Marcel Proust in Context

This wide-ranging volume of essays provides an illuminating set of approaches to the multifaceted contexts of Proust's life and work.

Adam Watt (Edited by)

9781107021891, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 5 December 2013

288 pages, 3 b/w illus.
23.1 x 15.5 x 2.5 cm, 0.57 kg

'… a wonderfully coherent, effervescent, tirelessly engaging volume.' Clive Scott, Journal of European Studies

This volume sets Marcel Proust's masterwork, Á la recherche du temps perdu (In Search of Lost Time, 1913–27), in its cultural and socio-historical contexts. Essays by the leading scholars in the field attend to Proust's biography, his huge correspondence, and the genesis and protracted evolution of his masterpiece. Light is cast on Proust's relation to thinkers and artists of his time, and to those of the great French and European traditions of which he is now so centrally a part. There is vivid exploration of Proust's reading; his attitudes towards contemporary social and political issues; his relation to journalism, religion, sexuality, science and travel, and how these figure in the Recherche. The volume closes with a comprehensive survey of Proust's critical reception, from reviews during his lifetime to the present day, including assessments of Proust in translation and the broader assimilation of his work into twentieth- and twenty-first-century culture.

Preface Adam Watt
Part I. Life and Works: 1. Life William C. Carter
2. Correspondence Luc Fraisse, translated by Lesley Lawn
3. Finding a form: 'Les Plaisirs et les jours' to 'Contre Sainte-Beuve' Nathalie Aubert
4. Finding a voice: from Ruskin to the pastiches Cynthia Gamble
5. Composition and publication of Á la recherche du temps perdu Nathalie Mauriac Dyer
Part II. Historical and Cultural Contexts: i. The Arts: 6. Proust's reading Caroline Szylowicz
7. Decadence and the fin de siècle Marion Schmid
8. Paris and the avant-garde Hugues Azerad
9. The novelistic tradition Hugues Azerad and Marion Schmid
10. Philosophy Thomas Baldwin
11. Painting Gabrielle Townsend
12. Music Julian Johnson
13. Theatre and dance Áine Larkin
ii. Self and Society: 14. Freud and psychoanalysis Céline Surprenant
15. Sexuality Elisabeth Ladenson
16. Health and medicine Michael R. Finn
17. Technology and science Sarah Tribout-Joseph
18. Religion Margaret Topping
19. Travel Margaret Topping
20. Journalism Christine M. Cano
21. Politics and class Edward J. Hughes
22. The Dreyfus Affair Edward J. Hughes
23. The First World War Brigitte Mahuzier
Part III. Critical Reception: 24. Critical reception during Proust's lifetime Anna Magdalena Elsner
25. Early critical responses, 1922 to 1950s Vincent Ferré
26. Mid-twentieth-century views, 1960s to 1980s Thomas Baldwin
27. Late-twentieth- and twenty-first-century responses Adam Watt
28. Modernism David Ellison
29. Adaptations/afterlives Margaret E. Gray
30. Translations Michael Wood.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: fiction, novelists & prose writers [DSK], Literary studies: from c 1900 - [DSBH], Literary studies: general [DSB]