C'EST DANS LE TRIVIAL QU’IL FAUT CHERCHER DE L’ÉPIQUE
IN THE TRIVIAL, ONE SHOULD LOOK FOR THE EPIC

Summary/Abstract: Proust and Flaubert have a sense of humor. Their characters are full of irony, but in contrast to Flaubert, Proust and his narrator-protagonist are constantly the subject of self-ridicule. That is why the narrator-protagonist is revealed on numerous occasions as a coward in love and as a petty “bourgeois” who finds it difficult to adapt to the customs and habits of aristocratic society. We also find significant self-ridicule in the parts in which Proust, often implicitly, refers to the great classics, of which Flaubert’s Madame Bovary stands out. Marcel and Emma Bovary have a common feeling and understanding of the trivial, but while Flaubert’s heroine sees pain and despair in her daily routine, Proust’s protagonist narrator sees a source of artistic inspiration. The main goal is to transform the banal by connecting the poetic, the metaphysical and the trivial.

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