D'une chevelure odorante au temps de l'extase : sur des synesthésies proustiennes

SERGIO CIGADA E MARISA VERNA A CURA DI. Symbolism and Naturalism between language and text. p. 477-494, MILANO: Vita e Pensiero, ISBN/ISSN: 978-88-343-1109-7 D une chevelure odorante au temps de l extase : sur des synesthésies proustiennes Among all rhetorical strategies, synesthesia is certainly the one most commonly associated to Symbolism and, notably, to Baudelaire s poetics. The relevance of this trope in the work of Marcel Proust is less known, since critics preferred metaphor which is known to be at the center of Proust s reflections on style. However the combination of different sensory experiences is significant and sometimes even crucial in the written realization of Proust s esthetics: in this article it is claimed that it is the preferred rhetorical manifestation of that dynamics of the senses situated at the center of the debate on the Recherche by the most recent critics following a phenomenological approach. A study on this écriture du sensible is underway and partial results have recently been presented; it is however with full awareness of the vastity of the task that the issue is taken up here from the point of view of its relationship to Symbolism. The first section of the article will outline the problem from a theoretical point of view and will put forward a definition of proustian synesthesia in comparison to its prestigious baudelairian model. The second part of the article offers the analysis of a text that seems to be a particularly clear and relevant example of this relation. The aim is to show that Proust is reinterpreting one of the most famous stylistic signs of Symbolism with full awareness and originality by using it in the perspective of his own esthetics, which is never forgetful of its origins but very clearly avoids all forms of imitation. As is known, the esthetics of Marcel Proust is set at the borderline between two eras: it expresses a perfect synthesis of what preceded it and constitutes at the same time an anticipation of a modern spirit which is at times bewildering. According to Antoine Compagnon, its ambiguïté propre is due to the fact that it is assise entre deux siècles comme entre deux chaises, bancale ou boiteuse, et trouvant son énergie dans ce décalage . This paradox seems to be a reasonable interpretation key and it will be shown that trying to reduce this yawning gap would simply lead to missing the whole sense of the work.