Marcel
Proust, by writing In Search of Lost Time, was on a quest for truth.
The truths he sought were diverse, and to some extent, undefined, but
his overarching goal was to become a “seer” who could discover universal
truths, or concepts that everyone can understand, by searching
extensively through his memories for them. The poet Charles Baudelaire
was an inseparable companion on his quest, for he, too, wrote based on
his memories in search of the same types of truths. Both writers
succeeded in their quests by scrying through their mundane lives for
hints and glimpses of the truth, and discovered that that their prize
was often found by remembering the very saddest moments of their past.
Above
all in Baudelaire, where they are more numerous still, reminisces of
this kind are clearly less fortuitous and therefore, to my mind,
unmistakable in their significance. Here the poet himself, with
something of a slow and indolent choice, deliberately seeks, in the
perfume of a woman, for instance, of her hair and her breast, the
analogies which will inspire him and evoke for him
the azure of the sky immense and round
and
Those analogies, which Proust describes as “transposed sensation”, relate moments where one sensation begets another (VI, 335). Like the Madeleine scene in Swann’s Way, they are powerful experiences that provide a link between the present and the past. The ability to relate these memories in a way that readers can identify with is the essential task of the writer, and, Proust and Baudelaire would argue, is the goal of any work of art.
Writing
about identifiable experiences is what both authors termed
“correspondences.” It is a difficult task to search for such
correspondences, for the breadth of human experience spans time itself.
However, they can be found with sufficient effort. This is illustrated well in Swann’s Way, Proust’s most widely recognized novel, with a description of the wedding of a minor character’s daughter.
Whether or not one has read Lohengrin or seen a painting by Carpaccio, by the end of the paragraph one knows exactly what Proust is talking about; the sun’s glow on the red carpet of the church was like the “delicious” sound of a trumpet. That sound is part of what makes classical music beautiful, not the least reason for which is that it can paint images in our minds such as the glow of the sun.
Proust’s description of this sound is but one example of a
correspondence. The author’s quest for truth lead him to discover many
correspondences, and when one takes note of them, one realizes that each
correspondence is a
universal truth, even if it is a small one. One of these states that
writing about the generalities of grief does for the writer “what is
done for men of a more physical nature by exercise, perspiration,
baths.” (VI, 310) It is a transposition, not of a well-known sense, but
of the cathartic experience of writing. His assertion, while it may seem
rather grandiloquent to generalize in this manner, it also appears to
hold water. Writings of this nature are cathartic,
which is why many writers, including Proust, Baudelaire and Fitzgerald,
wrote about the darker moments of their lives. It is a ‘cure’ for their
mental troubles, as is exercise, social events, music and other forms
of artistic expression.
Proust knew that these cures came with a price; in 1857, Les Fleurs du Mal, a
volume of Baudelaire’s lyric poetry, came under scrutiny of the French
courts, and was subsequently banned for its obscenity (Burt, 19).
Baudelaire and other symbolist poets faced censorship because their
subject matter was, on the surface, nothing but sex, drugs, and rock and
roll. Having learned about the public backlash against Baudelaire,
Proust subsequently avoided talking about sex in blunt, graphic detail,
although he did discuss it at length. He paid homage to his predecessors
by acknowledging
both the “refinements which had lead a Baudelaire, a Poe, a Verlaine, a
Rimbeaud to sufferings” (II, 418), and the difficulty of writing “the
exquisite French of Henri IV” when “one’s mind is troubled by the ideas
of Kant and the yearnings of Baudelaire” (III, 689). He believed that
the public outrage against these writers was unjustified, as was their
criticism of composers like Wagner, because they made no attempt to
decipher their works. Proust may have felt a kinship with these writers,
because he knew that his message, which he hoped would be “worthy of
the pains which I should have to bestow upon it”, would be lost on many.
But he also knew that, like his predecessors, his message had enough
gravity to justify it. To that end, when writing about sex, drugs and
rock and roll, he cloaked it in the language of his target audience,
giving it enough refinement for his readers to appreciate the message
while overlooking the ‘obscene’ content.
Proust
wrote about sex and love because, like Baudelaire, he knew that that
they, too, contained correspondences. When Baudelaire writes about
beauty in Les Fleurs du Mal, he writes that beauty is the progenitor of love.
I am fair, O mortals! like a dream carved in stone,
I am fair, O mortals! like a dream carved in stone,
And my breast where each one in turn has bruised himself
Is made to inspire in the poet a love
As eternal and silent as matter (Aggeler, 116)
Beauty inspires eternal love, and even though beauty is a temporary state of being, the love it produces is permanent. This verse is powerful because, like many poems by Baudelaire, it produces synaesthesia in its readers; the words “stone”, “breast”, “bruised” and “matter” all conjure up memories of sight and touch in its readers. This provocation of memory enables readers to identify with both the subject and the message of the poem, thereby bringing it to life through its correspondences.
Proust wrote his love scenes in In Search of Lost Time in
the same spirit; attempting to derive from them the laws of nature that
mathematicians and scientists overlook. He knew that these laws, once
they are understood, help provide a framework for his readers that they
can find ‘surety’ in. Thus he wrote about even the most intimate moments
of his life, such as in Sodom and Gomorrah where
he describes the emotions felt as he made love to Albertine. For
Proust, these emotions were incredibly complex, because they were
associated with both Albertine and his mother.
Albertine’s
neck, which emerged in its entirety from her nightdress, was strongly
built, bronzed, grainy in texture. I kissed it as purely as if I had
been kissing my mother to calm a childish grief which I did not believe
that I would ever be able to eradicate from my heart (IV, 715).
Proust frequently associates Albertine with his mother; his love for one is inextricably linked to the other, and when he deals with problematic aspects of his relationship with Albertine, he often consulted his mother about them, such as when he made up his mind to propose to Albertine at the end of Sodom and Gomorrah. It is held that this intertwining of relationships is a correspondence, both in the moment, as he was kissing Albertine, and in the meta, when he was apart from her. Both correspondences are immediately identifiable to the reader; men often associate the objects of their affection with their mothers, in the same way that women often associate theirs with their fathers. Proust was describing the Oedipus Complex and the Electra Complex at the same time that Dr. Freud was developing these theories.
These correspondences are the foundation of the works of both Proust and Baudelaire. They attempt to describe the world using a vocabulary that everyone can understand, and although this vocabulary is often difficult, it is rewarding for both writers and their readers to have a common language with which to describe the “delicious” sound of a trumpet, or the “childish grief” of a lover’s kiss. This language is difficult to pinpoint, because it must transcend the barriers of time and culture that cause many audiences to belittle the efforts of ‘modern’ artists. However, both Proust and Baudelaire found their audiences, because their works did transcend time and culture, and even language thanks to the men and women who translated their literature from French to English. These authors, whom like Vermeer and Richard Wagner have stood the test of time, are a testament to the importance of seers in our society. Although at times they have been perceived as passive, indolent beings, their ability to look through the chaos of this world and discover hints of an underlying order, of systems to which even chaos is beholden, is invaluable. It is invaluable because, as all artists know, we need reassurance that our experiences, our moments of happiness and our sufferings, are not unprecedented. This is the task of all art; be it music, painting, theater or literature, we artists are searching for reassurance that we are not alone in the world.
Works Cited:
http://jstor.org/stable/1566350?seq=1&Search=yes&searchText=Search&searchText=Time&searchText=baudelaire&searchText=Lost&list=hide&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3DIn%2BSearch%2Bof%2BLost%2BTime%2Bbaudelaire%26gw%3Djtx%26acc%3Don%26prq%3Dcorrespondences%2BIn%2BSearch%2Bof%2BLost%2BTime%26Search%3DSearch%26hp%3D25%26wc%3Don&prevSearch=&item=2&ttl=3112&returnArticleService=showFullText&resultsServiceName=null (Burt, 19)
http://fleursdumal.org/poem/116 (Aggeler, 116)
Proust, Marcel. In Search of Lost Time.
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