Time Distortion in Bierce's "One of the Missing" and Uroshevic's "Ракописот од Китаб-Ан" ("The Manuscript from Kitab-An")

Maleska, Kalina

doi:10.7771/1481-4374.2724

Time Distortion in Bierce's "One of the Missing" and Uroshevic's "Ракописот од Китаб-Ан" ("The Manuscript from Kitab-An")

Journal

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

Date Issued

2015-12-01

Author(s)

DOI

10.7771/1481-4374.2724

Abstract

In her article "Time Distortion in Bierce's 'One of the Missing' and Uroshevic's 'Ракописот од Китаб-Ан' ('The Manuscript from Kitab-An')" Kalina Maleska examines the relationship between literature and astronomy in the context of time. The two stories share several common elements: they explore the possible manipulations of time in unexpected and extraordinary ways and come close to certain scientific explorations of time. For "One of the Missing," Albert Einstein's theory of relativity provides an interesting foundation for understanding Bierce's treatment of time. For The Manuscript of Kitab-An, the speculations of time travel starting from the Einstein-Rosen concept of the black hole as a bridge to a parallel universe proves useful in interpreting the treatment of time in this story. Although the concept of time has often been the subject of critical analysis in twentieth-century literature in general, there has been only scarce research on the relation between scientific discussions of time and its literary representations.