| This thesis is dedicated to the connection between the work of Claude Simon (1913-2005) and that of Marcel Proust (1871-1922). It examines Simon's work, beyond the explicit references to A la Recherche du temps perdu (In Search of Lost Time) which it contains, as it strives for the fulfillment of a wholly Proustian novelistic project. Therefore, it proposes a reading of four of Simon's novels : La Route des Flandres (1960), Histoire (1967), Les Georgiques (1981) and L'Acacia (1989) as a Simonian " search for lost time ". The cyclical structure of Simon's work is identified as the principal form of Proustian accomplishment towards which it tends. Simon's oeuvre is predominantly made up of novels tracing a family's history, during which a narrator leads a singular and ongoing quest for identity. In order to understand how this " search " is undertaken from La Route des Flandres to L'Acacia , it traces the path of the Simonian cycle and that of A la Recherche du temps perdu in tandem, so as to define each of the structural steps in the search, from enunciation to accomplishment. The aim of this parallel reading is not to compare Simon's cycle of novels to Proust's A la Recherche du temps perdu, but rather to understand how, by what means this cycle renews the Proustian novelistic project. In this way, it is established that the Simonian " search for lost time " reveals the precarious position of the subject in relation to the cycle of History, transporting the Proustian project to a new domain and designating the enunciation of a transgenerational subject as the accomplishment of the search for identity. In so doing, this thesis aims to provide a new perspective on studies regarding Simon's relationship with Proust, which criticism has, until present, tackled in light of intertextual, thematic and stylistic studies. |
