Classics and the Western Canon discussion
Proust - Swann's Way
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Swann's Way - Overture and Combray
Proust is speaking to us directly, and I think the temptation to resort to historical and biographical material is there because this is a difficult book to talk about. This is raw stuff, psychologically and emotionally exposed, despite its frame of sophistication. On one level I really don't like this book at all. Nothing happens. Many of its characters are superficial and they irritate me. But the narrator knows this, and seems to almost glory in its superficiality. It's horrifying and hilarious at the same time -- it's like that scene in the Battleship Potemkin where the baby carriage goes rolling down the steps. It's great stuff, but not easy to talk about because it cuts to the bone. I think we should let it talk to us directly, as difficult as that may be to do.
Thomas wrote: "Proust is speaking to us directly, and I think the temptation to resort to historical and biographical material is there because this is a difficult book to talk about. This is raw stuff, psycholog..."
What a fantastic post! Thank you for articulating so succinctly what I feel but haven't been able to express.
"Many of its characters are superficial..."
And then there's the grandmother. In the same way that many of the characters are superficial, insincere, and "in denial" about themselves, way beyond what we think we ourselves are, or what we see in people around us -- to that same beyond-the-ordinary extent, the grandmother is true to herself and utterly guileless, incapable of putting on a false front of any sort. And being that way, she can only view others through that same pure outlook. I love reading her remarks about other characters; her take on them is uniquely hers.
As you say, most of the other characters are irritating, sometimes excruciatingly, painfully so. Others are comic (Bloch!) or tragicomic (Aunt Leonie), but only the grandmother melts my heart.
What a fantastic post! Thank you for articulating so succinctly what I feel but haven't been able to express.
"Many of its characters are superficial..."
And then there's the grandmother. In the same way that many of the characters are superficial, insincere, and "in denial" about themselves, way beyond what we think we ourselves are, or what we see in people around us -- to that same beyond-the-ordinary extent, the grandmother is true to herself and utterly guileless, incapable of putting on a false front of any sort. And being that way, she can only view others through that same pure outlook. I love reading her remarks about other characters; her take on them is uniquely hers.
As you say, most of the other characters are irritating, sometimes excruciatingly, painfully so. Others are comic (Bloch!) or tragicomic (Aunt Leonie), but only the grandmother melts my heart.
Lily wrote: "Bill wrote: "...I was trained to look only at the text..."I understand those words, but I don't understand how it is possible to really do that, at least by the time one is over a certain age (ma..."
I was trained to look only at the text as well, and I agree with you that it really only works in principle. The way I tired to make sense of it for myself was that one should not need to invoke the historical context of the novel in order to understand it. The problem is that, in going outside the text, we may ascribe ideas that are not there. This is a school of thought that I was taught about in terms of both New Criticism and post-modernism.
The opposing point of view, , New Historicism argues for placing works within a historical context. I agree with Harold Bloom on this; he claims that this viewpoint can be reductive of literature. Of course, for many of these academic arguments, the best practice is probably somewhere in the middle.
Lily wrote, "I understand those words, but I don't understand how it is possible to really do that, at least by the time one is over a certain age (ma..."It's very easy to do it. I assign you an essay to interpret a work of literature; you have to justify your interpretation using the text of the poem alone. It's not difficult, and it trains you above all in close reading of a text -- whether it is "King Lear", Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress," or Tolstoy's "Anna Karenina".
And I can read literary texts without other texts ringing in my ears, most of the time. Sometimes there are echoes, and sometimes that's interesting and sometimes not.
The "theory" currently fashionable, from which the word "intertextual" derives, is just another theory, another approach -- is often about contextualization -- and is in some cases a response to an insistence on totally disregarding context.
Critical theories run their course because the same poems, plays, and novels call to us -- and professional literary critics which is what university professors typically are, need to find something new to say. :-)
But I'm not a prude about it they way people were when I was taught. Sometimes, I think, a text will flummox you. For example, a couple of years ago I decided to reread The Great Gatsby to try to understand precisely what Fitzgerald was saying, and after a few rereadings, I think although the story is apparently straightforward, ultimately this is a situation where sources, both from Fitzgerald's life and what I think are the most important literary sources, really really help. Even then I'm not entirely sure it makes sense, but at least you understand where he's coming from. (It's a favorite novel of mine. I am just not sure one can make sense of it.)
But that's just to answer your general question.
I don't want to get off on a tangent. I apologize to anyone annoyed. :-(
Bill wrote: "I don't want to get off on a tangent. I apologize to anyone annoyed. :-( ..."Not annoyed at all Bill! Overture and Combray is a tough read in terms of trying to figure out just what exactly this text is/is about/might be about, and so on. So it seems we're all trying to find some way to anchor ourselves to something we've read/studied before, hence the many tangents that keep coming up. I haven't started Swann in Love yet, but I understand things change quickly...
Enjoy your holiday!
M wrote: "And then there's the grandmother. In the same way that many of the characters are superficial, insincere, and "in denial" about themselves, way beyond what we think we ourselves are, or what we see in people around us -- to that same beyond-the-ordinary extent, the grandmother is true to herself and utterly guileless, incapable of putting on a false front of any sort."It seems in the beginning that the grandmother is set in opposition to the great-aunt, but the grandmother character falls away into the background while the aunt with all her neuroses steals the show. I'm interested to see if the grandmother returns at some point to provide some balance to the superficial aestheticism of the "little clan" et al. I imagine Mme Verdurin would consider the grandmother a "real bore."
Patrice wrote: "I'm reminded of what Aristotle said. That poetry (art) is superior to history because history is about the particular and poetry is about the universal. Personally, I appreciate this book to the ..."That's a great way of looking at it. Instead of showing us what happened at a given time in a given place to people who actually existed, Proust tells us this is what happens all the time, everywhere, to everyone, because this is what human behavior (in general) is like.
Thomas wrote: "I imagine Mme Verdurin would consider the grandmother a "real bore." "
Ha, that's true. But I have never been able to get this image, so opposite to the usual stiff formality of the era, out of my head:
But my grandmother, in all weathers, even when the rain was coming down in torrents and Françoise had rushed indoors with the precious wicker armchairs, so that they should not get soaked -- you would see my grandmother pacing the deserted garden, lashed by the storm, pushing back her grey hair in disorder so that her brows might be more free to imbibe the life-giving draughts of wind and rain. She would say, “At last one can breathe!” and would run up and down the soaking paths–too straight and symmetrical for her liking, owing to the want of any feeling for nature in the new gardener, whom my father had been asking all morning if the weather were going to improve–with her keen, jerky little step regulated by the various effects wrought upon her soul by the intoxication of the storm, the force of hygiene, the stupidity of my education and of symmetry in gardens, rather than by any anxiety (for that was quite unknown to her) to save her plum-coloured skirt from the spots of mud under which it would gradually disappear to a depth which always provided her maid with a fresh problem and filled her with fresh despair.
Ha, that's true. But I have never been able to get this image, so opposite to the usual stiff formality of the era, out of my head:
But my grandmother, in all weathers, even when the rain was coming down in torrents and Françoise had rushed indoors with the precious wicker armchairs, so that they should not get soaked -- you would see my grandmother pacing the deserted garden, lashed by the storm, pushing back her grey hair in disorder so that her brows might be more free to imbibe the life-giving draughts of wind and rain. She would say, “At last one can breathe!” and would run up and down the soaking paths–too straight and symmetrical for her liking, owing to the want of any feeling for nature in the new gardener, whom my father had been asking all morning if the weather were going to improve–with her keen, jerky little step regulated by the various effects wrought upon her soul by the intoxication of the storm, the force of hygiene, the stupidity of my education and of symmetry in gardens, rather than by any anxiety (for that was quite unknown to her) to save her plum-coloured skirt from the spots of mud under which it would gradually disappear to a depth which always provided her maid with a fresh problem and filled her with fresh despair.
Casey wrote: "The opposing point of view, , New Historicism argues for placing works within a historical context. I agree with Harold Bloom on this; he claims that this viewpoint can be reductive of literature. Of course, for many of these academic arguments, the best practice is probably somewhere in the middle. "I think trying to 'explain' literature using the historical context can be reductive too because it makes literature nothing more than a historical curiosity and robs away literature's relationship with language itself which, at the end of the day, is what makes us read literature and enjoy analyzing it a lot more than nonfiction history books. I would say that contemporary critical practice (at least in the UK) is somewhere in the middle because it aims for a close reading of texts informed by historical/sociological/biographical/etc insights into the author and the kind of society they lived in.
Patrice wrote: "I think there can be many different readings of the same text. Someone sent me a gay site that interprets the entire book as a gay novel. And I suppose that is one reading of it, if you look for it. Sometimes the artist isn't aware of what he's communicating, but that doesn't mean he isn't communicating it. "
A lot of characters are revealed to not be straight in subsequent volumes (and Vinteuil's daughter and her friend foreshadow this) so I wouldn't say that interpreting it as queer literature is that far off. The problem is that it's hard to take all that in from the first volume.
On that note, a lot of the events and characters mentioned casually in this first section are taken up again later on and play a major role in the overall narrative. I think maybe it would be a good idea to read Combray as the overture to an opera and instead of trying to rationalize it too much, simply enjoy listening to it with the expectation of finding echos from it in the rest of the novel without straining too much to understand it because the curtain hasn't risen yet so the main action is yet to begin.
Andreea wrote: "I think maybe it would be a good idea to read Combray as the overture to an opera and instead of trying to rationalize it too much, simply enjoy listening to it with the expectation of finding echos from it in the rest of the novel without straining too much to understand it because the curtain hasn't risen yet so the main action is yet to begin..."I'm feeling the same way. These first 180 pages are a taste of the next 3000. On to Swann!
M wrote: "Thomas wrote: "I imagine Mme Verdurin would consider the grandmother a "real bore." "Ha, that's true. But I have never been able to get this image, so opposite to the usual stiff formality of th..."
But is there not something formal and regimented about her unwavering dedication to walking in the garden? She refuses to be cowed by anything, and this sets her apart from many of the other characters.
David wrote: "But is there not something formal and regimented about her unwavering dedication to walking in the garden? She refuses to be cowed by anything, and this sets her apart from many of the other characters."
I don't see how her love of walking in the garden could be seen as something formal. I guess if she was out there because of some grim determination to get some fixed amount of exercise in no matter what, it could be seen as regimented, but it didn't strike me that way. I took it that she simply loved getting out of doors rather than that she did it because of some rigid program she's making herself stick to, or something a doctor ordered. Interesting take on it, though.
I don't see how her love of walking in the garden could be seen as something formal. I guess if she was out there because of some grim determination to get some fixed amount of exercise in no matter what, it could be seen as regimented, but it didn't strike me that way. I took it that she simply loved getting out of doors rather than that she did it because of some rigid program she's making herself stick to, or something a doctor ordered. Interesting take on it, though.
M wrote: "David wrote: "But is there not something formal and regimented about her unwavering dedication to walking in the garden? She refuses to be cowed by anything, and this sets her apart from many of th..."I take the Grandmother to be more unconventional than regimented, which is in contrast to all the other characters striving to be fashionable and socially correct. She seems to be her own person, which is quite refreshing in what is otherwise a fairly stifling environment. But we don't see too much of her, so it's probably unwise to judge her character one way or the other. Hopefully Proust brings her back into the story somehow.
Bill wrote: " Lily wrote, "I understand those words, but I don't understand how it is possible to really do that, at least by the time one is over a certain age (ma..."It's very easy to do it..."
Uh, huh! Maybe for you.... :) I think I comprehend and respect the discipline. Since literature has always been only an avocation for me, my approaches are much more idiosyncratic, I'm afraid.
Have enjoyed the discussion here of the grandmother. It has helped me think about her more closely. Thanks all!(I immediately enjoyed the burden on her poor maid: "...to save her plum-coloured skirt from the spots of mud under which it would gradually disappear to a depth which always provided her maid with a fresh problem and filled her [maid] with fresh despair." What a privilege for the grandmother not to have to deal with that herself!)
Andreea,I was just answering a question to a short post in which I said I was trained to look only at a text but don't think that's the only way to go. And I agree there are no rules, and theories are only useful if they generate interesting idea or insights -- and not if they don't. In addition, I think the text and the individual reader combine to suggest the approach.
I certainly agree that the first volume is prelude to the remaining six -- which is why I hope all Proustians will vote to read volume 2 next.
Casey wrote: "Lily wrote: "Bill wrote: "...I was trained to look only at the text..."I understand those words, but I don't understand how it is possible to really do that, at least by the time one is over a ce..."
I used to think that studying works in a historical context is reductive until I actually began teaching, and I saw how reading works out of their historical context TAKES THE MEANING OUT of a work. Example: I showed my students a Beckett play in which (on the screen) the characters were reduced to talking heads. The play/film was done in the 60s or 70s when such scenes (heads without a body) would create a feeling of absurdness and discomfort in the spectator. But in the early 90s when my students saw that, there used to be a fast-food commercial with a similar scene, and for them it was extremely funny. The existential absurdness which was in the original was viewed as a cheap gothic thrill, so its meaning was totally changed. I also met people who read Kafka's "Metamorphosis" out of its context--like, say, a sort of story a la "Matrix". One may certainly read it in that way, but that has nothing to do with Kafka's intention.
I think one can very well read a work in its historical context, and at the same time, do a close/textual reading of it. The two are not incompatible.
Alta wrote: "The play/film was done in the 60s or 70s when such scenes (heads without a body) would create a feeling of absurdness and discomfort in the spectator. But in the early 90s when my students saw that, there used to be a fast-food commercial with a similar scene, and for them it was extremely funny."But it is funny!! Beckett is hilarious! But it is possible to explain away the humor in Beckett with analysis. It's a travesty, but I've seen it done.
Thomas wrote: "Alta wrote: "The play/film was done in the 60s or 70s when such scenes (heads without a body) would create a feeling of absurdness and discomfort in the spectator. But in the early 90s when my stud..."Oh, I agree that Beckett is often hilarious--and I wouldn't want to take the humor away from him--but in that particular case he didn't mean to be funny.
I think literature can be read both in and out of context. Perhaps being able to do both is most interesting -- and sometimes only one is relevant or interesting.
Alta wrote: "Oh, I agree that Beckett is often hilarious--and I wouldn't want to take the humor away from him--but in that particular case he didn't mean to be funny. ."I'm trying to imagine what it must be like to teach Beckett's "Play" to students who relate it to a fast food commercial... it's like watching a Beckett play within a Beckett play. Tragic and comical at the same time... what fun!
Patrice wrote: "Proust was painting his own impressions with words...."I know you have been reading Karpeles's Paintings in Proust. Your words remind me of this about Monet on p. 18: "Proust tried to imagine a writer who could achieve what Monet had done as a painter."
These words from that section tantalize me: "From a close scrutiny of these impressionist masterworks, Proust formulated the vindication--the triumph--of effect over cause." "What is" or "what is remembered" is more real than whatever caused it to be?
(See references for a longer excerpt.)
Patrice wrote: "Having just finished Combray I was made to think of the association someone mentioned to a symphony. There were such quiet parts and then, the music soared and took my breath away."
And just think, Combray is only the overture!
And just think, Combray is only the overture!
Patrice wrote, "Also, his love for his mother... It made me uncomfortable. It felt so over the top. Then, I had to think. Am I censoring out that longing that every child experiences? Doesn't every child find ecstasy in the embrace of a loving parent? That neediness, is that what makes us uncomfortable and is that why we no longer "remember"? Maybe Proust is reminding us of a feeling that we'd rather forget?" I don't know. I think Proust's narrator is one we have trouble identifying with because he is over the top. I loved my mother, and I came from a warm and expressive family. Lots of hugging and kissing. We had our issues, but those weren't the issues.
I'm not sure this overwhelming need to be kissed goodnight is love. It's something. I'm not sure it's what I understand as love.
Proust famously answered the questionnaire describing his essential trait as "The need to be loved; more precisely, the need to be caressed and spoiled much more than the need to be admired."
That's really not attractive, I think. Who wants to hang out with someone like that?
Wouldn't you rather hang with Cyrano so much more attractive -- he fights duel, he is witty, he writes -- I believe that would be true of both the romantic figure in the Rostand play and the real Cyrano de Bergerac who had a big nose, fought duels and wrote. I actually have one his books which I haven't gotten to. (He died at only 36.)
But we don't have Cyrano. We have this crybaby who's entirely engaged with his own sensibility.
The question I have is the attitude one assumes as a reader when one can't entirely sympathize with a narrator -- who has been claimed to be the greatest novelist of the 20th century -- and who takes as a subject his own self-absorbed self.
What then are the pleasures for us -- or perhaps the "readerly" strategies? Marcel is not easy to identify with. Didn't someone on GR say she had read this three times, each time with greater distance, and each time with greater pleasure.
I don't know what it is yet. But part of the strategy may be stance -- our POV as readers.
I haven't come across anyone in the book whom I really care for, and I'm a bit worried about what is going to happen in the next book. The thing I really do like about Proust is his style--his symphonic writing, as one of you has called it. I don't especially care for the story he's telling, but I like the way he tells it.
Laurele wrote: "I haven't come across anyone in the book whom I really care for, and I'm a bit worried about what is going to happen in the next book. The thing I really do like about Proust is his style--his symp..."For me this book is completely about style. Even at its most poetic, it's still about the aesthetics of emotion, which isn't a substantial thing. Emotions are fleeting; we see Swann trying to explain his behavior in a rational way, or we see the narrator describing Swann doing this, but he isn't successful. He attempts to be disinterested, but he inevitably falls back into jealousy. Proust is like Swann in a way -- he stands back at a distance, painting his portrait, but he can't help but get caught up in the poetry of emotions. He doesn't want to be self-absorbed, but he is, and his love is for style.
Thomas wrote: "...his love is for style...."But isn't it also an exploration of that greedy, needy, profound human search for love in a world that is not necessarily very supportive of that search?
Some note somewhere suggested that the first book leaves the reader in a very different place than other parts will go. Don't know yet what that means.
On the style or aesthetic side, I was charmed by this passage:"There are in the music of the violin - if one does not see the instrument itself, and so cannot relate what one hears to its form, which modifies the fullness of the sound - accents which are so closely akin to those of certain contralto voices, that one has the illusion that a singer has taken her place amid the orchestra. One raises one's eyes; one sees only the wooden case, magical as a Chinese box; but, at moments, one is still tricked by the deceiving appeal of the Siren; at times, too, one believes that one is listening to a captive spirit, struggling in the darkness of its masterful box, a box quivering with enchantment, like a devil immersed in a stoup of holy water; sometimes, again, it is in the air, at large, like a pure and supernatural creature that reveals to the ear, as it passes, its invisible message."
The passage reminds me of a poem I've read and lost that included lines about the ethereal sounds created by horsehair on cat's gut.
Thomas,I'm not entirely sure how a book can be all about style while telling a story -- and what does "the aesthetics of emotion" mean?
Do you mean his descriptions of emotion are "aesthetic" in and of themselves? If so what exactly are the aesthetic pleasures here? Beauty? Something else?
Patrice wrote: "My feeling is that this is a kind of transcript of a therapy session. He says he's looking for the truth. So he's trying to remember, what happened? But of course its through his own memory and ..."That's a great description, Patrice. My feeling though is that what actually happened is not important; what really matters is how the narrator remembers it now. It's not technically interior monologue, but the effect of it is, for me anyway. We learn more about the narrator through his telling of his story than we do about the reality of the people the story is about. In that sense it very much sounds like a therapy session.
Bill wrote: "Thomas,I'm not entirely sure how a book can be all about style while telling a story -- and what does "the aesthetics of emotion" mean?
Do you mean his descriptions of emotion are "aesthetic" in..."
I know, Bill, it's all rather vague. I'm reaching a bit here, but I don't know how else to approach it. The "aesthetics of emotion" for me means the way that Proust evokes the moods and feelings of his characters without being objective or clinical about it. I keep going back to the music scene in "Swann in Love" where Swann is completely captivated and taken away by Vinteuil's "little phrase." That little phrase of music has a purely aesthetic content. There is no substance. It doesn't objectively "mean" anything. Its value is in the way that Swann hears it and the emotional effect it has on him. And the way that Proust describes that effect is incredibly evocative, even though it can only be described in the most indirect way.
The book seems to me to be Proust's "magic lantern" -- the way the light is cast against the wall is the whole point of the book; what the images are in reality (if they are anything at all in reality) is beside the point. The story is beside the point -- hardly anything even happens in this book. It's all about the how, not the what. That for me is pure style.
For those of us for whom "Sensing" or "Feeling" are not part of our Briggs profile, ISOLT is a challenge to one's assumptions about reality or truth or what matters, what is significant. Or at least so I find it, although somehow less so than the last time I tried to read it.
Thomas is describing, I think, something like an impressionist painting.Lily, that violin analogy hit me, too, and it took me back again to a short story I read as a teenager and have tried in vain for many years to find again--In Search of Lost Story. It's about a boy from the jungles who is taken into civilized society. He hears a violin for the first time and refers to it as a person singing. He is given music lessons and forced to be a musician, but his real passion is mathematics.
Patrice! That's a great line from Augustine. Freudian regression lurks just around the corner when stress hits. Thank you. I love it.Laurele -- I think he's describing the translation of emotion into language -- I got that. My problem...
... (with)Thomas point, is the notion that it's ALL about THAT. I have trouble with excluding everything else.
Lily, I'm not sure Myers Briggs works here because I'm pretty sure Proust would be an N. I'm not sure I've ever met anyone who scores an S actually -- or maybe one person. :-)
Laurele wrote: "Thomas is describing, I think, something like an impressionist painting.Lily, that violin analogy hit me, too, and it took me back again to a short story I read as a teenager and have tried in va..."
Lost Story Found! (Title, at least.) it's "Young Archimedes," by Aldous Huxley. Now if only I could find a copy of it!
Bill wrote: "... (with)Thomas point, is the notion that it's ALL about THAT. I have trouble with excluding everything else."Point taken. Surely Proust is more than a one trick pony, and I don't mean to exclude anything else, whatever that may be.
Impressionism hits the mark for me -- thanks, Laurele. It's Sunday in the Park with Swann, but there's some funny stuff going on behind the trees.
Impressionism is an interesting analogy because it was a title sarcastically given to the group by a critic because of a single painting by Monet, Impression The Rising Sun.But they were actually about getting out of the studio, painting exactly what light revealed without the strictures of academic painting.
But while this book isn't surrealistic, I'm continually struck by the first line, "For a long time I went to bed early." The translation is exact, but the literal French, if you don't match idioms with idioms is "For a long time, I put myself to sleep at a good hour." There's something there that likes a ritual to prepare oneself for imagination.
I was re-listening to the CD's a few days ago and heard these words: "we had in front of us the steeple which, baked golden-brown itself like a still larger, consecrated loaf, with gummy flakes and droplets of sunlight, thrust its sharp point into the blue sky. (p. 70, Random House, Moncrieff/Kilmartin)[Davis reads: "we would have the steeple there in front of us, itself golden and baked like a greater blessed brioche, with flakes and gummy drippings of sun, pricking its sharp point into the blue sky." p. 66.] This is one case where I prefer M&K.
Anyway, when I heard the words in bold above, I immediately thought of sunlight on Vermeer's "View of Delft". (I'd just been going over some of my Vermeer notes -- I have seen all but two of his known oeuvre now.) See here: http://some-landscapes.blogspot.com/2... (especially in the detail, near the yellow wall)
or here:
http://www.essentialvermeer.com/catal... (Move cursor over the boat at the right to see its "gummy drippings of light".)
It felt as if paintings informed Proust's very descriptions.
Lily wrote: "It felt as if paintings informed Proust's very descriptions. "Just got the book Paintings in Proust from the library, haven't done more than briefly skim it yet, but will enjoy more time with it. After an introduction, he goes through all seven volumes; each page spread has a quotation about paintings on the left page and one or more paintings (or painters) referred to on the right (sometimes spilling over onto the left). My only complaint is that he doesn't give the chapter references for the quotations, so it's not easy to track them down. (Unless one searches the Gutenberg online copy and even then the translations may not be identical, but the painters names should be the same.)
Everyman wrote: "My only complaint is that he doesn't give the chapter references for the quotations, so it's not easy to track them down. ..."They follow the text in sequence, at least in my experience, so it isn't too bad. ISOLT doesn't seem to have much in the way of chapters anyway.
For The Swan's Way, I put a link in the research thread where a blogger has done something similar to Karpeles, even adding music clips. It is fun to compare his choices where Proust has indicated only an artist and a characteristic, rather than a specific picture. (There is one featuring a nose where the blogger is much kinder or less dramatic than Karpeles! :-D) He provides page number ranges and those seem to be close enough between editions to be helpful, so you might want to use the two together. Enjoy!
Susanna wrote: "...this passage does not remind me of sunlight."There are many ways to read Proust. Patrice made a comment similar to yours earlier. Freud had much to say about such interpretations a few years after Proust.
Recent critiques of "The Milkmaid", another Vermeer sparkling with sunlight on bread, point out the romantic symbols embedded in that picture as well. But "sunlight" is used in both translations of ISOLT, even if the reader chooses to transmute its meaning and the writer perhaps even intended such.
Patrice wrote: " Wasn't Freud around when this was written?"Their lives overlapped:
Sigismund Schlomo Freud (6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939)
Marcel Proust (10 July 1871 – 18 November 1922}
I haven't tried to overlay the publication dates of Freud's writings. Nor have I read enough Proust biographical information to know what is reported about his knowledge of Freud's work. But certainly both men directed considerable energy towards documenting their observations about human sexuality and its manifestations in society. Yet, probably neither man should be characterized as being concerned about only the sexual aspects of their human comrades.
But people use Freudian interpretations of EVERYTHING. One of Freud's books was Hamlet and Oedipus. Freud's point would have been this reveals unconscious (NOT conscious) thoughts.Proust didn't have to know a thing about Freud or Freud's ideas to allow a legitimate Freudian interpretation of Proust, particularly in that kind of imagery.
This is also not to say their ideas had certain things in common -- or certain subject matters.
I'd said before that in White's bio, he said they never read each other. Whether they knew anything about each other is something else. But remember Newton and Leibnitz independently came up with calculus.
Here's a syllabus for a course on Proust & Freud. The syllabus doesn't suggest they knew anything about each other, but rather that side by side comparisons of their texts was interesting. http://www.english.qmul.ac.uk/postgra...
You're not going to get an insurance company to pay for years of Freudian analysis and you'll have trouble showing superior outcomes to other shorter forms of therapy -- at least as far as I know.Psychiatry tends to be about prescribing drugs these days, fewer and fewer psychiatrists are using talking therapies. You can make more money prescribing drugs because you can see more patients in an hour. Also -- there's money to be had from drug companies. For talking therapies, they make referrals to clinical psychologists.
As for talking therapies, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is as much in fashion as any other, I believe, although it has flavors, like Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, which combines CBT and mindfulness. But I don't know the full range of orientations.
The ideas are still Freudian, but, as with Jungian archetypes, etc. they're more likely to be used as ways to look at literature.
But tell me, Patrice, how do you feel about that?
Patrice wrote: "Interesting Bill. A psychologist recently told me that Freud is ONLY studied in literature and philosophy courses. He's not given any credence in psychology and psychiatry courses.
I guess "F..."
That's what I understood, too, Patrice. I'm always surprised when I hear someone refer to Freud as an authority these days.
Patrice wrote: "I've been thinking....Oedipus and Hamlet may explore what we now call Freudian concepts but the fact that Freud studied these works, and life, and extrapolated from them, doesn't that count for s..."
Kandel was excited by Freud and wanted to go into research originally to find physical analogs of the ego and id, if I remember correctly.
Hamlet and Oedipus DON'T explore what we now call Freudian concepts. Freud used Hamlet and Oedipus to elucidate his own ideas.
If Freud's ideas is relevant to a particular situation and provides a useful or interesting analysis, fine. But be very careful of actually believing them. Then there was concept of the 4 humours to describe personality which was a general accepted theory for at least 1,000 years. For that matter the earth seemed flat. Plato used the image of a charioteer driving two horses one black and one white -- which always seemed to me very close to Freud's superego, ego, and id. It seemed to make sense.
For example, we understand how "repression" works and it's not repression. It not a matter of the conscious being unable to tolerate the fear and shoving it into the unconscious. It's a matter of skipping the conscious mind entirely.
But then if you study enough social psychology and look at how people behave in groups you can began to question whether personality theory makes any sense at all.
Keep curious, play with ideas, but believe nothing. Grew to develop a taste for uncertainty. :-)
I realize and respect your son is a professional scientist -- and I hope his work with schizophrenia leads us to understand the disease. But I don't think it's precisely true to say there's never been any evidence that psychotherapy ever works for any population with any diagnosis at any time. I'm not going to do the research now, but I've read reports of studies where psychotherapy was better than nothing in various experiments.
But I agree it is far from being something like a wonder drug. If psychotherapy worked really well at fixing people, more people would have been fixed by it.
Of course the same can also be said of psychiatric drugs. I became interested in this when a friend referred me to an article in the New York Review by a former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine reviewing a number of books on the real effectiveness of psychiatric drugs.
Just for fun:
Here's part I: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archi...
and here's part II: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archi...
I read 2 1/3 of those books. Scary.
It would be nice if we understood something about mental illness. But we don't know much, maybe even less than we think.
BUT LISTEN -- I suspect people are really bored with this and want to get back to Proust. :-)
Bill wrote: "Patrice wrote: "I've been thinking....Oedipus and Hamlet may explore what we now call Freudian concepts but the fact that Freud studied these works, and life, and extrapolated from them, doesn't ..."
In some ways, Proust and Freud explored very similar territory. Freud, being a scientist of course, created a science literature in the form of his theories and lectures based on his studies of his patients.
Proust, being an artist and a very close observer of his friends and associates, created a purely literary series of books. His time spent in the drawing rooms and boudoirs of Paris were his version of Freud's couch. When I'm reading Swann in Love, I'm often struck by Proust's character studies buried in the density of his writing. His observations become almost scientific, but are presented in an artistic mode.
Jim wrote: "Bill wrote: "Patrice wrote: "I've been thinking....Oedipus and Hamlet may explore what we now call Freudian concepts but the fact that Freud studied these works, and life, and extrapolated from t..."
Thanks for that post, Jim. While it suggests some tantalizing questions, I particularly noted your juxtaposition of scientific and artistic observation of human character, and their subsequent recording. I hear you saying the observations may be more similar and objective than their documentation, which may be bent to artistic or scientific purposes.
I'm not sure there's any difference in the observations. It's what they're buried within, the difference between case histories and literary description -- which may not even be that different.Once you take measurement out of the process, well, then...
Classics and the Western Canon
Books mentioned in this topic
The Principles of Psychology (other topics)Days of Reading (other topics)
Swann’s Way (other topics)
The Cambridge Introduction to Marcel Proust (other topics)
The Principles of Psychology (other topics)
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I understand those words, but I don't understand how it is possible to really do that, at least by the time one is over a certain age (maybe ten or fifteen in this age of media saturation). But then, I wasn't trained in literature or the arts.
In that context of letting a text speak for itself, how was the intertextual awareness of the reader treated? Is it really possible to "suspend" it?