Facettes de la paresse chez Proust
Facets of laziness in Proust

Author(s): Maria Tronea
Subject(s): French Literature, Theory of Literature
Published by: Editura Junimea
Keywords: otium; leisure; pleasures; hedonism; slowness; Œuvre;
Summary/Abstract: The paper explores the different aspects of otium – leisure – in Marcel Proust’s À la recherche du temp perdu (In Search of Lost Time). Leisure is analyzed as the exquisite pleasure of reading, artistic creation, intellectual carnival or marked by hedonism. The last one is illustrated by a whirlpool of pleasures that the characters get caught into, a vivid image of the Belle Époque society and morals that the narrator, Proust’s spokesperson, describes. He simultaneously reveals the difficult and slow genesis of his work, similar to an alchemic process that ultimately achieves magnum opus – a symbol of recapturing the Lost Time and of the triumph over death.

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