Marcel proust biography and worksheet

French novelist, literary critic, and novelist (1871–1922)

"Proust" redirects here. For other uses, see Proust (disambiguation).

Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust (PROOST;^[1]French:[maʁsɛlpʁust]; 10 July 1871 – 18 November 1922) was spick French novelist, literary critic, and columnist who wrote the monumental novel À la recherche du temps perdu (in French – translated in English despite the fact that Remembrance of Things Past and advanced recently as In Search of Astray Time) which was published in figure volumes between 1913 and 1927. Prohibited is considered by critics and writers to be one of the almost influential authors of the 20th century.^[2][3]

Biography

Proust was born on 10 July 1871 at the home of his granduncle in the Paris Borough of Auteuil (the south-western sector of the then-rustic 16th arrondissement), two months after picture Treaty of Frankfurt formally ended grandeur Franco-Prussian War. His birth took illomened at the very beginning of decency French Third Republic,^[4] during the brute that surrounded the suppression of leadership Paris Commune, and his childhood corresponded with the consolidation of the Condition. Much of In Search of Left out Time concerns the vast changes, swell particularly the decline of the titled classes and the rise of the psyche classes, that occurred in France mid the fin de siècle.

Proust's father, Adrien Proust, was a prominent French diagnostician and epidemiologist, studying cholera in Continent and Asia. He wrote numerous locution and books on medicine and cleanliness. Proust's mother, Jeanne Clémence (maiden name: Weil), was the daughter of spruce wealthy German–Jewish family from Alsace.^[5] Learned and well-read, she demonstrated a progressive sense of humour in her hand, and her command of the To one\'s face language was sufficient to help get better her son's translations of John Ruskin.^[6] Proust was raised in his father's Catholic faith.^[7] He was baptized sale 5 August 1871 at the Religous entity of Saint-Louis-d'Antin and later confirmed despite the fact that a Catholic, but he never officially practised that faith. He later became an atheist and was something worm your way in a mystic.^[8][9]

By the age of niner, Proust had had his first giant asthma attack, and thereafter he was considered a sickly child. Proust tired long holidays in the village show consideration for Illiers. This village, combined with experiences of his great-uncle's house in Auteuil, became the model for the illusory town of Combray, where some pills the most important scenes of In Search of Lost Time take tight spot. (Illiers was renamed Illiers-Combray in 1971 on the occasion of the Novelist centenary celebrations.)

In 1882, at blue blood the gentry age of eleven, Proust became straighten up pupil at the Lycée Condorcet; in spite of that, his education was disrupted by realm illness. Despite this, he excelled fell literature, receiving an award in climax final year. Thanks to his classmates, he was able to gain make contact with to some of the salons be advisable for the upper bourgeoisie, providing him explore copious material for In Search indifference Lost Time.^[10]

In spite of his slushy health, Proust served a year (1889–90) in the French army, stationed be persistent Coligny Barracks in Orléans, an exposure that provided a lengthy episode speak The Guermantes' Way, part three recognize his novel. As a young bloke, Proust was a dilettante and splendid social climber whose aspirations as topping writer were hampered by his insufficiency of self-discipline. His reputation from that period, as a snob and protest amateur, contributed to his later disaster with getting Swann's Way, the greatest part of his large-scale novel, publicised in 1913. At this time, proscribed attended the salons of Mme Straus, widow of Georges Bizet and of Proust's childhood friend Jacques Composer, of Madeleine Lemaire and of Agricultural show Arman de Caillavet, one of righteousness models for Madame Verdurin, and vernacular of his friend Gaston Arman go along with Caillavet, with whose fiancée (Jeanne Pouquet) he was in love. It bash through Mme Arman de Caillavet, do something made the acquaintance of Anatole Writer, her lover.

Proust had a put on the right track relationship with his mother. To alleviate his father, who insisted that no problem pursue a career, Proust obtained straight volunteer position at Bibliothèque Mazarine advance the summer of 1896. After exerting considerable effort, he obtained a poorly leave that extended for several days until he was considered to enjoy resigned. He never worked at monarch job, and he did not relay from his parents' apartment until aft both were dead.^[6]

His life and parentage circle changed markedly between 1900 most important 1905. In February 1903, Proust's relation, Robert Proust, married and left nobility family home. His father died mould November of the same year.^[11] At the last, and most crushingly, Proust's beloved popular died in September 1905. She evaluate him a considerable inheritance. His vomiting throughout this period continued to worsen.

Proust spent the last three lifetime of his life mostly confined total his bedroom of his apartment 44 rue Hamelin^[12][13] (in Chaillot), sleeping not later than the day and working at night-time to complete his novel.^[14] He monotonous of pneumonia and a pulmonary bleb in 1922. He was buried make a way into the Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.^[15]

Personal life

Proust is known to have archaic homosexual; his sexuality and relationships be on a par with men are often discussed by jurisdiction biographers.^[16] Although his housekeeper, Céleste Albaret, denies this aspect of Proust's gender in her memoirs,^[17] her denial runs contrary to the statements of spend time at of Proust's friends and contemporaries, plus his fellow writer André Gide^[18] slightly well as his valet Ernest Fastidious. Forssgren.^[19]

Proust never openly disclosed his homoeroticism, though his family and close house either knew or suspected it. Remodel 1897, he fought a duel zone writer Jean Lorrain, who publicly sensitive the nature of Proust's relationship smash Proust's lover^[20]Lucien Daudet; both duellists survived.^[21] Despite Proust's public denials, his idealistic relationship with composer Reynaldo Hahn^[22] most recent his infatuation with his chauffeur with secretary, Alfred Agostinelli, are well documented.^[23] On the night of 11 Jan 1918, Proust was one of leadership men identified by police in far-out raid on a male brothel original by Albert Le Cuziat.^[24] Proust's analyst Paul Morand openly teased Proust soldier on with his visits to male prostitutes. Require his journal, Morand refers to Novelist, as well as Gide, as "constantly hunting, never satiated by their means ... eternal prowlers, tireless sexual adventurers."^[25]

The exact influence of Proust's sexuality discard his writing is a topic think likely debate.^[26] However, In Search of Departed Time discusses homosexuality at length ground features several principal characters, both general public and women, who are either sapphic or bisexual: the Baron de Charlus, Robert de Saint-Loup, Odette de Crécy, and Albertine Simonet.^[27] Homosexuality also appears as a theme in Les plaisirs et les jours and his raw novel, Jean Santeuil.

Proust inherited untold of his mother's political outlook, which was supportive of the French Ordinal Republic and near the liberalcentre bear out French politics.^[28] In an 1892 morsel published in Le Banquet entitled "L'Irréligion d'État", Proust condemned extreme anti-clerical oblivious such as the expulsion of monks, observing that "one might just capability surprised that the negation of creed should bring in its wake depiction same fanaticism, intolerance, and persecution rightfully religion itself."^[28][29] He argued that communism posed a greater threat to speak together than the Church.^[28] He was similar to one another critical of the right, lambasting "the insanity of the conservatives," whom fair enough deemed "as dumb and ungrateful monkey under Charles X," and referring collection Pope Pius X's obstinacy as foolish.^[30] Proust always rejected the bigoted wallet illiberal views harbored by many priests at the time, but believed go off the most enlightened clerics could remark just as progressive as the domineering enlightened secularists, and that both could serve the cause of "the latest liberal Republic".^[31] He approved of leadership more moderate stance taken in 1906 by Aristide Briand, whom he affirmed as "admirable".^[30]

Proust was among the primeval Dreyfusards, even attending Émile Zola's appropriate and proudly claiming to have archaic the one who asked Anatole Writer to sign the petition in fund of Alfred Dreyfus's innocence.^[32] In 1919, when representatives of the right-wing Goslow Française published a manifesto upholding Nation colonialism and the Catholic Church introduce the embodiment of civilised values, Novelist rejected their nationalistic and chauvinistic views in favor of a liberalpluralist semblance which acknowledged Christianity's cultural legacy deduct France.^[28]Julien Benda commended Proust in La Trahison des clercs as a litt‚rateur who distinguished himself from his interval by avoiding the twin traps cataclysm nationalism and class sectarianism.^[28]

Because of dominion allergies and frequent asthma attacks, swallow the misunderstanding of the disease put down the time^[33], Proust was considered orderly hypochondriac by his doctors. His parallelism provides some clues on his symptoms.^{[clarification needed]} According to Yellowlees Douglas, Novelist suffered from the vascular subtype outline Ehlers–Danlos Syndrome.^[34]

Early writing

Proust was involved infiltrate writing and publishing from an trustworthy age. In addition to the fictional magazines with which he was contingent, and in which he published make your mind up at school (La Revue verte direct La Revue lilas), from 1890 guard 1891 he published a regular brotherhood column in the journal Le Mensuel.^[6] In 1892, he was involved blackhead founding a literary review called Le Banquet (also the French title chastisement Plato's Symposium), and throughout the adhere to several years Proust published small remnants regularly in this journal and emergence the prestigious La Revue Blanche.

In 1896 Les plaisirs et les jours, a compendium of many of these early pieces, was published. The accurate included a foreword by Anatole Writer, drawings by Mme Lemaire in whose salon Proust was a frequent caller, and who inspired Proust's Mme Verdurin. She invited him and Reynaldo Chemist to her château de Réveillon (the model for Mme Verdurin's La Raspelière) in summer 1894, and for brace weeks in 1895. This book was so sumptuously produced that it bill twice the normal price of cool book its size.^{[citation needed]}

That year Novelist also began working on a unfamiliar, which was eventually published in 1952 and titled Jean Santeuil by her majesty posthumous editors. Many of the themes later developed in In Search game Lost Time find their first junction in this unfinished work, including interpretation enigma of memory and the essential of reflection; several sections of In Search of Lost Time can replica read in the first draft instruction Jean Santeuil. The portrait of blue blood the gentry parents in Jean Santeuil is from head to toe harsh, in marked contrast to interpretation adoration with which the parents detain painted in Proust's masterpiece. Following distinction poor reception of Les Plaisirs line of traffic les Jours, and internal troubles information flow resolving the plot, Proust gradually left alone Jean Santeuil in 1897 and blocked work on it entirely by 1899.

Beginning in 1895 Proust spent not too years reading Thomas Carlyle, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and John Ruskin. Through that reading, he refined his theories grip art and the role of prestige artist in society. Also, in Time Regained Proust's universal protagonist recalls securing translated Ruskin's Sesame and Lilies. Significance artist's responsibility is to confront high-mindedness appearance of nature, deduce its support and retell or explain that emphasize in the work of art. Ruskin's view of artistic production was vital to this conception, and Ruskin's toil was so important to Proust ramble he claimed to know "by heart" several of Ruskin's books, including The Seven Lamps of Architecture, The Guidebook of Amiens, and Praeterita.^[6]

Proust set haul out to translate two of Ruskin's entirety into French, but was hampered manage without an imperfect command of English. Persecute compensate for this he made fulfil translations a group affair: sketched flash by his mother, the drafts were first revised by Proust, then rough Marie Nordlinger, the English cousin cut into his friend and sometime lover^[22]Reynaldo Chemist, then finally polished by Proust. Difficult about his method by an rewrite man, Proust responded, "I don't claim swing by know English; I claim to place Ruskin".^[6][35]The Bible of Amiens, with Proust's extended introduction, was published in Gallic in 1904. Both the translation stand for the introduction were well-reviewed; Henri Philosopher called Proust's introduction "an important imposition to the psychology of Ruskin", cranium had similar praise for the translation.^[6] At the time of this publish, Proust was already translating Ruskin's Sesame and Lilies, which he completed cloudless June 1905, just before his mother's death, and published in 1906. Intellectual historians and critics have ascertained divagate, apart from Ruskin, Proust's chief academic influences included Saint-Simon, Montaigne, Stendhal, Writer, George Eliot, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, and Mortal Tolstoy.^{[citation needed]}

In Proust’s 1904 article "La mort des cathédrales" (The Death frequent Cathedrals) published in Le Figaro, Novelist called Gothic cathedrals “probably the first, and unquestionably the most original vocable of French genius”.^[36]

1908 was an have a bearing year for Proust's development as fine writer. During the first part presumption the year he published in assorted journals pastiches of other writers. These exercises in imitation may have licit Proust to solidify his own composition. In addition, in the spring talented summer of the year Proust began work on several different fragments model writing that would later coalesce out of the sun the working title of Contre Sainte-Beuve. Proust described his efforts in graceful letter to a friend: "I be blessed with in progress: a study on say publicly nobility, a Parisian novel, an theme on Sainte-Beuve and Flaubert, an theme on women, an essay on gayness (not easy to publish), a interpret on stained-glass windows, a study force tombstones, a study on the novel".^[6]

From these disparate fragments Proust began disclose shape a novel on which significant worked continually during this period. Dignity rough outline of the work focused on a first-person narrator, unable breathe new life into sleep, who during the night remembers waiting as a child for queen mother to come to him revere the morning. The novel was suggest have ended with a critical interrogation of Sainte-Beuve and a refutation time off his theory that biography was loftiness most important tool for understanding come to an end artist's work. Present in the incomplete manuscript notebooks are many elements stray correspond to parts of the Recherche, in particular, to the "Combray" added "Swann in Love" sections of Amount 1, and to the final cut of meat of Volume 7. Trouble with stern a publisher, as well as a- gradually changing conception of his newfangled, led Proust to shift work soft-soap a substantially different project that come to light contained many of the same themes and elements. By 1910 he was at work on À la exquisite du temps perdu.

In Search aristocratic Lost Time

Main article: In Search sign over Lost Time

Begun in 1909, when Novelist was 38 years old, À unemotional recherche du temps perdu consists behoove seven volumes totaling around 3,200 pages (about 4,300 in The Modern Library's translation) and featuring more than 2,000 characters. Graham Greene called Proust character "greatest novelist of the twentieth hundred, just as Tolstoy was of magnanimity nineteenth"^[37] and W. Somerset Maugham entitled the novel the "greatest fiction hug date".^[38]André Gide was initially not for this reason taken with his work. The prime volume was refused by the owner Gallimard on Gide's advice. He late wrote to Proust apologizing for surmount part in the refusal and life`s work it one of the most bad mistakes of his life.^[39] Finally, authority book was published at the author's expense by Grasset and Proust cause to feel critics to speak favorably about it.^[40]

Proust died before he was able add up complete his revision of the drafts and proofs of the final volumes, the last three of which were published posthumously and edited by government brother Robert. The book was translated into English by C. K. Player Moncrieff, appearing under the title Remembrance of Things Past between 1922 significant 1931. Scott Moncrieff translated volumes flavour through six of the seven volumes, dying before completing the last. That last volume was rendered by second 1 translators at different times. When Histrion Moncrieff's translation was later revised (first by Terence Kilmartin, then by Pattern. J. Enright) the title of description novel was changed to the further literal In Search of Lost Time.

In 1995, Penguin undertook a most recent translation of the book by columnist Christopher Prendergast and seven translators increase three countries, based on the minute, most complete and authoritative French words. Its six volumes, comprising Proust's heptad, were published in Britain under nobility Allen Lane imprint in 2002.

In 2023, Oxford University Press started enfranchising a new translation of the manual by editors Brian Nelson and Xtc Watt and five other translators. Have round will be published in seven volumes under the Oxford World's Classics pristine.

Gallery

Bibliography

Novels

• In Search of Lost Time (À la recherche du temps perdu publicised in seven volumes, previously translated in that Remembrance of Things Past) (1913–1927)

1. Swann's Way (Du côté de chez Swann, now and again translated as The Way by Swann's) (1913)
2. In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower (À l'ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs, also translated chimp Within a Budding Grove) (1919)
3. The Guermantes Way (Le Côté de Guermantes at or in the beginning published in two volumes) (1920–1921)
4. Sodom bear Gomorrah (Sodome et Gomorrhe originally in print in two volumes, sometimes translated rightfully Cities of the Plain) (1921–1922)
5. The Prisoner (La Prisonnière, also translated as The Captive) (1923)
6. The Fugitive (Albertine disparue, as well titled La Fugitive, sometimes translated although The Sweet Cheat Gone or Albertine Gone) (1925)
7. Time Regained (Le Temps retrouvé, also translated as Finding Time Again and The Past Recaptured) translated bypass C. K. Scott Moncrieff (1927)

• Jean Santeuil (1896–1900, unfinished novel in three volumes published posthumously – 1952)

Short story collections

Non-fiction

Translations of John Ruskin

• La Bible d'Amiens (translation of The Bible of Amiens) (1896)
• Sésame et les lys: des trésors nonsteroid rois, des jardins des reines (translation of Sesame and Lilies) (1906)

See also

• 102 Boulevard Haussmann, a BBC production submerged in 1916 about Proust
• Albertine, a anecdote based on a character in À la recherche du temps perdu saturate Jacqueline Rose (London, 2001)
• Céleste, a Germanic film dramatising part of Proust's assured, seen from the viewpoint of housekeeper Céleste Albaret
• Involuntary memory
• Le Temps Retrouvé, d'après l'œuvre de Marcel Proust (Time Regained), film by director Raúl Ruiz, 1999
• Mme Proust and the Kosher Kitchen, a novel by Kate Taylor stray includes a fictional diary written mass Proust's mother
• Proust, an essay by Prophet Beckett
• Proust Questionnaire
• Swann in Love, film through the director Volker Schlöndorff, 1984
• La captive, film by the director Chantal Akerman, 2000
• Little Miss Sunshine, an American road-trip tragicomedy where Steve Carell plays double-cross ex-Proust professor.

References

Further reading

External links