The sign of the swan in Proust's A la recherche du temps perdu

This article takes as its starting point Proust and Mallarmé's shared conception of the associative ‘music’ which connects words when considered as signs in literature. It examines the inscription of this in A la recherche du temps perdu , concentrating on the homophonic signifiers ‘cygne’, ‘signe’, ‘Swann’ and the English ‘swan’. By demonstrating the complexity of swan references in the novel, following the work of Gilles Deleuze, this article shows how Proust exploits his readers' desire to find satisfying knots at the end of narrative threads. The swan is a motif whose insistent return suggests a unifying pattern, the existence or validity of which is neither confirmed nor denied by the text. Albertine's depiction as a swan represents a figuring which juggles identity and sexuality with blankness, whiteness and the accessibility of the semiotic ‘si(cy)gne’. Proust's swans lead us to Tchaikovsky, to Mallarmé and to Wagner. Ultimately the focus is on the texture of Proust's prose, the subtle ‘rhythms’ to which one is alerted by the smallest of details, by words and their sound echoes, and the associations that sound throughout the novel like an ‘air ou chant sous le texte’

Aesthetics · Art · Art history · Depiction · Linguistics · Literature · Motif (music · Narrative · Semiotics · Sign (mathematics · French Literature and Poetry · Historical and Literary Analyses · Historical Linguistics and Language Studies · Philosophy

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  Adeline Soldin•French Studies•2015

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