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Definition: Proust, Marcel from Philip's Encyclopedia

French novelist. Proust was involved in the Dreyfus affair, but asthma and his parents' death led to his virtual seclusion from 1907. In 1912 he produced Swann's Way, the first part of a semi-autobiographical cyclical novel, collectively entitled Remembrance of Things Past. The next installment, Within a Budding Grove (1919), won the Prix Goncourt. Proust completed the series shortly before his death. Influenced by Henri Bergson and Sigmund Freud, Remembrance of Things Past offers an insight into the relationship between psyche and society, and the distortions of time and memory. See also French literature

Proust, Marcel

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
(märsĕl' prōst), 1871–1922, French novelist, b. Paris. He is one of the great literary figures of the modern age. Born to wealthy bourgeois parents, he suffered delicate health as a child and was carefully ministered to by his mother. As a young man he ambitiously mingled in high Parisian society and wrote his rather unpromising first work, Les Plaisirs et les jours (1896; tr. Pleasures and Regrets , 1948; new tr. Pleasures and Days , 1957). Troubled by asthma and neuroses, as well as by the deaths of his parents, he increasingly withdrew from external life and after 1907 lived mainly in a cork-lined room, working at night on his monumental cyclic novel, À la recherche du temps perdu (16 vol., 1913–27; tr. Remembrance of Things Past , 1922–32, rev. tr. In Search of Lost Time , 1992; new tr. 2002). The first of the novel cycle, Du côté de chez Swann (1913, tr. Swann's Way , 1928) went unnoticed, but the second, À l'ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs (1919, tr. Within a Budding Grove , …
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French novelist who withdrew from society because of asthma, the death of his parents and disillusionment with the world. He introduced psychological analysis into fiction, notably in his 13-volume novel sequence À la recherche du temps perdu (1913-27). Il vaut mieux rêver sa vie que la vivre, …
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Full text Article Marcel Proust (1871–1922)

From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia with Atlas and Weather Guide
As soon as one is unhappy one becomes moral. Within a Budding Grove Happiness is salutary for the body but sorrow develops the powers of the spirit. Remembrance of Things Past: Time Regained In his younger days a man dreams of possessing the heart of the woman whom he loves; later, the feeling that…
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Full text Article Marcel Proust 1871–1922

From The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations
French novelist Textual translations are those of C. K. Scott-Moncrieff and S. Hudson, revised by T. Kilmartin, 1981 Remembrance of things past. translation by C. K. Scott-Moncrieff and S. Hudson of the title À la recherche du temps perdu [In search of lost time] (1913–27); see shakespeare…
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Marcel Proust's bedchamber (1871-1922), Chateau de Breteuil, Choisel, France
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Full text Article HEAVEN

From Collins Dictionary of Quotations
Let heaven exist, even if my place be hell. BORGES, Jorge Luis ‘ The Library of Babel ’ (1941). [Promotional line for Cosmopolitan magazine] Good girls go to heaven, bad girls go everywhere. [Attr.] On the earth the broken arcs; in the heaven, a perfect round. BROWNING, Robert ‘ Abt Vogler ’ (1864). …
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Rediscovered corrected galley proofs of 'Du Cote de Chez Swann', 1913 (print)
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Last page of 'A la Recherche du Temps Perdu' (pen & ink on paper) (b/w photo)
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Full text Article MADNESS

From Collins Dictionary of Quotations
No great genius has ever existed without some touch of madness. ARISTOTLE Nicomachean Ethics . We are all born mad. Some remain so. BECKETT, Samuel Waiting for Godot (1955). Only the insane... …
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Full text Article GRIEF

From Collins Dictionary of Quotations
We met ... Dr Hall in such very deep mourning that either his mother, his wife, or himself must be dead. [Letter to Cassandra Austen, 1799] [A cypress] Dark tree, still sad when others’ grief isfled,The only constant mourner o’er thedead! BYRON, Lord ‘ The Giaour ’ (1813). Grief is itself a…
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Full text Article LIES

From Collins Dictionary of Quotations
An abomination unto the Lord, but a very present help in time of trouble. [Definition of a lie] [Replying to an allegation in court that a letter he had written on behalf of the British Government had contained a lie] It contains a misleading impression, not a lie. It was being economical with the…
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