Bells of Eternity

• In Event: Beyond the Chronotope: Reading Thematically across Temporal and Geographic Boundaries

Abstract

The sound of a bell is deeply unnatural and deeply unstable. As its note decays into a trembling continuum of microtonal complexities, it lifts the auditor into an altered sense of the here and now. This can either be an augmentation or an annihilation of the sense of one’s present time and space. By examining select literary and visual portrayals of Slavic bells across the long 19th century, I aim to explore how time, when exposed to the instability of the bell, can at once thicken and melt away, and how these portrayals can both confirm and violate the chronotopic nature of human experience.

Author

• James Browning, Harvard U