At 14:38 26/7/03 -0700, you wrote:
>In reading through the discussion of Bakhtin etc. by Eugene and Jay, I find
>myself struggling with the term chronotope - this notion is not yet sinking
>in. I could use some ABC's and a general orientation to grasp the finer
>points being made. Jay, Eugene, anyone? Thanks!
>
>Steve,
Let me give my tuppence worth, after consulting Morson and Emerson's
"Mikhail Bakhtin: Creation of Prosaics". I have firstly quoted two paragraphs.
"In its primary sense, a chronotope is a way of understanding experience;
it is a specific form-shaping ideology for understanding the nature of
events and actions...Actions are necessarily performed in a specific
context; chronotopes differ by the ways in which they understand context
and the relation of actions and events to it."
"All contexts are shaped fundamentally by the kind of time and space that
operate within them. Kant, of course, argued long ago that time and space
are indespensible forms of cognition, and Bakhtin explicitly endorses this
view. But he differs from Kant by stressing that in chronotopic analysis,
time and space are regarded "not as 'transcendental' but as forms of the
most immediate reality"...time and space vary in qualities; different
social activities and representations of those activities presume different
kinds of time and space. Time and space are therefore not just neutral
"mathematical" abstractions".
This latter points is referred to by Jay and Eugene in their last turn of
Eugene's post.
They (Morson and Emerson) go on further to discuss several properties of
the chronotope in relation to Einstein's ToR - a chronotope is a fusion of
space and time; there are a variety of senses of time and space: in a sense
we are living in a heterochronic universe; chronotopes are historical in
that they are dynamically, or dialogically related; chronotopes are the
ground for activity rather than simply being present in activity..."the
ground essential for the representation of events".
I agree, chronotope is a slippery metaphor - sometimes I find it easier to
think more concretely of genre and discourse.
Does this constitute part of an ABC of chronotope?
Cheers,
Phil
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