Bodies and Ghosts
Bodies and Ghosts
This chapter examines Marcel Proust's views on the subject of the body and the prevalence of metaphorical ghosts in À la recherche du temps perdu. It suggests that the Proustian body may turn out to be something of a dead end, at least relative to Proust's restlessly curious interest in the vicissitudes of mental life. It emphasizes a primary opposition in the Recherche—between the body desired (the imago-body) and the body revealed (frail, infirm, wasted, grotesque)—and argues that the opposition is banal, a variation on Proust's way with the theme of vanitas vanitatum. Viewed in a larger historical perspective, Proust on bodies and ghosts involves his complex relation to an ideal of “embodiment” inherited from nineteenth-century aesthetics.
Keywords: bodies, Marcel Proust, metaphorical ghosts, À la recherche du temps perdu, desire, vanitas vanitatum, embodiment, aesthetics
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