The Literary Mind.pdf

120 THE LITERARY MIND
night and we will ask him the following morning whether he has made the phone
call, but he will say he did it as soon as he came home." The complexities of this
everyday competence in narrative imagining have been surveyed by rhetoricians
and literary critics for many centuries—the body of research in literary theory on
focus and viewpoint is large. Focus and viewpoint have emerged relatively recently
as fundamental topics in linguistics.
Let us take one small example of the phenomena of temporal focus and viewpoint.
Proust begins A la recherche du temps perdu, "For a long time I used to go
to bed early" ("Longtemps, je me suis couche de bonne heure"). This sets up a
space of narration. The temporal viewpoint at the opening of the book is from
this space of narration. This opening sentence also sets up a space of habitually
going to bed early; this space is the temporal focus. The temporal viewpoint, in
the space of narration, lies in the future of the temporal focus—the space of
habitually going to bed early. From the temporal viewpoint of the space of narration,
the narrator begins to describe various phenomena of memory and dreaming
that belong to the space of temporal focus, like the following:
Then the memory of a new position would recur, and the wall would
slide away in another direction—I was in my room at Mme de Saint-
Loup's, in the country: Good Heavens, it is at least ten o'clock, they
must have finished dinner! I must have overslept myself in the little nap
that I always take when I come in from my walk with Mme de Saint-
Loup, before dressing for the evening. For many years have now passed
since Combray when, upon our tardiest homecomings, I saw the glowing
reflections of the sunset on the panes of my bedroom window.
Puis renaissait le souvenir d'une nouvelle attitude: le mur filait dans une
autre direction: j'etais dans ma chambre chez Mme de Saint-Loup, a la
campagne; mon Dieu! il est au moins dix heures, on doit avoir fini de
diner! J'aurai trop prolonge la sieste que je fais tous les soirs en rentrant
de ma promenade avec Mme de Saint-Loup, avant d'endosser mon
habit. Car bien des annees ont passe depuis Combray, ou, dans nos
retours les plus tardifs, c'etaient les reflets rouges du couchant que je
voyais sur le vitrage de ma fenetre.
In the beginning of this passage, the temporal viewpoint is the space of
narration. The temporal focus is the general habitual space of nightly perception
and dreaming. The temporal focus lies in the past of the temporal viewpoint. At
the phrase "I was in my room," the temporal viewpoint remains in the space of
narration, but the temporal focus shifts to the more local temporal space of the