Proust's Cup of Tea: Homoeroticism and Victorian Culture by Emily Eells

Proust's Cup of Tea analyzes Proust's studying of varied Victorian authors and exhibits how they contributed to A los angeles recherche du temps perdu. This ebook proves that British literature and artwork performed a basic position in Proust's writing method via mentioning from the manuscript models of his novel, in addition to from his correspondence, essays and the long severe appartus accompanying his translations of Ruskin. Eells displays right here on why Proust used to be drawn to Victorian tradition, and the way he integrated it into his novel. The works of the British novelists he used to be so much in-Thomas Hardy and George Eliot-address questions of gender which Proust develops in his personal paintings. He builds Sodome et Gomorrhe I, the component to his novel concentrating on homosexuality, on a chain of particular citations and protected allusions to Shakespeare, Darwin Walter Scott, Oscar Wilde and Robert Louis Stevenson. Eells explores how Proust within the pioneering footsteps of these British writers who had ventured past the limits of traditional sexuality, even though he took pains to erase their lines within the definitive model of his paintings. This learn additionally highlights how Proust made his fictitious painter Elstir right into a grasp of ambiguity, by means of modeling his artwork on Turner, the Pre-Raphaelites and Whistler. Eells exhibits that Proust drew on Victorian tradition in his depiction of sexual ambiguity, arguing that he confounded eroticism and aestheticism within the approach he inextricably associated the man-woman determine with British artwork and literature. As Proust aestheticized female and male homosexuality utilizing references to British paintings and letters, Eells cash the time period 'Anglosexuality' to consult his characters of the 3rd intercourse. She defines Anglosexuality as an intersexuality represented via intertextuality, as an inventive sensitivity, a classy stance, and a brand new manner of seeing. Proust's Cup of Tea hence demonstrates that Victorian tradition and homoeroticism shape one of many cornerstones of Proust's enormous work.