Swann’s Way

by Elyse Graham, Steven Hobbs, and Laura B. Marcus Swann’s Way, the first installment of Marcel Proust‘s seven-volume In Search of Lost Time, was published in 1913. Overview by Elyse Graham The famous opening passage of Swann’s Way, in which the narrator describes his periodic experience of emerging from sleep without a clear sense of… Continue Reading Swann’s Way

Marcel Proust

Biography by Elyse Graham 1: What Is this Ecstasy? Born in a Paris suburb in 1871, Proust grew up in cloistered privilege. His father was a celebrated physician, a self-made man who never understood his son’s dreamy indolence and suspected that his illnesses were psychosomatic. His mother, who fussed over his health and presided over his cultural… Continue Reading Marcel Proust

Des Imagistes

Des Imagistes: An Anthology (1914) by Elyse Graham When Ezra Pound arrived in London in 1909, he began arranging introductions to all the literary people he could manage. The most felicitous was to the novelist Olivia Shakespear; not only did she connect Pound with her lover, W.B. Yeats, but Pound eventually married her daughter, Dorothy.… Continue Reading Des Imagistes