Queering Time through The Myth of the Fall in Marcel Proust’s Sodom and Gommorah
Article Sidebar
Main Article Content
Abstract
In this paper I analyze the queering of time in Marcel Proust’s novel Sodom and Gomorrah, the fourth volume of In Search of Lost Times, focusing on the role the myth of the Fall plays as a catalyst of this process. I argue that the ambiguous intertwining of temporality and sexuality introduced by the myth of the Fall through the narration of Sodom and Gomorrah structures the narrativization of sexuality and temporality in the novel. In my analysis, queer times in Proust’s novel emerge at those instances when non-normative desires and practices result in the complexification of the dimensions of time. The inducement of temporal dissonance through queer forms of sexuality and sociability as motivated by the failure the Fall brings is done through writing. In this essay, the act of writing for Proust is addressed as a dimension of queer time.
Downloads
Article Details
Copyright © 2014 Blaže Koneski Faculty of Philology, Skopje
Journal of Contemporary Philology (JCP)
Современа филологија
References
Bauman, Z. (2000). Time and Space Reunited. Time and Society 9 (2/3): 171–185.
Bersani, L. (1987). Is the Rectum a Grave? October, AIDS: Cultural Analysis/Cultural Activism 43: 197–222.
Bradbury, M., and McFarlane, J. (1991). Modernism: 1890–1930. A Guide to European Literature. London: Penguin Books.
Cairns, L. (1997). Homosexuality and Lesbianism in Proust’s Sodome et Gomorrhe. French Studies, 51 (1): 43–57.
Campbell, J. (1962). The Masks of God. Vol. 3. Occidental Mythology. London: Secker & Warburg.
Deleuze, G. (2008). Proust and Signs. London: A&C Black.
Dillistone, F. W. (1965). The Fall: Christian Truth and Literary Symbol. Comparative Literature Studies, 2 (4) [Literature and Religion]: 349–362
Edelman, L. 2004. No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive. Durham: Duke University Press.
Eliade, M. (1987). History of Religious Ideas: V. 1: From the Stone Age to the Eleusinian Mysteries. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Eng, D. L., Halberstam, J., and Muñoz, J.E. (eds.) (2005). “What’s Queer About Queer Studies Now?” Social Text 23 (3/4 84–85): 1–17.
Freeman, E. (ed.) (2007). Queer Temporalities, GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, 13(2–3): 177–195.
Freeman, E. (2010). Time Binds: Queer Temporalities, Queer Histories. Durham: Duke University Press.
Kern, S. (2003). The Culture of Time and Space, 1880-1918: With a New Preface. Boston: Harvard University Press.
Kristeva, J., and Guberman, R. (1998). Time and Sense: Proust and the Experience of Literature. New York: Columbia University Press.
Loader, J. A. (1990). A Tale of Two Cities: Sodom and Gomorrah in the Old Testament, Early Jewish and Early Christian Traditions. Leuven: Peeters Publishers.
Muñoz, José Esteban. (2009). Cruising Utopia: The Then and There of Queer Futurity. New York: New York UniversityPress.
Miller, J. M. and Hayes, J. H. (1986). A History of Ancient Israel and Judah. London: Westminster Press.
Newman, J. H. (1998). Lot in Sodom: The Post-Mortem of a City and the Afterlife of a Biblical Text. In Evans, C.A. Sander, J.A. (eds.) The Function of Scripture in Early Jewish and Christian Tradition. 34–45. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press.
Otten, T. (1982). After Innocence: Visions of the Fall in Modern Literature. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh.
Proust, M. (1992–93). In Search of Lost Time, 6 vol. Mongrieff C.K.S. Klimartin, T. (trans.). Enright. D.J (rev). New York: The Modern Library New York.
Scheher, L. R. (1995). The Shock of Men: Homosexual Hermeneutics in French Writing. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press.
Sedgwick, K.E . (1993). Tendencies. Durham: Duke University Press.
Sedgwick, K.E. (2007). Epistemology of the Closet. Updated with a New Preface. Los Angeles: University of California Press.
The Bible: Authorized King James Version. 2008. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Warner, M. (1991). Introduction: Fear of a Queer Planet, Social Text, 29: 3–17