In the Shadow of the Flowering Maidens E-Book

Irène Lazzari

• Herausgeber: BrightSummaries.com
• Kategorie: Bildung
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Seitenzahl: 28

Beschreibung

What should we learn from In the Shadow of the Flowering Maidens, this novel of first love and literary recognition? Find everything you need to know about this work in a complete and detailed analysis.
You will find in particular in this file :
- A complete summary
- A presentation of the main characters such as Marcel, Charles Swann and Gilberte
- An analysis of the specificities of the work: Proust and biography; The satire of the bourgeoisie and the aristocracy; The misunderstanding of love and excessive jealousy
A reference analysis to quickly understand the meaning of the work.

Leseprobe

MARCEL PROUST

FRENCH WRITER

•Born in 1871 in Paris

•Died 1922 in Paris

•Some of his works:

°Swann's Way (1913), novel

°Albertine disparue (1925), novel

°Le temps retrouvé (1927), novel

Born into a wealthy and cultured family, Marcel Proust attended aristocratic salons from an early age, where he met artists and writers. From childhood, his health was particularly fragile and he suffered from serious respiratory problems throughout his life. Taking advantage of his family fortune, he devoted all his time to writing and in 1907 began writing his work In Search of Lost Time. This vast novelistic fresco consists of seven volumes, which were published between 1913 and 1927, the last four being published posthumously. Marcel Proust's novelistic work is gigantic; with more than two hundred characters, it offers a reflection on time, emotional memory, the functions of art, and also a meditation on human feelings such as love, jealousy, homosexuality and the feeling of failure. For all these reasons, Marcel Proust has established himself as one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century and is considered throughout the world to be the most representative of French literature. Indeed, more theoretical works have been written about him than about any other French writer, so resounding was his legacy.

IN THE SHADOW OF THE FLOWERING MAIDENS

FIRST LOVE AND FIRST LITERARY RECOGNITION

•Genre: novel

•Reference edition: À l'ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs, Paris, Le Livre de Poche, 1992, 667 p.

•1st edition: 1919

•Themes: aristocracy, society, love, jealousy, art, writing, memories, illness

À l'ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs is the second volume of the novel À la recherche du temps perdu, which consists of seven volumes and three thousand pages. Published in 1919, it won the Goncourt Prize the same year, which marked the beginning of a prestigious recognition that would continue to grow over time. The novel faithfully continues the story of the first volume, Du côté de chez Swann, and thus includes the same characters while adding new ones.

The question of autobiography has often been discussed, as the narrator has certain characteristics similar to those of Marcel Proust. Indeed, the narrative takes place from the internal point of view, i.e. with the personal pronoun 'I', and the narrator, besides being called Marcel, is also a writer in poor health, from a wealthy family and frequenting the aristocratic salons of the time. However, Proust always made it clear that the writer and the man were two different entities and that it would be simplistic to see any autobiographical intention in his work. In the Shadow of Young Girls in Bloom continues to be read all over the world a century later thanks to dozens of translations and remains one of the great classics of French literature.

SUMMARY

The novel is divided into two parts. The first, 'Around Madame Swann', relates the narrator's relationships with figures from Parisian society and, in particular, with Gilberte Swann, for whom he has a love that gradually deteriorates. In the second, 'Nom de pays: Le pays', he settles in Balbec and experiences a very solitary existence, until he meets and befriends a number of young girls. Among them, one in particular, named Albertine, interests him; he falls in love with her.

AROUND MME SWANN