Proust and Eliot: An Intertextual Reading

Abstract

Defining intertextuality as “the reader’s perception of relationships between one work and others, which either preceded or followed it” (Riffaterre), this essay sets out to highlight compelling similarities between Proust’s novel, A la recherche du temps perdu, and the fictional works of George Eliot. The emphasis is on affective memory (involuntary memory and emotional templates), ethical considerations (empathy and compassion), and the kind of self-reflexive reading both writers encourage through a complicit narration that implicates the reader. They show readers how emotional memory constitutes the essence of their personal history, thus anticipating modern research in psychology and the neurosciences. In doing so, they make us aware that there are no insurmountable barriers between fictional worlds and ours. In conclusion, this intertextual reading of two novelists from different centuries and cultures has confirmed that these insights are still valid today. This article is available in Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature: http://newprairiepress.org/sttcl/vol36/iss1/3 Proust and Eliot: An Intertextual Reading Inge Crosman Wimmers Brown University That novels, though fiction, can touch our lives and give us the kind of insight that everyday life rarely affords us is undeniable. This holds true for novels from different ages and cultures, as George Eliot and Marcel Proust well knew. This realization is also central to my discussion of the intertextual relationship that I gradually discovered while reexamining their works. It all began when I was reminded of Proust’s admiration for Eliot while going through a new edition devoted to his correspondence. One of the most striking passages I came across is in a letter Proust wrote to Robert de Billy in March of 1910: C’est curieux que dans tous les genres les plus differents, de George Eliot a Hardy, de Stevenson a Emerson, il n’y a pas de litterature qui ait sur moi un pouvoir comparable a la litterature anglaise et americaine. L’Allemagne, l’Italie, bien souvent la France me laissent indifferent. Mais deux pages du Moulin sur la Floss me font pleurer. (Lettres 505-06) It is curious that in all the different genres from George Eliot to Hardy, from Stevenson to Emerson, there is nothing that affects me as much as English and American literature. Germany, Italy, quite often France leave me indifferent. But two pages of the Mill on the Floss make me cry. (my trans.)1 From another letter, as early as March 1897—some ten years before laying the groundwork for A la recherche du temps perdu, In Search of Lost Time—Proust revealed his admiration for Middlemarch to Edouard Rod: “Dans un roman comme Middlemarch c’est 1 Wimmers: Proust and Eliot: An Intertextual Reading Published by New Prairie Press 16 STT 3: 629). A third time, Andree, one of the novel’s characters, is said to be translating a novel by Eliot, and in doing so, to have the best time of her life: “ses meilleures heures etaient celles ou elle traduisait un roman de George Eliot” (2: 295) ‘her happiest hours were those she spent translating a novel by George Eliot’—a revealing comment, since the novel’s hero-narrator admits that he shares her intellectual interests and has a similar artistic sensibility. There is no denying that my curiosity was piqued by Proust’s early enthusiasm for Eliot and the absence of any such remarks in A la recherche du temps perdu. When rereading Eliot’s novels, I discovered some compelling similarities to Proust’s work. In this intertextual reading a rebours, I was especially drawn to affect and ethics, and certain aspects of style with a Proustian resonance. While I discuss these findings, I am not hunting for influences, which would be hard to prove, but rather, for a kind of double reading based on my own perception and reaction, a reading at once textual and memorial.4 Rereading Eliot’s The Mill on the Floss, my attention was drawn at once to certain aspects of the opening chapter.5 The narrator suddenly intrudes at the end of the first paragraph and becomes part of the scene, as things are described as felt and seen from within. It is a scene of remembrance with a Proustian twist, as is even more obvious when we reach the last paragraph: It is time too for me to leave off resting my arms on the cold stone of this bridge.... Ah, my arms are really benumbed. I have been pressing my elbows on the arms of my chair and dreaming that I was standing on the bridge in front of Dorlcote Mill as it looked one February 2 Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature, Vol. 36, Iss. 1 [2012], Art. 3 http://newprairiepress.org/sttcl/vol36/iss1/3 DOI: 10.4148/2334-4415.1768