Two Reminiscences from the “Russian Novel” in Marcel Proust’s Essay “Filial Feelings of a Matricide”
The article aims to follow the complementary methods of the history of concepts and genetic criticism, firstly, to consider in general terms the genealogy of the essay “Filial Feelings of a Matricide,” and secondly, to focus on those of his motifs that could go back to the careful reading of Russian...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Russian Academy of Sciences, A.M. Gorky Institute of World Literature
2024-09-01
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| Series: | Studia Litterarum |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://studlit.ru/images/2024-9-3/07_Fokin.pdf |
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| Summary: | The article aims to follow the complementary methods of the history of concepts and genetic criticism, firstly, to consider in general terms the genealogy of the essay “Filial Feelings of a Matricide,” and secondly, to focus on those of his motifs that could go back to the careful reading of Russian novelists. However, it is important for us not only to provide additional evidence of Proust’s active work with the “Russian Novel,” but also to try to understand from the material of this small but crucial text for the intellectual formation of the novelist how the leading themes of the upcoming novel could be formed, incorporating autobiographical, literary, mythological, psychological, sociological, philosophical motifs. It’s about themes of time and death, crime and redemption, art and life. The analysis suggests that the essay became a kind of trigger for a radical transformation of Proust’s position as a novelist, during which, on the one hand, the fixation on the amateurish autobiography of early creative experiences was overcome. On the other hand, an innovative strategy was tested by using first-person narration, in which the narrator’s “I” acquires partial autonomy from the “I” of the author. Finally, the article concludes that the essay establishes two significant elements of the poetics of the upcoming novel: the lexical and semantic circumscription of the narrative and the “telescopic vision” of reality. |
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| ISSN: | 2500-4247 2541-8564 |