Proust, Woolf, and Narrative Rhythm

Abstract

This paper offers an analysis of the intersections between temporality and narrative rhythm in Marcel Proust’s À la recherche du temps perdu (1913–1927) and Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse (1927) within the narratological framework provided by Gérard Genette in his seminal critical work, Narrative Discourse (1980). Genette’s classical work is a taxonomy of narrative that pays special attention to the way temporality structures prose. Genette introduces concepts such as anachrony and anisochrony to the analysis of Proust’s roman fleuve to demonstrate that narrative rhythms emerge through such intricate variations in temporal order and duration. Woolf’s prose has been subject to thorough narratological analysis (Banfield, Levenson, Phillips, etc.), including various examinations of temporality in her novels (Auerbach, Ricœur, Sheehan, etc.), but the temporal rhythmic movement in To the Lighthouse has not been discussed in the joint context of Genette’s narratology and Proustian temporality. This paper seeks to broaden the scope of analysis of narrative rhythm in the Woolfian novel while also highlighting the depth of Proust’s influence on Woolf’s prose style. I argue that the temporality of To the Lighthouse, similarly to the Recherche, is characterised by anachronies and anisochronies on the narrative levels of story (histoire) and discourse (discours).