Proust's Musical Inversions

Abstract

In his fascinating reading of Flaubert's novels Proust emerges as a perceptive critic, a rival novelist, and an anxious heir to the master's mantle. In the collection known as Contre Sainte-Beuve, Proust demonstrates acute critical powers in his discussions of Balzac, Baudelaire, and Nerval; in various shorter essays and articles, there are perceptive, if often fragmentary, insights into the work of Dostoevsky, Goethe, Stendhal, and Flaubert. If for no other reason, these texts would be of interest to the modern critic as they are the first modern, that is to say, non-Sainte-Beuvian, readings of many of the masters of nineteenth-century literature. Yet of all the critical works, it is Proust's reading of Flaubert that is the most often quoted; it is the one that remains most present in the mind of the modern critic. And it is no accident that of all the authors Proust