Towards an Interdisciplinary Approach to Time in Fiction

Abstract

The paper surveys five major perspectives on studying time in fiction: narratology, history of temporal regimes, temporal pluralism, aesthetics of time, and politics of time. It argues that these approaches have so far remained largely unintegrated, leading to a separation between areas of literary criticism that are in reality closely linked. In particular, some approaches separate time as subject from time as the principal element of narratives. Some approaches disregard the transhistorical plurality of temporal experiences, while others turn a blind eye to larger historical changes in the perception of time. Finally, some scholars choose to focus only on temporal aesthetics, while others explore only the fictional politics of time. Scrutinizing these three schisms of studying time in literary criticism, the paper argues for a re-integrated approach that accommodates insights from various disciplines and adopts a broader perspective on time and temporality in fiction.