Reflections, Applications, Perspectives

63
indispensable figure in literary theory and a number of related disciplines
in the humanities. It was, however, not for a further decade or so that his
concept of the literary chronotope, one of the key notions for understanding
Bakhtinian thought on narrative form and evolution, began to receive
systematic scholarly attention. Since the conceptual innovation that
Bakhtin introduced with this idiosyncratic view of temporal and spatial
relationships in narrative could almost be regarded as a new paradigm,
albeit a minor one, the explanatory potential of which has by no means
been exhausted yet, this attention was certainly appropriate. Initially
designed as an analytical instrument for establishing generic divisions
in the history of the western novel, chronotopic analysis has recently
been proposed as a conceptual tool for enriching such diverse fields
as narratology, reception theory, cognitive approaches to literature and
even gender studies.
The aim of this introductory article, firstly, is to recapitulate the basic
principles of Bakhtin’s initial theory as formulated in “Forms of Time
and of the Chronotope in the Novel: Notes toward a Historical Poetics”
(henceforth FTC) and “The Bildungsroman and its Significance in
the History of Realism (Toward a Historic Typology of the Novel)”
(henceforth BSHR). Subsequently, we present some relevant elaborations
of Bakhtin’s initial concept and a number of applications of chronotopic
analysis, closing our state of the art by outlining two perspectives
for further investigation. Some of the issues which we touch upon
receive more detailed treatment in other contributions to this volume.
Others may offer perspectives for future Bakhtin scholarship.

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