PROUST’S ARTISTIC ONTOLOGY : A Comparison of Merleau-Ponty’s and Deleuze’s Readings of Proust’s Recherche

Abstract

In this article, I examine how Merleau-Ponty and Deleuze read Proust. It is not only remarkable that Merleau-Ponty and Deleuze refer to exactly the same passages of the Recherche, but they also read them in a similar way. This is all the more striking because Merleau-Ponty and Deleuze are usually subsumed under different schools of thought. This article sketches the artistic ontology both philosophers see illustrated in the Recherche.