La synesthésie comme véhicule d'extase dans le "Côté de chez Swann" de Marcel Proust,

Synaesthesia in Proust is achieved in a complex manner and it challenges the very same methods already adopted by Gérard Genette in analysing metaphors: the analogy link among different perceptive elements often rests upon a contiguity link and the intermingling of the two rhetorical figures (metonymy / metaphor) is based on the narrative evolution of the story, thus it is tied to the unfolding of time. This figure can be found at the core of many essential elements of the entire Proustian aesthetic: perception, time, metaphor, style. Synaesthesia takes the form of an “ecstatic aggregation” which recreates the world in its sensitive nature, by attributing a feeling of eternity to the real, which is the aim of art, and of the Recherche itself. We will try to analyse some passages from Côté de chez Swann where these rhetorical and aesthetic elements seem to be particularly manifest. We will refer to the works by Gérard Genette and to the book by Stefano Agosti on metaphor in Proust, Realtà e metafora. Indagine sulla “Recherche”, (Milano 1997). Our references are not clearly limited to the studies mentioned above, but many publications on aesthetic and style in Marcel Proust will be included, as well as some critical works on the first volume of La Recherche.