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4 - Françoise's Way and Bloch's Way: Two Paths of French Romanticism in Proust's À la recherche
- from Part I - Romanticism and the Literatures
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- By Hollie Markland Harder, director of Language Programs in Romance Studies at Brandeis University
- Edited by Larry H. Peer, Brigham Young University, Utah, Christopher R. Clason, Oakland University, Michigan
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- Book:
- Romantic Rapports
- Published by:
- Boydell & Brewer
- Published online:
- 30 August 2017
- Print publication:
- 30 August 2017, pp 66-78
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Summary
WHILE GROWING UP IN PARIS in the 1870s and early 1880s, the young Marcel Proust spent much of his time reading a variety of fictional and nonfictional texts, many by midcentury authors influenced by the French Romantic period, which was at its height from roughly 1820 to 1840. Stories such as the cloak-and-dagger escapades of Capitaine Fracasse by Théophile Gautier, the comic missteps of Tartarin de Tarascon in Alphonse Daudet's eponymous novel, and the harrowing tales of medieval France in Récits des temps mérovingiens by the Romantic historian Augustin Thierry imbued the future novelist from an early age with a Romantic sensitivity. Proust's Romanticism, which is perhaps most evident in the tumultuous affair between Swann and Odette in “Swann in Love,”1 was not limited, however, to the intensely emotional accounts of love and loss that are frequently associated with this literary movement. His readings as a youth exposed him to a wide range of motifs, including the allure of foreign settings, the search for the absolute, the mystique of the artist, a certain disdain for the mediocre and an appreciation for what might initially appear ordinary, dissatisfaction with the present, a taste for dramatic embellishment, connections between nature and the spiritual world, the appeal of history and local color, and the charm of the creative spirit of the people.
Given the makeup of Proust's library in his youth, it is not surprising that an array of Romantic principles underpin his monumental novel, In Search of Lost Time. Near the beginning of the novel, which retraces the evolution of a young boy into a mature writer, the protagonist encounters two individuals, representing divergent currents that spring from French Romanticism, who will play a fundamental role in his artistic evolution. The first of these is Françoise, the cook and housekeeper, initially for Aunt Léonie in Combray and then for the protagonist's family in Paris.
9 - Proust’s human comedy
- Edited by Richard Bales, Queen's University Belfast
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- Book:
- The Cambridge Companion to Proust
- Published online:
- 28 May 2006
- Print publication:
- 14 June 2001, pp 135-150
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Summary
Within the first thirty-five pages of A la recherche du temps perdu, one comic scene threatens the author's entire literary project by calling into question the possibility of communicating through words. In this episode, which directly precedes the drame du coucher, the Protagonist's great aunts, Céline and Flora, attempt to acknowledge the case of Asti wine their neighbour, Charles Swann, has sent them. During the meal, when Flora mentions the friendliness of another neighbour, M. Vinteuil, Céline sees an opportunity to express her gratitude: '“Il n'y a pas que M. Vinteuil qui ait des voisins aimables,” s'écria ma tante Céline' (I, 25) [' “M. Vinteuil is not the only one who has nice neighbours,” cried my aunt Céline' (I, 27/32)]. Flora, determined not to be outdone by her sister, obliquely extends her thanks to Swann after a remark about a maréchal de France resembling a bottle of foolishness: '[j]e connais des bouteilles où il y a tout autre chose' (I, 26) ['I know bottles in which there is something very different' (I, 29/34)]. After Swann’s departure, when the grandfather scolds the sisters for neglecting to acknowledge the gift, Céline expresses her shock: ‘Mais voyons, Swann n’est pas bête, je suis certaine qu’il a apprécié. Je ne pouvais pas lui dire le nombre de bouteilles et le prix du vin!’ (i, 34) [‘Come, come; Swann isn’t a fool. I’m sure he understood. You didn’t expect me to tell him the number of bottles, or to guess what he paid for them’ (i, 39/46)]. Instead of showcasing the women’s mental and verbal agility as they had wished, this comic episode effectively demonstrates the inadequacy of language.