In literary theory and philosophy of language, the chronotope is how configurations of time and space are represented in language and discourse. The term was taken up by Russian literary scholar Mikhail Bakhtin who used it as a central element in his theory of meaning in language and literature. The term itself comes from the Russian , which in turn is derived from the Greek ('time') and ('space'); it thus can be literally translated as "time-space." Bakhtin developed the term in his 1937 essay "Forms of Time and of the Chronotope in the Novel" («»). Here Bakhtin showed how different literary genres operated with different configurations of time and space, which gave each genre its particular narrative character.
Overview
For Bakhtin, chronotope is the conduit through which meaning enters the logosphere. Genre is rooted in how one perceives the flow of events and its representation of particular worldviews or ideologies.
Bakhtin scholars Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist state that the chronotope is "a unit of analysis for studying language according to the ratio and characteristics of the temporal and spatial categories represented in that language". They argue that Bakhtin's concept differs from other uses of time and space in literary analysis because neither category is given a privileged status: they are inseparable and entirely interdependent. Bakhtin's concept is a way of analyzing literary texts that reveals the forces operating in the cultural system from which they emanate. Specific chronotopes are said to correspond to particular genres, or relatively stable ways of speaking, which themselves represent particular worldviews or ideologies.
In the essay Forms of Time and of the Chronotope in the Novel, Bakhtin describes his use of the term thus:
Unlike Kant, who saw time and space as transcendental pre-conditions of experience, Bakhtin regards them as "forms of the most immediate reality". They are not mere "mathematical" abstractions, but have a concrete and, depending on context, qualitatively variable form. This is particularly noticeable in Bakhtin's own object of study—that of artistic cognition in literary genres—but he implies that it is applicable in other contexts as well. Different structures or orders of the universe cannot be assumed to operate within the same chronotope. For example, the chronotope of a biological organism like an ant will be qualitatively different from that of an organism like an elephant, or from that of a structure of a different order entirely, such as a star or a galaxy. Within the human world itself there is a huge variety of social activities that are defined by qualitatively different time/space fusions.
Examples and use in other sciences
The concept of the chronotope has been widely used in literary studies. The scholar Timo Müller for example argued that analysis of chronotopes highlights the environmental dimension of literary texts because it draws attention to the concrete physical spaces in which stories take place. Müller discusses the chronotope of the road, which for Bakhtin was a meeting place but in recent literature no longer brings people together in this way because automobiles have changed the way we perceive the time and space of the road. Car drivers want to minimize the time they spend on the road. They are rarely interested in the road as a physical space, the natural environment around the road, or the environmental implications of their driving. This contrasts with earlier literary examples such as Robert Frost's poem "The Road Not Taken" or John Steinbeck's novel The Grapes of Wrath, where the road is described as part of the natural environment and the travelers are interested in that environment.