Proust, Typical Novelist: Literary Context as Type

Abstract A decade ago Rita Felski argued that reliance on context shuts down a text’s meaning by enclosing it in restrictive historical “box” and alienating its individuality. This essay offers rebuttal to Felski’s critique, first delineating the genealogy of her concerns literary, philosophical, architectural thought late nineteenth century, second exploring an alternative model as type, revealed close reading Marcel Proust’s À la recherche du temps perdu. novel repeatedly makes use notion type (a person, artwork, battle) prioritizes act typifying, does not sacrifice but discloses, or even constitutes, individual. Like Proustian is best understood alienation from, route to, particularity literary object.