Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- 1 From Belle Epoque to First World War
- 2 The vast structure of recollection
- 3 Ruskin and the cathedral of lost souls
- 4 The birth and development of A la recherche du temps perdu
- 5 Lost and found: the structure of Proust’s novel
- 6 Proust’s Narrator
- 7 The unconscious
- 8 The texture of Proust’s novel
- 9 Proust’s human comedy
- 10 Proust and social spaces
- 11 Love, sexuality and friendship
- 12 Proust and the fine arts
- 13 Proust and posterity
- Postlude
- Select bibliography
- Index
11 - Love, sexuality and friendship
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 May 2006
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- 1 From Belle Epoque to First World War
- 2 The vast structure of recollection
- 3 Ruskin and the cathedral of lost souls
- 4 The birth and development of A la recherche du temps perdu
- 5 Lost and found: the structure of Proust’s novel
- 6 Proust’s Narrator
- 7 The unconscious
- 8 The texture of Proust’s novel
- 9 Proust’s human comedy
- 10 Proust and social spaces
- 11 Love, sexuality and friendship
- 12 Proust and the fine arts
- 13 Proust and posterity
- Postlude
- Select bibliography
- Index
Summary
The Narrator's reflections on love, sexuality and friendship are at first sight baldly phrased, universalising and tragic.
De tous les modes de production de l'amour, de tous les agents de dissémination du mal sacré, il est bien l'un des plus efficaces, ce grand souffle d'agitation qui parfois passe sur nous. Alors l'être avec qui nous nous plaisons à ce moment-là, le sort en est jeté, c'est lui que nous aimerons.
(i, 227)[Among all the modes by which love is brought into being, among all the agents which disseminate that blessed bane, there are few so efficacious as this gust of feverish agitation that sweeps over us from time to time. From then the die is cast, the person whose company we enjoy at that moment is the person we shall henceforward love.]
(i, 277/326–7). . . l’acte de la possession physique—où d’ailleurs l’on ne posséde rien . . .
(i, 230)[. . . the act of physical possession (in which, paradoxically, the possessor possesses nothing ) . . . ]
i, 281/331)- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge Companion to Proust , pp. 168 - 182Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2001
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