Recollection of an Afternoon - A Rebuttal of Sainte-Beuve

Author: (French) Marcel Proust
Translator: Shen Zhiming
France/France
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-11-01
Features: This book is neither a thesis nor a novel, but an artistic work. A small madeleine cake leads to a series of continuous and unbroken unconscious memories, then the tone shifts sharply and incisively. The author strongly criticizes the mechanical and flawed methods of the authority critic Sainte-Beuve, as well as the resulting dismissal and misinterpretation of all literary geniuses in French literature at the time. The entire book combines lyrical narration with rational speculation, complementing and reflecting each other. Nearly half of the book mirrors the tone of In Search of Lost Time, serving as a condensed essence of the author's thoughts and laying a foundation stone for later textist structuralist criticism.