The Chronotope of the Legend in Astrid Lindgren's Sunnanäng: Toward an Intergeneric Level of Bakhtinian Chronotopes

This book chapter studies the uses of oral legend and folktale in Astrid Lindgren's collection of short stories Sunnanäng. It is argued that folkloric chronotopes endow these stories with their peculiar ambience, and that Mikhail Bakhtin's original conception of chronotopes as either located on the micro-level of motifs or the macro-level of genres needs to be supplemented with an intertextual/intergeneric level of chronotopes, which could help explain processes of change in the cultural constitution of chronotopes. It is suggested that Astrid Lindgren exploits folkloric chronotopes to re-orient the established literary ones, such as the chronotope of historical inversion and the idyllic chronotope.