How Proust Was Modern: between Literary Debates and Cultural Conflicts

Abstract

This article discusses issues related to the now famous novelistic cycle by Marcel Proust (1871-1922) titled In Search of Lost Time (A la recherche du temps perdu), and its reception as a major canon of modern literature in the 20th century. Based on critics who were coeval with the launching of the novel (its volumes were published between 1913 and 1927), I intend to introduce the readers in the debates that sought to ascribe to Proust the role of a herald of literary modernism. Thus, I will present a number of theme debates by Proust contemporaries that engaged him and his work not only in literary, artistic and aesthetic disputes, but also in broader social and cultural discussions regarding the French Third Republic. By looking into specific historiographical sources, along with a broader set of bibliographical references, I attempt to show that the disputes in which Proust and his novel were involved concerned not only the literary and aesthetic debate, but also the broader context and historical idiosyncrasies that permeated the French society and culture.