A scientific Marcel Proust: receptions of À la recherche du temps perdu between Literary Criticism and Neuroscience

Abstract

This article offers a historical examination of readings that have ascribed to Marcel Proust the label of scientist, exploring the ways in which a canonized writer becomes a reference in a field that often defines itself in contrast — and at times in opposition — to literature. It first investigates the reception of his work in literary criticism of the 1920s and 1930s, which interpreted it as scientific, objective, and as a psychological analysis. It then discusses the appropriation of his work by neuroscientists in the second half of the twentieth century, who ultimately turned Proust into a precursor of their own field. Finally, it explores how more recent literary studies have responded to the neuroscientific Proust, highlighting the tensions and accommodations between these approaches. The aim is to investigate the layers of meaning attributed to the author and his work across successive interpretations, in different moments and disciplines, which ultimately crystallize competing — and often mutually unintelligible — versions of the “Proustian.”