Author Series -31- Marcel Proust

Author Series -31- Marcel Proust

Marcel Proust (1871-1922)

Like Conrad, Marcel Proust grew up in an atmosphere of societal upheaval. The Commune of Paris, a popular uprising for a more democratic government, had failed in the year of the novelist’s birth, and France had been defeated in war by Prussia. In this demoralized and uncertain environment, with a declining aristocracy and dynamic middle class, the sensitive Proust was exposed to an era of rapid change. Like Conrad, Proust relied on the supple and subtle perception of his narrator to convey a conception of society and history as a construct, an extension of the human ego filtered through the sensibility of the artist. Proust could describe a town, a group of people, a country setting in the manner of a realist, yet it was his attention to language that made the descriptions stand out. Unlike the realist, in other words, Proust was not merely imitating nature to render an accurate picture of it; rather, he heightened sense through an exquisite attention to style (diction, imagery, and the rhythm of his prose).