Abstract
In this book I argue that there are recurrent spatiotemporal patterns and structures in all six novels that constitute a source of enduring, if unconscious pleasure. More precisely there are overlapping natural and cultural cycles that co-exist in a constantly transmuting space-time and are counterpointed with the linearity of pivotal events that drive the plot forwards. I examine the psychological relations to these space-time patterns of the characters, principally the heroines, focusing on the transformations of their emotional states that prompt linear leaps. My project is a formal as well as psychological analysis. It requires a level of generality since it seeks to identify, compare, and contrast patterns across the novels.
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Notes
- 1.
M. Bakhtin had already worked with the concept of space/time. According to E. Vlasov, he started the discussion and introduced the term of “chronotope” in 1920–1930 (Vlasov 1995, 39). Vlasov explains that Bakhtin “borrows the basic term chronotope from the natural sciences and applies it to literary theory to express the inseparability between three-dimensional space and time as the fourth dimension of space.” Bakhtin defines the chronotope as “the intrinsic connectedness of temporal and spatial relationships that are artistically expressed in literature” and understands it as “a formally constitutive category of literature” (Bakhtin 1981, 84)” (Vlasov, 42).
- 2.
The term “cyclicity” is still absent from the OED, but it is included in several other dictionaries, which authorize my use of it. Merriam-Webster, for example, defines it as “state of being cyclic”; Collins explains it as “the quality or nature of being cyclic.”
- 3.
Tony Tanner in his book Jane Austen explains Austen’s attachment to Tory values of the traditional rural lifestyle and her awareness of the new perception of the land—“speculative, acquisitive, calculating and irrelevant,” together with “a whole range of new energies and impulses, new ideas and powers, which were changing or about to change England” (145). He adds that by Persuasion , Austen has changed her views and has started situating English society “in between an old social order in a state of decline and desuetude, and some new ‘modern’ society of as yet uncertain values, hierarchies and principles” (249).
- 4.
See Ulivucci, 33–59.
- 5.
See Todd, 337.
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Baublyté Kaufmann, R. (2018). Introduction. In: The Architecture of Space-Time in the Novels of Jane Austen. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90011-7_1
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