On the Manifold Significance of Time in the Novel

Abstract

What is the purpose of thinking the manifold significance of time in a novel? Is this done so that we can find a commonplace topos that can be used to distinguish, on the one hand, all the branches of art that pertain to space (such as painting, sculpture, and architecture) and, on the other, those branches of art that pertain to time (such as the narrative, the epos, the drama, the novel, music)? If this state of affairs is so commonplace, why, then, talk about it any longer? This division is not in need of any justification — it is an obvious one. The spatial arts deal with factors and elements that are side by side, while the temporal arts deal with sequences or factors that follow one another. Curiously enough, this state of affairs changes upon closer examination. This is because when, say, we are looking at a painting, there, too, is a process of sequences involved in that we do not grasp the whole painting all at once. It has always been well justified for this reason that throughout the history of art, researchers pointed to the elements of time in art. Yet, as far as the novel is concerned, there is also a certain spatial arena in which events run off in time. In this essay, I do not wish to examine this curious interplay occurring between space and time. Rather, I wish to choose a more moderate goal in asking the question: What is the function of time in a novel?