La qualification argumentative de la séquence descriptive proustienne

Abstract

Within the framework of textual linguistics, this paper aims at showing how Proust subverts the prototypical value of descriptive sequences by the particular way he inserts argumentative connectives. After having analysed to what extent formal cues in a selected passage of the Recherche constitute a descriptive sequence, we point out the constitutive elements that, surprisingly, take a part in the process. Argumentative connectives are deliberately misused throughout such a sequence. Their overrepresentation in Proust’s typical description might be accounted for by the acting principle that is the foundation stone of his work : the intention he had to represent a search. By means of this logical organization, Proust brings the function of the descriptive sequence to the foreground : it represents the piling up of the various stages of a visual perception that looks for itself. Argumentative connectives become pointers of his search.