Proust, the Body and Literary Form

226 Pages·1999·1.17 MB·English

by  Michael R. Finn

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This study examines the connections between Proust’s fin-de-
si`ecle ‘nervousness’ and his apprehensions regarding literary
form. Michael Finn shows that Proust’s anxieties both about
bodily weakness and about novel-writing were fed by a set of
intriguing psychological and medical texts, and were mirrored
in the nerve-based afflictions of other writers including Flau-
bert, Baudelaire, Nerval and the Goncourt brothers. Finn
argues that once Proust cast off his nervous concerns he was
free to poke fun at the supposed purity of the novel form.
Hysteria – as a figure and as a theme – becomes a key to the
Proustian narrative, and a certain kind of wordless, bodily
copying of gesture and event is revealed to be at the heart of a
writingtechniquerepletewithpranksunderminingmanyofthe
conventionsoffiction.
Michael Finn is Professor of French at Ryerson Polytechnic
University, Toronto. He has published on Proust in a wide
variety of journals, has served in Bordeaux and Paris with the
Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs, and for some years
haswrittenonfoodforTorontoLifemagazine.

CAMBRIDGESTUDIES INFRENCH59
Proust, the Body and Literary Form
CAMBRIDGE STUDIESINFRENCH
general editor:MichaelSheringham(RoyalHolloway,London)
editorial board:R.HowardBloch(ColumbiaUniversity),
MalcolmBowie(AllSoulsCollege,Oxford),TerenceCave(StJohn’sCollege,
Oxford),RossChambers(UniversityofMichigan),AntoineCompagnon
(ColumbiaUniversity),PeterFrance(UniversityofEdinburgh),
ChristieMcDonald(HarvardUniversity),TorilMoi(DukeUniversity),
NaomiSchor(HarvardUniversity)
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PROUST, THE BODY AND
LITERARY FORM
MICHAEL R. FINN
         
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http://www.cambridge.org
©Michael R. Finn 2004
First published in printed format 1999
ISBN 0-511-03640-X eBook(Adobe Reader)
ISBN 0-521-64189-6 hardback
In memory of my parents,
enthusiastic students of language both,
Clara Mary Elizabeth Raeburn
and Carroll Bernard Finn