Abstract

The dissertation entitled "Marcel Proust et l'esthetique des demi-etats," uses the ontology and the theories of aesthetics, imagination and perception advanced by Jean-Paul Sartre to explore the relationship between consciousness and literary form in Marcel Proust's novel, Remembrance of Things Past. ;The dissertation has two parts. The first presents the relevant aspects of Sartre's philosophy particularly as advanced in his works The Imaginary and Being and Nothingness. It then surveys Proust's overall oeuvre, establishing the philosophical and ideological concerns that govern the aesthetics of Remembrance of Things Past. ;The second part of the dissertation, which focuses exclusively on Remembrance, examines in detail the semantic and "phonic" texture of the novel. By analyzing selected passages, such as the death of the writer Bergotte and the description of a dress worn by Albertine, the dissertation demonstrates how, behind the apparent linearity of the text, there lurks a shadowy sub-text, composed of a vast network of semantic and phonic associations. This network affects the reader--often at a semi-conscious level--evoking an experience of the phantom-like world between perception and imagination, described by Sartre as the "half-light of consciousness". ;The proustian aesthetic, therefore, springs from and points toward a precarious state of equilibrium, at the meeting point of what Sartre calls "imaginary consciousness" and "perceptive consciousness"--hence, it is an aesthetic of "half-states" or "demi-etats."