chronotope

English

Etymology

From chrono- (“time”) +‎ -tope (“space”), from Russian хронотоп (xronotop) as used by Mikhail Bakhtin.

Noun

chronotope (plural chronotopes)

1. The representation, in language, of a particular time and space.
   • 2000, Paul Smethurst, The Postmodern Chronotope: Reading Space and Time in Contemporary Fiction, Rodopi, →ISBN, page 65:

     […] but the methodology also requires that postmodern literary chronotopes are related to a historical development of the novel (itself a kind of chronotope), to representational chronotopes in other art forms, and to the practical chronotopes that […]

   • 2004, G. P. Lainsbury, The Carver Chronotope: Inside the Life-world of Raymond Carver's Fiction, Psychology Press, →ISBN, page 8:

     Carver's work, considered as a totality, constitutes what Bakhtin calls a chronotope, “a formally constitutive category of literature...[within which] spatial and temporal indicators are fused into one carefully thought—out, concrete whole.

Derived terms

• chronotopic

Further reading

• chronotope on Wikipedia.Wikipedia