The pre-reflective roots of the madeleine-memory: a phenomenological perspective

Abstract

This paper investigates the madeleine-memory (so-called from Proust's novel In Search of Lost Time) as a case of pre-reflective experience, from the genesis of its sedimentation into the body. Indeed, I aim to address the question of the literary protagonist Marcel on the roots of his happiness and the genesis of his memories. Until now, the madeleine-memory has been described as bodily and involuntary. In phenomenology, a wide literature has confirmed the relationship between the sense of body ownership and pre-reflective self-awareness. I aim to build upon such a mutual link and show that the pre-reflective roots of the madeleine-memory have to be traced back to the genesis of the involuntary recollections. To this purpose, I will illustrate that the epistemological relationship between the object and the subject plays a relevant role in the way the subject remembers. First, I will present that madeleine-memory is a unique case of bodily memory, by analyzing the main features that characterize it. Secondly, I will analyze the original experience of the madeleine within the phenomenological logic of transcendence in immanence. For this aim, I will rely on the Husserlian notions of “epistemological inadequacy of perception” and “background experiences”. Through these notions, I will show that Proustian involuntary recollections are pre-reflective experiences because previously subjects have pre-reflectively experienced the content of recollections.