Proust's English [Paperback]

English is the 'second language' ofA la recherche du temps perdu. Although much has been written about Proust's debt to English literature, especially Ruskin, Daniel Karlin is the first critic to focus on his knowledge of the language itself - on vocabulary, idiom, and etymology. He uncovers an 'English world' in Proust's work, a world whose social comedy and artistic values reveal surprising connections to some of the novel's central preoccupations with sexuality and art.Anglomanie- the fashion for all things English - has been as powerful a presence in French culture as hostility toperfide Albion; Proust was both subject to its influence, and a brilliant critic of its excesses. French resistance to imported English words remains fierce to this day; but Proust's attitude to this most contentious aspect of Anglo-French relations was marked by his rejection of concepts of national and racial 'purity', and his profound understanding of the necessary 'impurity' of artistic creation.

Chapter 1: Proust's English World
i. Anglomanie
ii. For what fault have you most toleration?
iii. 'Je ne pr?tends pas savoir l'anglais.'
iv. 'I do not speak french'
v. Le livre des snobs
Chapter 2: Swann and Odette
i. Enter Swann(s)
ii. 'La dame en rose'
iii. Odette's smarts
iv. Odette orchidophile, Odette orchid?e
v. Odette en fleurs
vi. Swann's way with words
vii. 'C'est bien ce qu'on appelle un gentleman?'
viii. L'isra?lite du Jockey
ix. 'D'origine anglaise'
Chapter 3: Choses Normandes
i. Balbec as found
ii. Le Grand-H?tel de Balbec-Cabourg
iii. Le sport
iv. The painter of modern life
Chapter 4: Les Mots retrouv?s
i. Un englische; un English
ii. Du pur vocabulaire
iii. Qu'est-ce que l'Anglais?
iv. Etymology and deformation
v. Un arriviste digne de louange
Appendix: The location of English words and plóz