is an example of a passage by Bakhtin I found
skimming through his essay to try out this substitution (page 159): "The
rogue, the clown and the fool create around themselves their own special
little world, their own chronotope. In the chronotopes and eras we have so
far discussed [novels from antiquity, etc. - SG] none of these figures
occupied an essential place, with the possible partial exception of the
everyday-adventure chronotope." As for finding a word that functions like
the concept "context" or "chronotope" but means something different, I am
stumped. Perhaps there is no word like that for "context."
Back to the term, Holquist, the translator, of Dialogic Imagination,
provides a glossary of Bakhtian terms and offers this page 425:
"CHRONOTOPE
Literally, "time-space." A unit of analysis for studying texts according
to the ratio and nature of the termporal and spatial categories
represented. The distinctiveness of this concept as opposed to most other
uses of time and space in literary analysis lies int the fact that neither
category is privileged; they are utterly interdependent. The chronotope is
an optic for reading texts as x-rays of the forces at work in the culture
system from which they spring."
I am making progress! Thanks for your help. Next step for me, go back
over Jay and Eugene's posts and try out these initial attempts at
understanding.
- Steve
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Aug 01 2003 - 01:00:08 PDT