Reconstructed Time: Gilles Deleuze’s View of Time Based on “Involuntary Memory”

Wu Yuyu

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art ›› 2022, Vol. 42 ›› Issue (4) : 191-200.

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Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art ›› 2022, Vol. 42 ›› Issue (4) : 191-200.
Western Literary Theory and Aesthetics Studies

Reconstructed Time: Gilles Deleuze’s View of Time Based on “Involuntary Memory”

  • Wu Yuyu
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Abstract

Gilles Deleuze thinks that Marcel Proust’s “involuntary memory” subverts the traditional time order, but it still needs material stimulation and intermediary connection, and only art can reach original and pure time. Behind this discussion lies Deleuze’s unique view of time and cognitive mode. He discusses three types of time. First, traditional thinking divides time statically into homogeneous, quantifiable and uninterrupted linear continuum. Second, based on Henri Bergson’s “duration” theory, time is a moment with thickness and complexity, where numerous transients, inside of and different from each other, potentially coexist. Third, based on Friedrich Nietzsche’s “eternal recurrence” theory, artistic time reflects a more complex, secret, rotating, nebular, different and anonymous return to the center of the circle. This new kind of time deconstructs essentialism, dualism, identity and the subject, appeals for the salvage of the suppressed and assimilated, and anticipates a new value system.

Key words

involuntary memory

/ Gilles Deleuze / In Search of Lost Time / time

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Wu Yuyu.

Reconstructed Time: Gilles Deleuze’s View of Time Based on “Involuntary Memory” [J].

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art, 2022, 42(4): 191-200
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