Walking on Stilts
Walking on Stilts
This chapter examines Marcel Proust's use of the term “metaphor” in À la recherche du temps perdu, focusing in particular on a paragraph in which the image of heights is transferred to the aged Duc de Guermantes, figured as walking on living stilts from which one must inevitably fall. The metaphor of stilts is a clownish transformation of the metaphor of altitude, but the comedy has perhaps more than just thematic value, in the implied contrast between youth and age. The chapter also considers Proust's explicit comparison of Elstir's painting to poetic metaphor that is suggestive of an unstated similarity to—or tacit mise en abyme of—his own writing. The analogical track, the chapter asserts, is a self-confirming circle in which poetic metaphor furnishes an analogue for Elstir's painterly art, while the latter in turn stands as an analogue of Proust's literary art.
Keywords: metaphor, Marcel Proust, À la recherche du temps perdu, altitude, youth, age, painting, poetic metaphor, literary art
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