Proust : philosophy of the novel

334 Pages·1992·15.735 MB·English

by  Descombes, Vincent

PROUST
Philosophy oft he Novel

PROUST
Philosophy oft he Novel
VINCENT DESCOMBES
Translated by Catherine Lnance Macksey
STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
Stanfard, California 1992
Translated with the assistance
of the French Ministry of Culture
Stanford University Press
Stanford, California
© r992 by the Board of Trustees of the
Leland Stanford Junior University
Printed in the United States of America
CIP data are at the end of the book
Proust.· Philosophy oft he Novelwas
originally published in French under
the ride Proust: Philosophie du roman,
© r987 by Les Editions de Minuit
And so I am forced to depict errors, but
without feeling bound to say that I hold
them to be errors. So rnuch the worse
for me if the reader believes I hold them
to be the truth.
-Marcel Proust,
letter to Jacques Rivière,
February 7, I9I4

Contents
Abbreviations ix
Introduction I
1 The Novel: A Prosaic Genre 13
2 The Unknown Philosopher 21
Lifè and Opinions oft he Pseudo-Marcel 24
3 The Philosophical Novel 28
4 Mental Optics 36
Note on Practical Egoism 53
Deceit and Truth in the Novel 55
Note on the Nature ofP hilosophical Clarification 74
Note on Textualism 78
6 A Question of Poetics 80
Note on Romanticism 89
7 The Ontology of the Work of Art 90
8 The Modern Regime in Art 105
Note on Concepts ofM odernity 135
z;w Contents
9 Marcel Becomes a Writer I40
ro The Philosophy of Combray I57
Note on the Comparison of Cosmologies I71
II Am I Invited? I78
Theory ofI nvitations I8I
12 The Invention of the Inner Life I95
13 The Inner Book of Impressions 2I8
14 The Dostoyevski Sicle of Mme de Sévigné 239
15 In the Atelier of Elstir 253
16 Self-Realization in the Institution of Literature 272
Note on the Beautiful 30I
Bib!iography 309
Index JI7
Abbreviations
References to Remembrance of Things Past (t ranslated by C. K. Scott
Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin, Random House, 1981) are cited in
the text by the abbreviation of the individual work, the number of the
volume in which it appears, and the page number (e.g., BG, 1, 306).
Silent corrections have been made where the author's commentary
requires a more literal translation.
Volume 1 sw Swann's Way
BG Within a Budding Grove
Volume II GW The Guermantes Way
CP Cities oft he Plain
Volume III C The Captive
F The Fugitive
TR Time Regained
Other abbreviations are as follows:
ASB Against Sainte-Beuve
JS jean Santeuil