‘Tout est japonais, maintenant?’: Scaled japonisme in À la recherche du temps perdu

Clicks: 8
ID: 320629
2026
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Ranked #18 of 45 articles by views in seventeenth-century french studies

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Abstract
Under the influence of japonisme , objects associated with the aesthetic that reveals depth in an object through the shift of scale appear in pivotal moments in À la recherche du temp s perdu , such as the madeleine episode. This article argues that Proust does not merely represent the japonisme of his time, but he practises the cultural translation of the aesthetic that wields therapeutic and creative power. The article proposes a properly ‘Proustian japonisme ’ found not in local citations of clichés such as the ‘Japanese’ salad, but rather in the novel’s creative translation of modes of perception absorbed from the japoniste aesthetic. Such perspective changes ignite the imagination, which plays with the compression of a larger world and infinite transient moments into a smaller, finite container such as a novel. As the protagonist reconciles himself with the grief of lost and wasted time by becoming a writer, his creativity, through forming associations between everyday phenomena and imagined japoniste objects, exemplifies the practice of condensing experience within time into a handheld and timeless written work. Proustian japoniste moments thus bear a synecdochic relation to the larger structure of the novel, and affirm the notable influence of the contemporary japoniste vogue on Proust. This article was published open access under a CC BY-NC-ND licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ .
Reference Key
openalex_W7168037519 Use this key to autocite in the manuscript while using SciMatic Manuscript Manager or Thesis Manager
Authors Xinyi Wei
Journal seventeenth-century french studies
Year 2026
DOI
10.3828/fs.2026.80.3.5
URL
https://doi.org/10.3828/fs.2026.80.3.5
Keywords Keywords not found

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