Hauteur et profondeur dans l’écriture de Proust : une proposition de lecture

Abstract

The following excerpt is drawn from a larger study on Marcel Proust, where I frame the topic of space within the totality of his writings, and I advance a comprehensive reading of À la recherche du temps perdu in the light of the spatial terminology that accompanies the aesthetic and existential revelations of Le Temps retrouvé. More specifically, I reconstruct the reasons behind Proust’s stylistic choices, and I highlight the correspondence between the protagonist’s experience of places and the elaboration of an adequate language aimed at expressing the spiritual content of the book. In this particular passage, I rely on close reading in order to show the assimilation of the truth of experience with the truth of art in Sodome et Gomorrhe, as it is expressed in the famous account of the sea landscape seen from La Raspelière, and in the last volume.