The Temporal Characteristics And Spatial Form In Novels

Time and space in art is a traditional topic of concern to philosophers,theorists and artists.As a narrative literature,novels hold a quite close relationship with time.Since narrative literature takes the language as a writing tool,and the essence of language is time,novel is usually regarded as an art of time.In the eighteenth century,Lessing made a systematic discussion on the difference between poetry and plastic art in his famous theoretical book Laokoon.Considering the different media of poetry and plastic art,Lessing regarded the former as temporal art,and the latter as spatial art.In traditional novels,readers can clearly feed the strong time sequence and causal logic after reading.These novels always maintain the consistency of the logic and the integrity of the story,showing a linear narrative pattern.Therefore,the study of the novels in the past time usually paid more attention to the temporal characteristics in it,and the stories in the novels must depend on the linear sequence to develop.However,at the beginning of the twentieth century,the emergence of modern novels broke the chronological order of the plot,the form of novels appeared a new change.Unlike the original linear narrative model,the time series in modern novels was canceled.Instead of the time-logic in the text,readers could only find some images and references with no evident associations in the text sequence.Under these circumstances,in 1945,Joseph Frank,a famous American literary critic,put forward the concept of "spatial form".He found the evolution of form in modern literature(both in modern poetry and modern novels),and then tried to promote readers to understand the modem literature,particularly the novels,in accordance with the space-logic rather than the chronological order,which called unprecedented attention on the spatial structure in literature.In general terms,spatial form in modern novels was contrary to the chronological order in traditional novels.Different with the traditional novels,where the story and plot developed in the sequence of time,the plot of modern novels was juxtaposed in an instant.Through the distortion of the linear time,modern novels aimed to create a spatial structure in the text.Thus,when it comes to spatial form in modern novels,it is necessary to cut down from the background of the time sequence and causal order in traditional novels.It is better in this way for the readers to achieve a more comprehensive and profound sense of spatial form by Joseph Frank.This paper will be divided into three parts to explore the concept of Joseph Frank's spatial form.The purpose is to return to the background of this concept,with the comparison between the spatial form in modern novels and the temporal characteristics in traditional novels,to explore the changes and reflections brought by the concept.The first part of the paper has mainly presented the temporal characteristics of traditional novels.It is the background before the appearance of spatial form,and it will help to comprehend the concept;the second part has introduced the concept of spatial form raised by Joseph Frank,including its concrete forms in modern novels,its main features and the reasons why Joseph Frank use it;the third part has stated the changes and reflection brought by the concept of spatial form.