The Grammar of Forgetting

Bibliographic Data

ID4375116
AuthorsRobert S Kawashima (University of Florida, corresponding author)
Year2017
Volume38
Issue4
Pages635-666
Publication date2017-12-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenuePoetics Today (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0333-5372 • E-ISSN: 1527-5507
PublisherDuke University Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1215/03335372-4184277
OpenAlexW2787541887
LanguageEN
References cited13

The Proustian search consists of a dialectic process. Time, for example, must be “lost” before it can be “regained.” Involuntary memory itself takes the form of this dialectic: an experience (the taste of the madeleine, e.g.) must be forgotten before it can be remembered. The experience of involuntary memory, in other words, constitutes a type of anachronism: the intrusion of a past sensation within the present. Marcel Proust’s idea of anachronism should be understood in relation to the intellectual world of the turn of the twentieth century, in particular that historical science of language known as comparative grammar. In this regard, scholars have failed to give due consideration to the fact that Proust was related to one of the most celebrated linguists of his time, Michel Bréal. As Proust would have learned from his cousin’s public lectures and published works, there are, in fact, two types of anachronism in language: the irregular form and the idiomatic phrase. Not coincidentally, he explores both of these in the course of his novel. Proust, it would seem, had a far greater interest in and understanding of contemporary linguistics than scholars have previously recognized

Anachronism · Art · Cousin · Dialectic · Epistemology · Forgetting · Grammar · Linguistics · Literature · French Literature and Criticism · Historical Linguistics and Language Studies · History · Law · Linguistics and Discourse Analysis · Philosophy

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