Time Consciousness In Milan Kundera's Polyphony Novels

According to Heidegger,in traditional philosophy,"time" as an ontological standard,divides existence simply into "temporal" existence and "eternal" existence.But in Being and time,he indicates that this distinction is not enough to explain the relationship between being and time,because each being exists in time,and the existence of the human being can never be grasped unless in time.Heidegger demonstrated the relationship between time and being from a philosophical point of view.And Milan Kundera,as an experimenter and practitioner of the artistic form of the novel,seeks to explore the existential possibilities of the human being through the romantic language,which inevitably shows its emphasis on time.Domestic and foreign literary circles have conducted extensive research on Kundera's polyphonic novels,and the emphasis on time consciousness in his works is mainly narrative.For example,in The World of Milan Kundera's novels,Kvetoslav Chvatik analyzes in detail the different expressions of time such as juxtaposition,alternation,insertion.At the theme level,time is considered rather as an existential situation for the characters of other theme,such as the themes of escape and exile.Therefore,it is necessary to analyze the temporal consciousnesses of Kundera's polyphonic novels from a holistic perspective.From the perspective of narratology,through the analysis of four polyphonic novels by Kundera,we explore temporal consciousnesses in the style,structure and discourse of his polyphonic novel to explore his thinking about existence.The first chapter will analyze the relationship between time,being and the polyphonic novel.First,we briefly summarize the development of romantic polyphony,as Kundera develops it by inheriting previous work.At the stylistic level,the polyphonic novel provides a field of existence for a variety of contradictory temporal consciousnesses.And then,like Central European writers,the experience of Kundera's time extends beyond personal time at Proust,and becomes a collective time of Europe.He strives to explore human existence in a wider time frame.Finally,from his essays,we will analyze his spirits of the novel which underlie his temporal reflections.The second chapter focuses on the synchronic structure and historical time in the novels of Kundera.In his novels,stories often go simultaneously,being an integral part of the theme while being independent of each other.The complex narrative sequence and musical narrative rhythm add vitality to Kundera's polyphonic novels.And then,Kundera's novels are mainly based on historical events.Through the distinction between History and history,he affirms that his aim is not to represent history,but to consider it as the existential situation of the literary character,therefore,the novel can "put the characters under the skies of centuries",in order to explore the possibility of human existence by representing characters from different eras.The third chapter,starting from the content of the text,divides Kundera's reflection on time into three groups of paradoxes: memory and forget,death and immortality,homesick and the disappointment of return.Kundera believes that the novel should say what only the novel can say,the most important of which is Cervantes' s disparaged heritage: ambiguity.Therefore,different from the philosophical works,although Kundera's novels mention various paradoxes,they do not try to reveal certain truths,but hope to use the force of the novel to call "being forgotten" in the period of "terminal paradoxes".