Time and the other in Proust and Shakespeare, I: transcending the parasitism of anecdotes and the dross of the story

Proust rests his arch defense of Flaubert's style almost entirely on the novelty of his use of grammar, and especially of tense; Flaubert is:

un homme qui par l'usage entièrement nouveau et personnel qu'il a fait du passé défini, du passé indéfini, du participe présent, de certains pronoms et de certaines prépositions, a renouvelé presque autant notre vision des choses que Kant, avec ses Catégories, les théories de la Connaissance et de la Réalité du monde extérieur.
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a man who by the entirely new and personal usage that he has made of the past definite, of the past indefinite, of the present participle, of certain pronouns and of certain prepositions, has renewed our vision of things almost as much as Kant, with his Categories, the theories of Knowledge and of the Reality of the exterior world.

Still more archly (this is 1920, after all, and he's already famous for the first two volumes of A La Recherche), Proust alludes to his own modest researches into the representation of Time, which helps underscore the great ending of L'Education sentimentale (he writes at some length about the odd definite article in the title), with its sudden juddering jumps to the end of life, or, at least for Proust, to a region close enough to the end to require only an etc. or a series of them:

Je ne me lasserais pas de faire remarquer les mérites, aujourd'hui si contestés de Flaubert. L'un de ceux qui me touchent le plus parce que j'y retrouve l'aboutissement des modestes recherches que j'ai faites, est qu'il sait donner avec maîtrise l'impression du Temps. A mon avis la chose la plus belle de l'Education Sentimentale, ce n'est pas une phrase, mais un blanc. Flaubert vient de décrire, de rapporter pendant de longues pages, les actions les plus menues de Frédéric Moreau. Frédéric voit un agent marcher avec son épée sur un insurgé qui tombe mort. « Et Frédéric, béant, reconnut Sénécal! » Ici un « blanc », un énorme « blanc » et, sans l'ombre d'une transition, soudain la mesure du temps devenant au lieu de quarts d'heure, des années, des décades (je reprends les derniers mots que j'ai cités pour montrer cet extraordinaire changement de vitesse, sans préparation) :

     « Et Frédéric, béant, reconnut Sénécal.

     « Il voyagea. Il connut la mélancolie des paquebots, les froids réveils sous la tente, etc. Il revint.
     « Il fréquenta le monde, etc.
     « Vers la fin de l'année 1867, etc. »


Sans doute, dans Balzac, nous avons bien souvent : « En 1817 les Séchard étaient, etc. » Mais chez lui ces changements de temps ont un caractère actif ou documentaire. Flaubert le premier, les débarrasse du parasitisme des anecdotes et des scories de l'histoire.

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I could never tire of bringing to notice Flaubert's merits, so contested today.  One of those which touch me the most because there I find the culmination of the modest researches I myself have undertaken, is that he knows how to give the impression of Time masterfully.  In my opinion the most beautiful thing in The Sentimental Education is, not a sentence, but a blank.  Flaubert has just been describing, just been reporting for many long pages, the slightest acts of Frédéric Moreau.  Frédéric sees an officer march with his sword upon one of the insurgents, who falls dead.  "And Frédéric, gaping, recognized Sénécal!"  [Sénécal is the officer.]  Then a "blank," an enormous "blank," and, without the shadow of a transition, the measure of time suddenly becoming instead of quarter-hours years, decades (I pick up the last words that I have quoted to show this extraordinary change of speed, coming without warning):

      "And Frédéric, gaping, recognized Sénécal.

      "He traveled.  He knew the melancholy of packet-boats, cold awakenings in tents, etc.  He returned.
      "He went out in society, etc.
      "Towards the end of the year 1867, etc."


     No doubt in Balzac we often get: "In 1817 the Séchards were, etc."  But in him these changes of tense have an active or documentary character.  Flaubert is the first to liberate them from the parasitism of anecdotes or the dross of the story.

Proust says he's quoting from memory, which allows him to reframe Flaubert a bit: the enormous blank is actually the end of a chapter; but that's just another way of saying that Proust wants us to be stunned by the ending of a chapter where Flaubert ends it, without any continuation of the anecdote in the next chapter, or ever.  James probably learned this from Flaubert: the moment of recognition feeling like a kind of social awkwardness, but in a far larger context.  There's nothing more to know than this awkwardness, even when it occurs on the scale of a human life (as in James or Rimbaud: "Par délicatesse / J'ai perdu ma vie"), even when it occurs on a world-historical scale (as in Flaubert and Proust).  After that awkwardness there's really nothing left to do or to hope for.

And that changes your relation to time.