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Proust's a la Recherche du Temps Perdu

Module description

Proust’s A la recherche du temps perdu (1913-27) is one of the most influential novels of the twentieth century. Idées reçuesabout it abound: this course gives you the chance to make your mind up for yourself. You will study Proust’s handling of first-person narration and the dimensions of time and memory that structure the book. Proust’s Narrator is eloquent on matters of art and aesthetics, love and loss, jealousy, passion and mortality. You will explore these as well as Proust’s important place in the development of literary modernism. Students taking this course are encouraged to read as much of A la recherche as they can.

Module aims - intentions of the module

This module aims to:

• Introduce you to a complex and highly influential work of literature

• Develop your understanding of the rich and wide-ranging thematic concerns of Proust’s novel

• Develop your sense of the formal characteristics of Proust’s writing and how these, mobilised in the exploration of his themes, give Proust a privileged place in literary history

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

ILO: Module-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 1. Discuss analytically the structure and development of Proust’s novel
• 2. Demonstrate familiarity with the central thematic preoccupations of the novel and how these relate to its historical context
• 3. Analyse, through close reading and commentary of the text in the TL, characteristic features of Proust’s writing
• 4. Demonstrate an awareness of Proust’s narrative innovations
• 5. Assess critically the sorts of philosophical-intellectual dilemmas explored by Proust’s narrator

ILO: Discipline-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 6. Analyse and account for salient features of the set texts
• 7. Mount a detailed argument in the appropriate register of English, mustering a range of textual evidence in its support, presented in appropriate academic form.
• 8. Following guidance, locate, identify and utilise library and electronic resources on a given topic.

ILO: Personal and key skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 9. Undertake defined learning activities with a measure of autonomy, asking for guidance where necessary.
• 10. Adopt a critical approach to the selection and organisation of material in order to produce, to a deadline, a competently produced written or oral argument.
• 11. Present a cogent and sustained argument orally and/or in writing, in English, on a topic chosen from a range of options provided, following broad guidelines but selecting and adapting them as required.

Syllabus plan

Whilst the content may vary from year to year, it is envisioned that it will cover some or all of the following topics:

Proust wrote the opening and ending of his novel (‘Combray’ and Le Temps retrouvé) first, before developing what came to be five intervening volumes. You will study ‘Combray’, then La Prisonnière (the fifth volume) and finally the second part of Le Temps retrouvé. Lectures will cover all seven volumes of A la recherche; in seminars we will discuss chosen passages from the set texts as well as excerpts from the other volumes, attending to Proust’s verbal art, the narrative techniques that give shape to his writing. Thematically, we will focus on time and memory; Proustian conceptions of love and loss; desire and jealousy; and mortality and the power of art.

Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)

Details of learning activities and teaching methods

Formative assessment

Summative assessment (% of credit)

Details of summative assessment

Details of re-assessment (where required by referral or deferral)

Re-assessment notes

Deferral – if you miss an assessment for certificated reasons judged acceptable by the Mitigation Committee, you will normally be either deferred in the assessment or an extension may be granted. The mark given for a re-assessment taken as a result of deferral will not be capped and will be treated as it would be if it were your first attempt at the assessment.

Referral – if you have failed the module overall (i.e. a final overall module mark of less than 40%) you will be required to submit a further assessment as necessary. If you are successful on referral, your overall module mark will be capped at 40%.

Indicative learning resources - Basic reading

• Proust, Marcel ‘Combray’ in Du côté de chez Swann (1913)
• ____________, La Prisonnière (1923)
• ____________, Le Temps retrouvé (1927) (From ‘La nouvelle maison de santé…’).
• You should buy these three volumes – there are many cheap paperback editions (‘Folio’ Gallimard, ‘Collection Blanche’ Gallimard or Garnier Flammarion are recommended). The full text of the Recherche is also very cheaply available for kindle/i-pad/e-reader.
• Students can buy the whole of A la recherche in one single volume, published in the Gallimard ‘Quarto’ series (ed. by Jean-Yves Tadié, 1999, ISBN: 978-2070754922)

Indicative learning resources - Web based and electronic resources

• ELE – https://vle.exeter.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=4026
• Bales, Richard, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Marcel Proust (Cambridge University Press, 2001) – available electronically via the library website.
• Podcasts on Proust and his work: http://backdoorbroadcasting.net/2010/05/proustian-afterlives/
• BBC ‘In our time’ programme on Proust with Malcolm Bowie, Jacqueline Rose and Robert Fraser: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00548wx
• Antoine Compagnon’s Collège de France seminars and lectures on Proust (in French): http://www.college-de-france.fr/site/antoine-compagnon/
• Multiple book chapters are available electronically via the ELE page.

Indicative learning resources - Other resources

• Bales, Richard, Proust. A la recherche du temps perdu (London: Grant & Cutler, 1995)
• Beckett, Samuel, Proust (London: John Calder, 1987 [1931])
• Bowie, Malcolm, Proust Among the Stars (London: HarperCollins, 1998)
• Cocking, J.M., Proust (London: Bowes and Bowes, 1956)
• Ellison, David, A Reader’s Guide to Proust’s ‘In Search of Lost Time’ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010)
• Gray, Margaret E., ‘Proust, narrative and ambivalence in contemporary culture’ in Postmodern Proust (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1992).
• Kern, Stephen, The Culture of Time and Space: 1880-1918 (Cambridge, MA/London: Harvard University Press, 2003 [1983])
• May, Derwent, Proust (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983)
• Watt, Adam, The Cambridge Introduction to Marcel Proust (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011)
• __________, Marcel Proust ‘Critical Lives’ (London: Reaktion, 2013)
• __________, ed., Marcel Proust in Context (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013)

Key words search

Marcel Proust, A la recherche du temps perdu, narrative fiction