Proust: The circle of time

My dissertation seeks to examine the relationship between conceptual and imaginative thought in the work of Marcel Proust in light of the philosophical tradition of German Romanticism. I propose an alternative reading of Proust's novel by establishing a new link to important philosophical foundations in the work of F. Schlegel and the German romantic tradition. By drawing on the philosophical foundations of the model of hermeneutic understanding I show that meaning for Proust is originally grounded in Erlebnis, or unmediated lived experience. It is in the light of the concept of Erlebnis that I interpret Proust's quest to preserve the insight of personal experience without sacrificing it to formal coherence, while simultaneously avoiding the romantic pitfall of giving up greater meaning for the sake of truth conceived as a species of personal revelation.