Mediated desire. Third-party involvements in the love relationships of Proust's À la recherche du temps perdu

Abstract

Exerpt from introduction: When it comes to desire and love in Proust's A la recherche du temps perdu, the traditional critical emphasis has been on the interiority, verging on solipsism, which seems to characterize these states.' This is no great surprise. Within Proust's novel, statements about the self's isolation, the 'lisere de contingences' (IV, 553) separating us from other people, invariably find their illustrative paradigm in the themes of sexual and romantic love. 'Certains philosophes', states the narrator, 'disent que le monde exterieur n'existe pas et que c'est en nous-meme que nous developpons notre vie. Quoi qu'il en soit, I'amour, meme en ses plus humbles commencements, est un exemple frappant du peu qu'est la realite pour nous' (IV, 146). However, against the frequency with which the Proustian narrator underlines love as a subjective state and the adventure of an individual mind, we find a novelistic treatment of love that shows it to be open to suggestion, incorporative of third parties, channelled, managed and reinforced as much by human interaction as by the solitary imagination. The aim of this thesis is to present that alternative view of desire in Proust's novel, not with any pretensions of replacing the idea of Proustian love as a highly imaginative and subjective experience, but rather in an attempt to give voice to an aspect of desire in the novel which has often been neglected. The overriding objective linking these chapters on third-party involvement is, therefore, an elucidation of the interactive elements of Proustian passion.