From architectural to literary symbolism: Proust in the school of Émile Mâle

Marcel Proust (1871-1922) debuted as a writer when the doctrine of symbolism was prevalent in the French literature. But his relationship with this contemporary trend is difficult to define. The reconstruction of historical and logical facts connected with this issue seems to indicate that Proust distanced himself from the poets and writers of symbolism; the word “symbol” itself would often be used in negative contexts in "In Search of Lost Time" which Proust started to write in 1908. At that time Proust was also impressed by the work of Émile Mâle entitled "L’Art religieux du XIIIe siècle en France" (Religious Art of the 13th century in France, 1898). Thus, it is through the contact with architecture, more than with literature, that the author of "In Search of Lost Time" explores the notion of symbolism when, based on consciously adopted rules, he gives his work the exact structure of a cathedral.Marcel Proust (1871-1922) debuted as a writer when the doctrine of symbolism was prevalent in the French literature. But his relationship with this contemporary trend is difficult to define. The reconstruction of historical and logical facts connected with this issue seems to indicate that Proust distanced himself from the poets and writers of symbolism; the word “symbol” itself would often be used in negative contexts in "In Search of Lost Time" which Proust started to write in 1908. At that time Proust was also impressed by the work of Émile Mâle entitled "L’Art religieux du XIIIe siècle en France" (Religious Art of the 13th century in France, 1898). Thus, it is through the contact with architecture, more than with literature, that the author of "In Search of Lost Time" explores the notion of symbolism when, based on consciously adopted rules, he gives his work the exact structure of a cathedral

Apollinaire et l'esthétique de la perte

Does aesthetics of loss exist? What can we lose when we give vent to our poetic creative activity? These questions are posed by Apollinaire in the three verses of the Calligrammes collection, used to interpret the Alcools collection: "To lose/But to lose truly/ In order to make room for revelation." Accordingly, what does the experience of creative loss consist in? It is about emphasizing all this that can be lost in a poetic text in order to see that loss can become a creative process once it turns out to be impossible, and that poetic revelation can only take place in a situation when we lose something. Apollinaire was distrustful of all explicit poetic manifestos; therefore, the answers full of nuances should be sought in the dim light of Alcools and its interpretations

Proust au caeur de la modernité: la vision fragmentée.

Sin resume

Les principes de composition de La Recherche du temps perdu

Es imprescindible no perder de vista la composición general de En busca del tiempo perdido: Proust ha dedicado a esta tarea lo esencial del sentido de su obra; no es fácil, sin embargo, en una obra tan abundante, con tal superposición de planos y modelos. Conviene por lo tanto enumerar esas estructuras y observar cómo se combinan. También es preciso examinar las fuentes novelescas de esta composición pues una autobiografía ficticia no deja de ser una novela, y el arquitecto Proust utiliza todas las leyes del género al servicio de su objetivo. Pero tampoco hay que olvidar las infidelidades creadoras del novelista a su propio proyecto de construcción: en el mecanismo de todo este edificio minuciosamente concebido hay una dimensión lúdica, y quizá también, en una creación prolongada durante quince, otra imprevista

Si d’aventure Proust avait lu Schelling…

On ne peut trouver une trace, dans les écrits de Proust, d’une lecture de Schelling, dont la philosophie pourtant peut expliquer les structures les plus énigmatiques de la Recherche. Le Système de l’idéalisme transcendantal est confronté au cycle romanesque à trois points de vue successifs : pourquoi retracer dans un roman long une odyssée de l’esprit, pourquoi l’instance narrative anonyme se dédouble en un héros et un narrateur, pourquoi enfin le cycle romanesque évolue entre les deux pôles du temps perdu et du temps retrouvé (essentiellement la finalité et l’atmosphère de la « Matinée chez la princesse de Guermantes »).One cannot find any trace, in the writings of Proust, of a reading of Schelling, whose philosophy nevertheless can explain the more enigmatic structures in the Search. The system of transcendental idealism is confronted with the novelistic cycle from three successive points of view: why relate in a long novel an odyssey of the mind, why the narrative instance is doubled with a hero and a narrator, why, at last, the novelistic cycle evolves between two poles, that is to say, that of time lost and that of time regained (essentially the finality and the atmosphere of the “Morning at the princess of Guermantes”)

Proust est-il un philosophe ?

Different philosophers pondered on Proust’s novel, including those who formulated a subtle hypothesis that philosophical thought that emerged from the novel went beyond the passages of philosophical character that could be found in Proust’s work. It is difficult to determine precisely Proust’s approach towards the novel which he, alternately, favors or disdains. A hypothesis has been formulated that In Search of Lost Time shapes the fiction in the style of Shelling’s and Schopenhauer’s philosophy; it is pointed out that the novelist developed a kind of rivalry between him and his second cousin Bergson. Proust received a thorough education in philosophy yet philosophy is only present in his novel in an anecdotal form. The debate that he starts between idealism and philosophical realism in his prose takes the form of a discussion between symbolism and naturalism. The reconstruction of Proust’s philosophical culture leads to the observation that it is, without a doubt, significantly influenced in different ways by two philosophers: Leibniz and Kant. Still, the writer does not admit to being impacted by any particular thinker; therefore, his narrator’s line of thought is constantly changing in such a way that any school of philosophical thought that appears in the novel is present only for a short while.Different philosophers pondered on Proust’s novel, including those who formulated a subtle hypothesis that philosophical thought that emerged from the novel went beyond the passages of philosophical character that could be found in Proust’s work. It is difficult to determine precisely Proust’s approach towards the novel which he, alternately, favors or disdains. A hypothesis has been formulated that In Search of Lost Time shapes the fiction in the style of Shelling’s and Schopenhauer’s philosophy; it is pointed out that the novelist developed a kind of rivalry between him and his second cousin Bergson. Proust received a thorough education in philosophy yet philosophy is only present in his novel in an anecdotal form. The debate that he starts between idealism and philosophical realism in his prose takes the form of a discussion between symbolism and naturalism. The reconstruction of Proust’s philosophical culture leads to the observation that it is, without a doubt, significantly influenced in different ways by two philosophers: Leibniz and Kant. Still, the writer does not admit to being impacted by any particular thinker; therefore, his narrator’s line of thought is constantly changing in such a way that any school of philosophical thought that appears in the novel is present only for a short while

Proust ou la lecture comme expérience du Temps

It is striking to note how in Proust’s cycle of novels, the process of reading does not project the reader into the book that is being read, but leads rather to an extremely varied study of the act of reading itself, and principally of its duration. The very act of reading which is featured alongside the actual reading of a book, or indeed of a piece of music or a painting, can be broken down into several concurrent time-spans, which reflect the duration of real time as closely as possible. On a larger scale, the act of reading inaugurates an experience of time which can embrace and thus bring into contact the various chapters of the reader’s life, if a book is re-read after a long interval of time (and this separates Proust’s conception of time from that of Bergson). This duration is in its turn the measure of a work’s posterity, which rests on a continuity of successive reading-lives. Hence, readers only exist for Proust “in Time”, within a temporal dimension, that is in the form postulated a priori by Kant, of man’s perception of time

Les Textes liminaires, sous la direction de Patrick Marot

Les textes liminaires des œuvres littéraires ont donné lieu jusqu’ici à des approches essentiellement poéticiennes: le présent recueil vise à ouvrir le chantier d’une approche plus historique de la question, par la délimitation des territoires et des statuts de ces textes, la prise en compte aussi de l’acte de lecture, enfin la notion d’œuvre dans ses conceptions variées — dans le particulier des situations et des pratiques. À travers une solide introduction, Patrick Marot distingue cinq fonc..

Alain Vaillant, L’Amour-fiction. Discours amoureux et poétique du roman à l’époque moderne

Le rapport entre discours amoureux et poétique du roman, exposé dans un premier chapitre théorique, est problématique, comme suffit à le rappeler le rejet du roman d’amour par Paul Valéry, alors que l’amour a toujours fait la substance du roman – c’est même ce qui lui a permis de dépasser le cadre narratif plus étroit du conte. Alain Vaillant entend ainsi s’affronter dans cet ouvrage au paradoxe d’un genre qui édifie une fiction sur une parole («je t’aime») supposée vraie: «Parce que ‘je t’ai..

Aa.Vv., Crises de vers

Voici le premier numéro d’une revue créée à l’initiative du Centre d’études romantiques et dix-neuviémistes de l’Université Paul-Valéry à Montpellier; La Revue est à distinguer de la collection d’ouvrages «Lieux littéraires», publiée à Saint-Étienne aux éditions des Cahiers intempestifs. Chaque numéro, ainsi que l’annonce en préambule Alain Vaillant, comprendra un cahier central sur une question de littérature; une rubrique «recherches en chantier» rendant compte de travaux en cours d’étudian..