|
Showing 1 - 8 of
8 matches in All Departments
This volume sets Marcel Proust's masterwork, A la recherche du
temps perdu (In Search of Lost Time, 1913-27), in its cultural and
socio-historical contexts. Essays by the leading scholars in the
field attend to Proust's biography, his huge correspondence, and
the genesis and protracted evolution of his masterpiece. Light is
cast on Proust's relation to thinkers and artists of his time, and
to those of the great French and European traditions of which he is
now so centrally a part. There is vivid exploration of Proust's
reading; his attitudes towards contemporary social and political
issues; his relation to journalism, religion, sexuality, science
and travel, and how these figure in the Recherche. The volume
closes with a comprehensive survey of Proust's critical reception,
from reviews during his lifetime to the present day, including
assessments of Proust in translation and the broader assimilation
of his work into twentieth- and twenty-first-century culture.
Proust's 'A la recherche du temps perdu' ('In Search of Lost Time',
1913 27) changed the course of modern narrative fiction. This
Introduction provides an account of Proust's life, the
socio-historical and cultural contexts of his work and an
assessment of his early works. At its core is a volume-by-volume
study of 'In Search of Lost Time', which attends to its remarkable
superstructure, as well as to individual images and the intricacies
of Proust's finely-stitched prose. The book reaches beyond stale
commonplaces of madeleines and memory, alerting readers to Proust's
verbal virtuosity, his preoccupations with the fleeting and the
unforeseeable, with desire, jealousy and the nature of reality.
Lively, informative chapters on Proust criticism and the work's
afterlives in contemporary culture provide a multitude of paths to
follow. The book charges readers with the energy and confidence to
move beyond anecdote and hearsay and to read Proust's novel for
themselves.
Through close textual analysis of the scenes of reading in Proust's
A la recherche du temps perdu, Adam Watt offers an invigorating new
study of the novel and previously unacknowledged paths through it.
After considering key childhood 'Primal Scenes' which mark the act
of reading as revelatory and potentially traumatic, the book then
identifies and examines the interwoven strands of the novel's
narrative of reading: showing that scenes where the narrator reads
and where others provide 'lessons in reading' are intricately
connected within the narrator's ever unfolding considerations of
intelligence, sense experience, knowledge, and desire. These acts
of reading, often bewildering the narrator with their mix of
illuminations, wrong turns and over-determinations, lead us to
interrogate our own understanding of the act we accomplish as we
read A la recherche. This book emphasizes the complexities and
contradictions with which reading (always inescapably an engagement
of both mind and body) is driven, and which connect it repeatedly
to the experience of involuntary memory. Reading is shown to be
frequently fraught with heady instability-'delire'-of a highly
revealing sort, from which narrator and readers alike have much to
learn. The book's final chapter shows how the narrator's critical
energies, turned contemplatively inwards in the Guermantes'
library, are subsequently turned outwards for a final interpretive
effort-the reading of his now aged acquaintances at the 'Bal de
tetes'-in a shift that provides the narrator not only the
confidence to begin his work of art, but also the humility to face,
undeterred, the approach of death."
This History is the first in a century to trace the development and
impact of the novel in French from its beginnings to the present.
Leading specialists explore how novelists writing in French have
responded to the diverse personal, economic, socio-political,
cultural-artistic and environmental factors that shaped their
worlds. From the novel's medieval precursors to the impact of the
internet, the History provides fresh accounts of canonical and
lesser-known authors, offering a global perspective beyond the
national borders of 'the Hexagon' to explore France's colonial past
and its legacies. Accessible chapters range widely, including the
French novel in Sub-Saharan Africa, data analysis of the novel
system in the seventeenth century, social critique in women's
writing, Sade's banned works and more. Highlighting continuities
and divergence between and within different periods, this lively
volume offers routes through a diverse literary landscape while
encouraging comparison and connection-making between writers, works
and historical periods.
|
Swann in Love (Paperback)
Marcel Proust; Translated by Brian Nelson; Edited by Adam Watt
|
R279
R236
Discovery Miles 2 360
Save R43 (15%)
|
Ships in 12 - 17 working days
|
'Swann's love . . . could not have been torn out of him without
destroying him almost entirely' Swann in Love is a brilliant,
devastating novella that tells of infatuation, love, and jealousy.
Set against the backdrop of Paris at the end of the nineteenth
century, the story of Charles Swann illuminates the fragilities and
foibles of human beings when in the grip of desire. Swann is a
highly cultured man-about-town who is plunged into turmoil when he
falls for a young woman called Odette de Crecy. The novel traces
the progress of Swann's emotions with penetrating exactitude as he
encounters Odette at the regular gatherings in the salon of the
Verdurins. His wilful self-delusion is both poignant and ridiculous
, and his tormented feelings play out in scenes of high comedy
amongst Odette's socially pretentious circle. Swann in Love is part
of Proust's monumental masterpiece In Search of Lost Time, and it
is also a captivating self-contained story. This new translation
encapsulates the qualities that have secured Proust's reputation,
and serves as a perfect introduction to his writing.
This volume sets Marcel Proust's masterwork, A la recherche du
temps perdu (In Search of Lost Time, 1913-27), in its cultural and
socio-historical contexts. Essays by the leading scholars in the
field attend to Proust's biography, his huge correspondence, and
the genesis and protracted evolution of his masterpiece. Light is
cast on Proust's relation to thinkers and artists of his time, and
to those of the great French and European traditions of which he is
now so centrally a part. There is vivid exploration of Proust's
reading; his attitudes towards contemporary social and political
issues; his relation to journalism, religion, sexuality, science
and travel, and how these figure in the Recherche. The volume
closes with a comprehensive survey of Proust's critical reception,
from reviews during his lifetime to the present day, including
assessments of Proust in translation and the broader assimilation
of his work into twentieth- and twenty-first-century culture.
Proust's 'A la recherche du temps perdu' ('In Search of Lost Time',
1913 27) changed the course of modern narrative fiction. This
Introduction provides an account of Proust's life, the
socio-historical and cultural contexts of his work and an
assessment of his early works. At its core is a volume-by-volume
study of 'In Search of Lost Time', which attends to its remarkable
superstructure, as well as to individual images and the intricacies
of Proust's finely-stitched prose. The book reaches beyond stale
commonplaces of madeleines and memory, alerting readers to Proust's
verbal virtuosity, his preoccupations with the fleeting and the
unforeseeable, with desire, jealousy and the nature of reality.
Lively, informative chapters on Proust criticism and the work's
afterlives in contemporary culture provide a multitude of paths to
follow. The book charges readers with the energy and confidence to
move beyond anecdote and hearsay and to read Proust's novel for
themselves.
|
You may like...
Southpaw
Jake Gyllenhaal, Forest Whitaker, …
DVD
R99
R24
Discovery Miles 240
Loot
Nadine Gordimer
Paperback
(2)
R398
R330
Discovery Miles 3 300
|